Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1058, November 28, 2010
1. Haiti: Chaos Wins the Elections
2. Haiti: Cuba Increases Aid for Cholera Victims
3. Honduras: Army Seeks “Arms Cache” in Aguán Valley
4. US: SOA Protest Marks 20th Year
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Haiti: Chaos Wins the Elections
Thousands of Haitians took to the streets shortly after the polling places closed at 4 pm on Nov. 28 to protest what they said were delays, confusion, irregularities, violence and outright fraud in presidential and legislative elections that day. In Port-au-Prince, Pétionville, Carrefour, Petit-Goâve, Saint-Marc, Gonaïves and Jérémie, protesters demanded the annulment of the election, sometimes storming polling places and throwing ballots in the street.
The elections—funded and strongly supported by the US and the United Nations--were intended to let Haiti’s more than 4 million voters select a new president, all 99 members of the Chamber of Deputies, and 11 of the 27 senators. The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is scheduled to announce the preliminary results on Dec. 7 and the final results on Dec. 20.
Problems started early in the day. Some were inevitable in a country where more than a million people remain displaced 10 months after a Jan. 12 earthquake shattered the capital, destroying identification papers and voter rolls. Many people couldn’t find their names on the lists in their usual polling places, although they often saw the names of friends and relatives who had died in the quake. Other problems resulted from fraud or partisan politics. At a station in Cap-Haïtien in the north, voters said the ballot boxes were filled with votes for candidates of the Unity party of President René Préval. Two people were killed in confrontations in Aquin, a community near Les Cayes in South department.
Turnout appeared to be light in most of the country.
By the end of the day, Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive confirmed that there had been irregularities in the process. At a press conference in Port-au-Prince, 12 of the 19 presidential candidates denounced the vote as fraudulent and called for the results to be annulled. Pierre Espérance, director of the independent National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), described the day’s events as “a total disorder, a shame for the CEP and the United Nations mission in the country.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/28/10, __ ; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/28/10; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 11/28/10, __ ; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 11/28/10)
A number of grassroots organizations had opposed the plan to hold a vote under current conditions, as had many of the displaced people living in camps since the earthquake. “No to elections under tents and tarps!” protesters chanted during a demonstration by hundreds of camp residents in Port-au-Prince on Nov. 12 [see Update #1057].
In a statement issued shortly before election day, Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen (“Small Haitian Peasants Unity”) said it “has no candidate and supports no candidate in these elections organized by the international community and the government in order to put in power their president, their senators and deputies to continue to rule in their interests, against those of the country and the Haitian people.” The group emphasized that the vote was being held under the control of “foreign occupation forces”—the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)—“and a subordinate government.” “The strength and the future of the people rest in the construction of progressive popular political organizations” rather than in elections like these, Tèt Kole insisted. (AlterPresse 11/25/10)
*2. Haiti: Cuba Increases Aid for Cholera Victims
In a Nov. 26 newspaper column, former Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz announced that the Cuban government was sending “a contingent of the Henry Reeve Brigade, composed of 300 doctors, nurses and healthcare technicians” to Haiti to help fight a cholera epidemic there. This will bring the number of Cuban professionals in Haiti to about 1,265. Cuban personnel are treating almost 40% of the cholera victims, according to Castro.
The Henry Reeve Brigade is named for a US citizen who died in 1876 while fighting for Cuba’s liberation from Spain.
Castro noted that while Latin America and the Caribbean were free of cholera for most of the 20th century, an epidemic that broke out in Peru in January 1991 quickly spread through 16 countries in the region, with 650,000 cases appearing over the next six years. “It is of the highest importance to avoid having the epidemic extend to other Latin American and Caribbean countries, because in the current circumstances it would cause extraordinary harm to the nations of this hemisphere,” Castro wrote. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/26/10)
The United Nations (UN) is seeking $164 million to fight the epidemic, but it had only received $19.4 million from donor nations as of Nov. 26, according to UN spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs, who called for a faster response. The Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) reported on Nov. 26 that at least 1,648 people had died from cholera since it appeared in Haiti in mid-October, 72,017 people had contracted the disease, and 31,210 of them had required hospitalization. (LJ 11/27/10 from AFP, DPA)
Six cases had been confirmed in the neighboring Dominican Republic as of Nov. 27. The two most recent cases were a three-year-old girl in Villa González, Santiago province, and a 12-year-old boy in Santo Domingo province. Public Health Minister Bautista Rojas Gómez said both patients were out of danger. (Hoy Nueva York 11/28/10 from El Diario-La Prensa)
Correction: The name of the Henry Reeve Brigade was originally misspelled in this item.
*3. Honduras: Army Seeks “Arms Cache” in Aguán Valley
Some 500 Honduran soldiers and police agents reportedly occupied the regional office of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) in Sinaloa community, Tocoa municipality, Colón department, on the morning of Nov. 23. Apparently the security forces were searching for arms in the office, which is located in northern Honduras’ Lower Aguán Valley, the site of protracted and often violent disputes over land ownership [see Update #1048]. The INA is a semi-autonomous government agency charged with implementing agrarian reform; no arms were found in the office.
Security Minister Oscar Alvarez has charged that some 1,000 AK-47 and M-16 rifles are hidden in the Lower Aguán Valley. President Porfirio Lobo Sosa seconded Alvarez’s claims on Nov. 24, saying groups were being trained in the region to attack the government. "We have traces of the people who have been voyaging outside of Honduras to receive training, we have them all located, including the places where they are being trained outside of here, of Honduras; it's a large quantity of arms they have, and we're going after them," he said. Lobo Sosa did not present evidence for the accusations. (Adital (Brazil) 11/23/10; Honduras Culture and Politics blog 11/25/10)
The hunt for rifles began after a Nov. 15 incident in which five private guards killed at least five campesinos from the Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MCA) at the El Tumbador African palm plantation, in Trujillo, Colón. According to initial police reports, the guards were trying to stop some 200 campesinos from occupying the plantation, which is claimed by wealthy landowner Miguel Facussé Barjum. Roger Pineda, a lawyer for the Facussé family’s Grupo Dinant food product company, told a radio program that the 200 campesinos were armed with AK-47s. Photos were also taken of campesinos’ dead bodies supposedly holding rifles. Available reports didn’t indicate that any of the five guards were injured in the alleged gun battle, which was said to last an hour. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 11/15/10, some from EFE; Honduras Culture and Politics blog 11/25/10)
Miguel Facussé and Grupo Dinant have been seeking land in the region for growing African palms, which can be used both for cooking oil and for biofuels. In 2009 Dinant got a $7 million loan from the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) [see Update #1027] and a $30 million loan from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), in part for increased cultivation of the palms. (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 11/26/20 from Red Morazánica de Información) The acquisition of land has involved Facussé in a longstanding dispute over farmlands claimed by thousands of campesino families in the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA).
The dispute with the MCA over the El Tumbador plantation is separate, however. The director of the INA, César Ham, says Facussé has no right to the land, which is part of an old military base, the Regional Military Training Center (CREM), and therefore is government property which is available to be apportioned to campesinos under land reform. (La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 11/17/10) [Ham was the 2009 presidential candidate of the small leftist Democratic Unification (UD). He accepted the cabinet-level agrarian reform post from President Lobo even though most left and grassroots organizations refuse to recognize the Lobo government as legitimate.]
For campesino organizations and other grassroots and human rights groups there is no question that the El Tumbador incident was a massacre by the armed guards.
The National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) coalition condemned the “terrible crime,” which it said was the “responsibility of the oligarch Miguel Facussé.” Andrés Pavón, president of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (Codeh), called for support from international groups. “We have to tell the international community that there’s impunity here, that we’ve exhausted the internal justice system here.” He noted that Facussé had received loans from such international institutions as the World Bank. On Nov. 25 the Canada-based organization Rights Watch charged that by lending money to Dinant, the World Bank “sent a very clear message, to the company and its owners, that they could enjoy absolute impunity for their actions.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 11/16/10, 11/26/10 from Red Morazánica de Información; Prensa Latina 11/18/10)
*4. US: SOA Protest Marks 20th Year
About 5,000 activists marched in front of the US Army's Fort Benning base in Columbus, Georgia, on Nov. 20 in the 20th annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). The school trains Latin American soldiers; SOA Watch, which sponsors the protests, says SOA graduates are among the region's most notorious human rights violators.
A total of 26 people were arrested during or after the demonstration. Two protesters were detained for crossing into the base, while 10-12 were arrested for blocking a highway outside the base in a nonviolent civil disobedience. Local police made more arrests after the rally had started to break up; the detainees included bystanders, journalists from Russia Today television and two radio reporters.
Rally participants included Thomas Gumbleton, Roman Catholic bishop of Detroit; United Auto Workers (UAW) president Bob King; Father Jesús Alberto Franco, a defender of the human rights of indigenous, campesino and African-descended communities in Colombia; and Alejandro Ramírez, an activist in the resistance to the 2009 coup d’état in Honduras. The US State Department initially denied Ramírez a visa but relented under pressure from US organizations. The crowd was about the same size as last year; the largest demonstration to date was in 2006, when SOA Watch reported 22,000 participants [see Update #1013]. (SOA Watch 11/21/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 11/21/10 from correspondent; New York Times 11/21/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Cancún Climate Summit: Time for a New Geopolitical Architecture
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5809
Kirchner and the myth
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3658
Recycling for Hope and Dignity on Paraguay's Streets
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2794-recycling-for-hope-and-dignity-on-paraguays-streets
Brazilian Foreign Policy under Dilma: Interview with Igor Fuser
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3650
Lessons to Be Learned From Paulo Freire
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2796-lessons-to-be-learned-from-paulo-freire
Evo Morales Criticizes U.S. At Conference; Robert Gates Focuses Talks On Drugs and Disasters
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/23/evo-morales-criticizes-u-s-at-conference-robert-gates-focuses-talks-on-drugs-and-disasters/
Tens of Thousands of Venezuelan Students March for New University Law
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5807
The Snakes Sleep: Attacks against the Media and Impunity in Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2795-the-snakes-sleep-attacks-against-the-media-and-impunity-in-honduras
Challenges and Risks for the Mexican Armed Forces, National Security and the Relationship with the United States
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3670
Former Governor of Colimas Silverio Cavazos Ceballos Killed By Gunmen In Mexico
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/22/former-governor-in-mexico-killed-by-gunmen/
Special Report: Mexico 1910-2010
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2010/11/27/special-report-mexico-1910-2010/
Cuba May Lift Restrictions On Baseball Players Signing Abroad
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/24/cuba-may-lift-restrictions-on-baseball-players-signing-abroad/
Elections 2010 (Haiti)
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2010/11/24/elections-2010.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
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You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Links but No Update for November 21, 2010
[There is no Update this week; we'll be back next week. Below are links to stories from other sources.]
Distorting Iranian-Latin American Relations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2791-distorting-iranian-latin-american-relations
Video: Many South American Social Movements Oppose Leaders They Helped Elect
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2786-video-many-south-american-social-movements-oppose-leaders-they-helped-elect
Argentina: Child Working at the Age of 7 Pays with His Health
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2787-argentina-child-working-at-the-age-of-7-is-paid-with-health
Bolivia Bets on State-Run Lithium Industry
https://nacla.org/node/6799
Concern Over Colombian Government's Arrest of Pregnant Human Rights Defender
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2790-concern-over-colombian-governments-arrest-of-pregnant-human-rights-defender-
Rally Against Uribe’s Appointment at Georgetown
https://nacla.org/node/6821
Accused Venezuelan Drug Trafficker Makled to Be Extradited to Venezuela, Not U.S.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5786
Venezuela: Thousands Demand Passing of Radical Labour Law
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2789-venezuela-thousands-demand-passing-of-radical-labour-law-
Venezuela: Interview with Socialist MP Maria León - "There is a Mass of Saboteurs within the State Machinery"
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5801
Salvadoran Anti-mining Activists Kidnapped
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2788-salvadoran-anti-mining-activists-kidnapped
Five Peasants Massacred in Tumbador, Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2784-five-peasants-massacred-in-tumbador-honduras
Activists Prepare for Climate Change Summit in Cancun
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2782-activists-prepare-for-climate-change-summit-in-cancun
Cholera Cases In Florida and Dominican Republic Linked to Haiti
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/18/cholera-cases-in-florida-and-dominican-republic-linked-to-haiti/
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Urge US to Ensure Free, Fair and Inclusive Elections in Haiti as Condition for Funding
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2785-returned-peace-corps-volunteers-urge-us-to-ensure-free-fair-and-inclusive-elections-in-haiti-as-condition-for-funding
Distorting Iranian-Latin American Relations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2791-distorting-iranian-latin-american-relations
Video: Many South American Social Movements Oppose Leaders They Helped Elect
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2786-video-many-south-american-social-movements-oppose-leaders-they-helped-elect
Argentina: Child Working at the Age of 7 Pays with His Health
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2787-argentina-child-working-at-the-age-of-7-is-paid-with-health
Bolivia Bets on State-Run Lithium Industry
https://nacla.org/node/6799
Concern Over Colombian Government's Arrest of Pregnant Human Rights Defender
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2790-concern-over-colombian-governments-arrest-of-pregnant-human-rights-defender-
Rally Against Uribe’s Appointment at Georgetown
https://nacla.org/node/6821
Accused Venezuelan Drug Trafficker Makled to Be Extradited to Venezuela, Not U.S.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5786
Venezuela: Thousands Demand Passing of Radical Labour Law
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2789-venezuela-thousands-demand-passing-of-radical-labour-law-
Venezuela: Interview with Socialist MP Maria León - "There is a Mass of Saboteurs within the State Machinery"
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5801
Salvadoran Anti-mining Activists Kidnapped
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2788-salvadoran-anti-mining-activists-kidnapped
Five Peasants Massacred in Tumbador, Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2784-five-peasants-massacred-in-tumbador-honduras
Activists Prepare for Climate Change Summit in Cancun
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2782-activists-prepare-for-climate-change-summit-in-cancun
Cholera Cases In Florida and Dominican Republic Linked to Haiti
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/18/cholera-cases-in-florida-and-dominican-republic-linked-to-haiti/
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Urge US to Ensure Free, Fair and Inclusive Elections in Haiti as Condition for Funding
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2785-returned-peace-corps-volunteers-urge-us-to-ensure-free-fair-and-inclusive-elections-in-haiti-as-condition-for-funding
Friday, 19 November 2010
Haiti: Anti-Occupation Protests Boil Over
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Supplement to issue #1057, November 18, 2010
1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
4. The Media Ignore the Background
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. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
Large, militant protests against the presence of United Nations (UN) troops in Haiti broke out on Nov. 15 in Hinche in the Central Plateau and Cap-Haïtien on the northern coast. The protesters demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a Brazilian-led multinational force with more than 13,000 soldiers, police agents and staffers that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. Many Haitians blame MINUSTAH for an outbreak of cholera in October that by Nov. 18 had already caused more than 1,100 deaths.
Thousands of people participated in the protests in Cap-Haïtien, the country’s second-largest city. Some threw rocks at MINUSTAH troops and blocked streets with barricades of flaming tires. Protesters reportedly set fire to the police stations at Barrière Bouteille and Pont Neuf in retaliation for actions by Haitian riot police, who allegedly fired on demonstrators. People also looted a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in the city’s southeastern section.
MINUSTAH claimed that six of its soldiers were injured and that armed protesters fired on troops in Quartier Morin, on the outskirts of the city. “One of these demonstrators lost his life when he was hit by a bullet coming from a blue helmet [a UN soldier], who responded in legitimate self-defense,” according to a Nov. 15 UN press release. Later in the day the body of a young man was found at 24th Street; according to witnesses, an armored car belonging to a Chilean MINUSTAH contingent had been in the area and two blasts had been heard. In addition to the two deaths, some 19 people were injured in Cap-Haïtien on Nov. 15, according to local media, about 15 of them with bullets.
“We’d rather die from bullets than be decimated by the cholera epidemic,” some of the Cap-Haïtien protesters shouted while throwing rocks at the base of a Nepalese MINUSTAH contingent.
In Hinche a large number of protesters reportedly threw stones at MINUSTAH troops on Nov. 15, injuring six Nepalese soldiers; two demonstrators were arrested. Hinche, the capital of Center department, was the site of a protest by some 10,000 peasants in June rejecting an offer of hybrid seeds by the Monsanto Company, a US-based biotechnology multinational, supposedly to aid the country after a devastating earthquake on Jan. 12 [see Update #1036]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/15/10, __, 11/16/10; MINUSTAH press release 11/15/10 via AlterPresse; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/15/10; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 11/16/10)
Cap-Haïtien remained largely paralyzed by the protests through Nov. 17. There was extensive use of tear gas by security forces, and 17 arrests were reported. One more protester was killed on Nov. 17, and several others were wounded at the city’s southern entrance; according to witnesses, MINUSTAH troops opened fire when their vehicle was immobilized. (AlterPresse 11/17/10; Radio Métropole 11/17/10)
*2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
“The manner in which the events developed leads one to believe that these incidents have a political motivation, with the aim of creating a climate of insecurity on the eve of the elections,” MINUSTAH’s Nov. 15 press release charged, referring to presidential and legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28 [see Update #1052]. “MINUSTAH calls on the population to remain vigilant and not to let itself be manipulated by the enemies of stability and democracy.” In a Nov. 17 radio address, Haitian president René Préval referred to “people who are using the cholera epidemic to create disturbances.” Published sources didn’t indicate what evidence MINUSTAH or Préval had for these accusations. (MINUSTAH press release 11/15/10 via AlterPresse; AlterPresse 11/17/10)
Préval and spokespeople for the UN and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) indicated that the protests were impeding efforts to fight the epidemic. "Burning tires, throwing rocks or bottles, shooting with firearms—none of this helps wipe out the cholera germ,” Préval said in his radio address. There were claims that the barricades in Cap-Haïtien were keeping sick people from reaching hospitals and were interrupting the distribution of medical aid. "We need to get aid to these people immediately, and these disturbances are slowing us down,” said Julie Schindall, spokesperson for the British-based aid organization Oxfam. She stressed that cholera progresses rapidly and that delays can cause deaths. Imogen Wall, from the UN coordinating office for humanitarian affairs, said that the protests had forced the UN to cancel aid flights to Cap-Haïtien and Port-de-Paix. (L’Express (France) 11/17/10 from Reuters)
None of our sources described incidents in which protesters blocked medical aid or kept sick people from seeking help. The UN and NGO spokespeople appear not to have discussed whether the presence of police and soldiers using tear gas and live ammunition in the streets of Cap-Haïtien might have slowed humanitarian efforts or deterred sick people from going to hospitals. The sources didn’t explain how the protests forced the UN to cancel aid flights to northern Haiti.
*3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
By Nov. 18 a “tense calm” was reported in Cap-Haïtien, but hundreds of students, unionists and social activists took to the streets in Port-au-Prince to protest the MINUSTAH presence. The demonstration--which also commemorated the 207th anniversary of Haitian forces’ decisive defeat of an occupying French army in the Battle of Vertières—was organized by the Liberation coalition, Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) and the Autonomous Federation of Haitian Workers (CATH).
With slogans such as “MINUSTAH is cholera” and “MINUSTAH is spreading excrement in the streets,” the protesters attempted to march from the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) to a UN base in Port-au-Prince. Haitian police forced them back with tear gas. The protesters ended up near the National Palace, blocking traffic with burning tires, breaking the windows of police and UN vehicles, and tearing up posters for Jude Célestin, the presidential candidate of President Préval’s Unity party.
In what a correspondent for Agence France Presse (AFP) called “an urban guerrilla atmosphere,” the police again used tear gas to disperse the protesters, who kept regrouping and returning to the confrontation. The tear gas forced displaced people to grab their children and flee from tent cities in the large Champ-de-Mars park; more than 1 million Port-au-Prince residents have been living in camps, often in improvised shelters, during the 10 months since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Julien Gregory, who said he was president of the Pétion camp, told the AlterPresse news site that some tents were set on fire by the tear gas grenades; he held Préval and Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive responsible.
The protest was smaller than those in Cap-Haïtien, and no serious injuries were reported as of the evening of Nov. 18, but the anger in Port-au-Prince seemed just as intense as in the north. “It’s too much,” youths in the camps told AlterPresse; some openly called for revolution. (AlterPresse 11/18/10; Radio Kiskeya 11/18/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (AHP) 11/18/10; AFP 11/18/10 via Le Point (France))
*4. The Media Ignore the Background
Since late October there has been speculation in Haiti that poor sanitation at a Nepalese MINUSTAH base at Mirebalais in the Central Plateau caused the cholera bacterium to enter the Artibonite River, which then spread the disease throughout the lower Artibonite Valley; from there it spread to the rest of the country.
The foreign media have tended to describe these suspicions as “rumors,” but there is in fact strong, if not conclusive, evidence for the claim, which has been backed by extensive reporting from the Associated Press wire service. Health experts like John Mekalanos, who chairs Harvard University's microbiology department, take the speculation seriously. Cholera is endemic to Nepal but hasn’t been reported in Haiti since records started being kept in the middle of the 20th century [see Updates #1055, 1056].
Most reporting on Haiti gives the impression that MINUSTAH is a humanitarian mission and that its troops are “peacekeepers,” with little reference to a long list of Haitian grievances against the force. In 2005 the troops mounted several large military-style operations in crowded Port-au-Prince neighborhoods to clear out alleged criminal gangs; dozens of innocent local residents were reportedly killed by gunfire from the soldiers [see Updates #806, 828]. In November 2007 a group of 108 MINUSTAH soldiers from Sri Lanka and three officers were said to be involved in the sexual abuse of Haitian women and girls; the soldiers were apparently repatriated without being punished [see Update #923].
In the late summer of 2008 MINUSTAH troops were criticized for their failure to provide emergency aid when two hurricanes and two tropical storms hit the country in quick succession; they again failed to respond after this year’s earthquake [see “Day Two in Port-au-Prince: ‘Young men with crowbars’” ]. The troops have been more effective in putting down protests, however; they reportedly killed at least three unarmed people during protests in 2009 [see Update #994, 1000].
Demonstrations against MINUSTAH intensified in recent months, especially in Cap-Haïtien after a 16-year-old Haitian boy, Gérald Jean Gilles, died at a MINUSTAH camp in there on Aug. 17; the UN claimed he committed suicide [see Updates #1053, 1055]. “People are demonstrating against the government and MINUSTAH, which does nothing,” secondary school teacher Ladiou Novembre told AFP during the Nov. 18 protests in Port-au-Prince. “MINUSTAH was supposed to keep peace in the country, and everywhere it goes, things are worse. MINUSTAH kills Haitians.” (AFP 11/18/10 via Le Point (France))
Update, Nov. 19: report from Ansel Herz in Cap-Haïtien
http://www.mediahacker.org/2010/11/all-elements-of-society-are-participating-impressions-of-cap-haitiens-movement-against-the-un/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Supplement to issue #1057, November 18, 2010
1. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
4. The Media Ignore the Background
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. Protests Shake Hinche, Shut Down Cap-Haïtien
Large, militant protests against the presence of United Nations (UN) troops in Haiti broke out on Nov. 15 in Hinche in the Central Plateau and Cap-Haïtien on the northern coast. The protesters demanded the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a Brazilian-led multinational force with more than 13,000 soldiers, police agents and staffers that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. Many Haitians blame MINUSTAH for an outbreak of cholera in October that by Nov. 18 had already caused more than 1,100 deaths.
Thousands of people participated in the protests in Cap-Haïtien, the country’s second-largest city. Some threw rocks at MINUSTAH troops and blocked streets with barricades of flaming tires. Protesters reportedly set fire to the police stations at Barrière Bouteille and Pont Neuf in retaliation for actions by Haitian riot police, who allegedly fired on demonstrators. People also looted a World Food Program (WFP) warehouse in the city’s southeastern section.
MINUSTAH claimed that six of its soldiers were injured and that armed protesters fired on troops in Quartier Morin, on the outskirts of the city. “One of these demonstrators lost his life when he was hit by a bullet coming from a blue helmet [a UN soldier], who responded in legitimate self-defense,” according to a Nov. 15 UN press release. Later in the day the body of a young man was found at 24th Street; according to witnesses, an armored car belonging to a Chilean MINUSTAH contingent had been in the area and two blasts had been heard. In addition to the two deaths, some 19 people were injured in Cap-Haïtien on Nov. 15, according to local media, about 15 of them with bullets.
“We’d rather die from bullets than be decimated by the cholera epidemic,” some of the Cap-Haïtien protesters shouted while throwing rocks at the base of a Nepalese MINUSTAH contingent.
In Hinche a large number of protesters reportedly threw stones at MINUSTAH troops on Nov. 15, injuring six Nepalese soldiers; two demonstrators were arrested. Hinche, the capital of Center department, was the site of a protest by some 10,000 peasants in June rejecting an offer of hybrid seeds by the Monsanto Company, a US-based biotechnology multinational, supposedly to aid the country after a devastating earthquake on Jan. 12 [see Update #1036]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/15/10, __, 11/16/10; MINUSTAH press release 11/15/10 via AlterPresse; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/15/10; Radio Métropole (Haiti) 11/16/10)
Cap-Haïtien remained largely paralyzed by the protests through Nov. 17. There was extensive use of tear gas by security forces, and 17 arrests were reported. One more protester was killed on Nov. 17, and several others were wounded at the city’s southern entrance; according to witnesses, MINUSTAH troops opened fire when their vehicle was immobilized. (AlterPresse 11/17/10; Radio Métropole 11/17/10)
*2. UN Blames Protesters for Cholera Aid Delays
“The manner in which the events developed leads one to believe that these incidents have a political motivation, with the aim of creating a climate of insecurity on the eve of the elections,” MINUSTAH’s Nov. 15 press release charged, referring to presidential and legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28 [see Update #1052]. “MINUSTAH calls on the population to remain vigilant and not to let itself be manipulated by the enemies of stability and democracy.” In a Nov. 17 radio address, Haitian president René Préval referred to “people who are using the cholera epidemic to create disturbances.” Published sources didn’t indicate what evidence MINUSTAH or Préval had for these accusations. (MINUSTAH press release 11/15/10 via AlterPresse; AlterPresse 11/17/10)
Préval and spokespeople for the UN and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) indicated that the protests were impeding efforts to fight the epidemic. "Burning tires, throwing rocks or bottles, shooting with firearms—none of this helps wipe out the cholera germ,” Préval said in his radio address. There were claims that the barricades in Cap-Haïtien were keeping sick people from reaching hospitals and were interrupting the distribution of medical aid. "We need to get aid to these people immediately, and these disturbances are slowing us down,” said Julie Schindall, spokesperson for the British-based aid organization Oxfam. She stressed that cholera progresses rapidly and that delays can cause deaths. Imogen Wall, from the UN coordinating office for humanitarian affairs, said that the protests had forced the UN to cancel aid flights to Cap-Haïtien and Port-de-Paix. (L’Express (France) 11/17/10 from Reuters)
None of our sources described incidents in which protesters blocked medical aid or kept sick people from seeking help. The UN and NGO spokespeople appear not to have discussed whether the presence of police and soldiers using tear gas and live ammunition in the streets of Cap-Haïtien might have slowed humanitarian efforts or deterred sick people from going to hospitals. The sources didn’t explain how the protests forced the UN to cancel aid flights to northern Haiti.
*3. In the Capital: “It’s Too Much”
By Nov. 18 a “tense calm” was reported in Cap-Haïtien, but hundreds of students, unionists and social activists took to the streets in Port-au-Prince to protest the MINUSTAH presence. The demonstration--which also commemorated the 207th anniversary of Haitian forces’ decisive defeat of an occupying French army in the Battle of Vertières—was organized by the Liberation coalition, Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP) and the Autonomous Federation of Haitian Workers (CATH).
With slogans such as “MINUSTAH is cholera” and “MINUSTAH is spreading excrement in the streets,” the protesters attempted to march from the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) to a UN base in Port-au-Prince. Haitian police forced them back with tear gas. The protesters ended up near the National Palace, blocking traffic with burning tires, breaking the windows of police and UN vehicles, and tearing up posters for Jude Célestin, the presidential candidate of President Préval’s Unity party.
In what a correspondent for Agence France Presse (AFP) called “an urban guerrilla atmosphere,” the police again used tear gas to disperse the protesters, who kept regrouping and returning to the confrontation. The tear gas forced displaced people to grab their children and flee from tent cities in the large Champ-de-Mars park; more than 1 million Port-au-Prince residents have been living in camps, often in improvised shelters, during the 10 months since the Jan. 12 earthquake. Julien Gregory, who said he was president of the Pétion camp, told the AlterPresse news site that some tents were set on fire by the tear gas grenades; he held Préval and Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive responsible.
The protest was smaller than those in Cap-Haïtien, and no serious injuries were reported as of the evening of Nov. 18, but the anger in Port-au-Prince seemed just as intense as in the north. “It’s too much,” youths in the camps told AlterPresse; some openly called for revolution. (AlterPresse 11/18/10; Radio Kiskeya 11/18/10; Agence Haïtienne de Presse (AHP) 11/18/10; AFP 11/18/10 via Le Point (France))
*4. The Media Ignore the Background
Since late October there has been speculation in Haiti that poor sanitation at a Nepalese MINUSTAH base at Mirebalais in the Central Plateau caused the cholera bacterium to enter the Artibonite River, which then spread the disease throughout the lower Artibonite Valley; from there it spread to the rest of the country.
The foreign media have tended to describe these suspicions as “rumors,” but there is in fact strong, if not conclusive, evidence for the claim, which has been backed by extensive reporting from the Associated Press wire service. Health experts like John Mekalanos, who chairs Harvard University's microbiology department, take the speculation seriously. Cholera is endemic to Nepal but hasn’t been reported in Haiti since records started being kept in the middle of the 20th century [see Updates #1055, 1056].
Most reporting on Haiti gives the impression that MINUSTAH is a humanitarian mission and that its troops are “peacekeepers,” with little reference to a long list of Haitian grievances against the force. In 2005 the troops mounted several large military-style operations in crowded Port-au-Prince neighborhoods to clear out alleged criminal gangs; dozens of innocent local residents were reportedly killed by gunfire from the soldiers [see Updates #806, 828]. In November 2007 a group of 108 MINUSTAH soldiers from Sri Lanka and three officers were said to be involved in the sexual abuse of Haitian women and girls; the soldiers were apparently repatriated without being punished [see Update #923].
In the late summer of 2008 MINUSTAH troops were criticized for their failure to provide emergency aid when two hurricanes and two tropical storms hit the country in quick succession; they again failed to respond after this year’s earthquake [see “Day Two in Port-au-Prince: ‘Young men with crowbars’” ]. The troops have been more effective in putting down protests, however; they reportedly killed at least three unarmed people during protests in 2009 [see Update #994, 1000].
Demonstrations against MINUSTAH intensified in recent months, especially in Cap-Haïtien after a 16-year-old Haitian boy, Gérald Jean Gilles, died at a MINUSTAH camp in there on Aug. 17; the UN claimed he committed suicide [see Updates #1053, 1055]. “People are demonstrating against the government and MINUSTAH, which does nothing,” secondary school teacher Ladiou Novembre told AFP during the Nov. 18 protests in Port-au-Prince. “MINUSTAH was supposed to keep peace in the country, and everywhere it goes, things are worse. MINUSTAH kills Haitians.” (AFP 11/18/10 via Le Point (France))
Update, Nov. 19: report from Ansel Herz in Cap-Haïtien
http://www.mediahacker.org/2010/11/all-elements-of-society-are-participating-impressions-of-cap-haitiens-movement-against-the-un/
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
WNU #1057: Puerto Rican Students Protest Tuition Hike
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1057, November 14, 2010
1. Puerto Rico: Students Protest Tuition Hike
2. Mexico: Unionists Block Congress Over Budget
3. Costa Rica: Congress Bans Open-Pit Mines
4. Haiti: Report Assails Cash for Work Programs
5. Cuba: “Autonomy” Planned for State Firms
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, 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. Puerto Rico: Students Protest Tuition Hike
Students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) slowed traffic in and out of San Juan on Nov. 9 when they demonstrated in a major highway to protest plans for raising tuition by $800 in January. The previous night the Puerto Rican Senate had created a special fund that would provide about $30 million in scholarships to low-income students, but the protesters rejected the measure as inadequate. Students also met in assemblies at the UPR’s Río Piedras, Humacao, Cayey and Arecibo campuses on Nov. 9 to discuss the tuition hike and other issues.
These were the first student assemblies since a 62-day strike last spring that shut down 10 of the UPR’s 11 campuses and defeated most of the government’s austerity plan for the public university, which serves some 65,000 students. The UPR Board of Trustees’ proposal for a special three-year tuition surcharge—originally set at $1,100 a year—was the main issue left unresolved by the strike, but the trustees postponed the increase until January [see Update #1037]. (EFE 11/9/10; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 11/9/10)
The administration of Gov. Luis Fortuño is apparently preparing for renewed student strikes. The Chamber of Representatives voted 35-15 on Nov. 11 to ban any student demonstration that would interrupt the activities of the university; the measure would also require any student demonstration to have the support of the majority of students, as expressed by an electronic vote. The bill was sent on to the Senate, which hadn’t acted on it when the senators abruptly ended their session the evening of Nov. 11. “This measure is an attack on our constitutional right to free expression and is a total violation of the autonomy of the university,” Mariela Pérez, a spokesperson for the Action Committee of Arecibo University Students (CAUA), told reporters on Nov. 13. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 11/12/10, 11/14/10)
*2. Mexico: Unionists Block Congress Over Budget
About 15,000 protesters from independent unions, campesino organizations and other grassroots groups blocked access to the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City on Nov. 12 and 13 to demand a reduction of allocations for the security forces in next year’s budget and an increase in the allocations for social development.
Two large marches converged on the San Lázaro Legislative Palace around noon on Nov. 12, taking congressional guards and the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) police by surprise. A column of protesters from the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), the main rank-and-file caucus in the huge National Education Workers Union (SNTE), confronted the guards and police agents outside the building. After some shoving and pushing, the outnumbered security group withdrew and the demonstrators started a sit-in around the building.
Most of the protesters agreed to lift the siege on Nov. 13. Jorge Cázares Torres, general secretary of SNTE Section 16 (Guadalajara), told the demonstrators that their “pressure” had succeeded in limiting a plan to reduce the education budget; Chamber of Deputies president Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín said the political parties had agreed to restore 6.7 billion pesos (about $542 million) to the education budget. Martín Esparza, general secretary of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), told his members that legislative deputies from all but one of the political parties had agreed to meet on Nov. 16 to discuss changes to the law governing electric utilities and the possible creation of a new electric company for central Mexico; only the center-right National Action Party (PAN) of Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa wasn’t participating. The SME’s 44,000 employed members were laid off in October 2009 when Calderón abruptly liquidated their employer, the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) [see Update #1041]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/13/10, 11/14/10, ___)
In other news, some 200 students marched at the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City the evening of Nov. 9 to express solidarity with students in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua and to protest the federal government’s “war on drugs.” Federal police shot and seriously injured Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) student José Darío Alvarez Orrantía during a protest near the campus the evening of Oct. 29 [see Update #1055].
Earlier in the day UNAM students and SME members marched in downtown Mexico City around the same issues, with slogans such as: “If they do it to one, they do it to all” and “No to the militarization of Ciudad Juárez.” Students also marched in Durango, capital of the northern state of Durango, to protest the violence there. Joined by teachers, students from the Technological Institute of Durango (ITD) called for peace in Durango and demanded clarification of the Oct. 25 murder of José Alberto Pardo Saucedo, an ITD student and the son of an ITD teacher. (LJ 11/10/10; Milenio (Mexico) 11/9/10)
*3. Costa Rica: Congress Bans Open-Pit Mines
With 49 legislative deputies present, Costa Rica’s Congress voted unanimously on Nov. 9 to approve revisions to the Mining Code that would ban open-pit mining of heavy metals in future projects. The revisions would also end the use of toxic substances such as cyanide and mercury in mining. President Laura Chinchilla, who declared a moratorium on new mining projects soon after she took office in May, is expected to approve the revisions.
The ban is not retroactive, according to Claudio Monge of the Citizen Action Party, the main opposition group; it won’t affect projects that are already started, such as the Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine in San Carlos in the north of the country. Environmental activists held a hunger strike from Oct. 8 to Nov. 2 to pressure President Chinchilla to annul executive decree 34-8001 of 2008, which declares the mine, owned by the Canadian firm Infinito Gold Ltd, a matter of “national interest” [see Update #1056]. (Prensa Latina 11/10/10; Adital (Brazil) 11/11/10)
*4. Haiti: Report Assails Cash for Work Programs
A group of Haitian media organizations released a report on Nov. 8 about the “cash for work” (CFW) temporary jobs programs that international agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) set up after a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti. The programs employ tens of thousands of Haitians at jobs such as clearing away rubble in Port-au-Prince and digging latrines for the camps where more than 1 million displaced people still live. In the countryside, CFW workers dig irrigation ditches and contour canals. They are generally paid the full minimum wage of 200 gourdes (about $5) a day, although some are partially or fully paid in food.
The report found that while much of the work is useful and the payments do provide temporary relief for the workers and their families, CFW programs fail to stimulate the Haitian economic significantly: so many consumer goods are now imported that a large part of the CFW money ends up going to other countries instead of producing permanent employment inside Haiti, according to Haitian economists. The programs also increase Haiti’s dependency on other countries, deform attitudes towards work and weaken grassroots and communities efforts for reconstruction, the report said. The authors suggested that groups like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are promoting CFW as a way to prevent the sort of militant demonstrations that thousands of displaced Mexico City residents organized to demand housing after a major earthquake there in 1985.
The report was produced by Haiti Grassroots Watch (Ayiti Kale Je, “Haiti Keep Your Eyes Open” in Creole), a collaboration of Groupe Medialternatif/AlterPresse, the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA). (Haiti Grassroots Watch 11/8/10)
Groups of displaced people in Port-au-Prince continue to protest their living conditions, usually on or around the 12th day of each month to mark the date of the Jan. 12 quake [see Update #1049]. Hundreds of camp residents demonstrated outside the main government offices on Nov. 12, demanding housing, rejecting plans for general elections on Nov. 28 and calling for the withdrawal of the 13,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), whose troops are suspected of causing an outbreak of cholera through unsanitary conditions at a base in the Central Plateau [see Update #1056]. “No to elections under tents and tarps!” the protesters chanted. “Out with MINUSTAH, which defecated in our rivers!” (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/12/10)
*5. Cuba: “Autonomy” Planned for State Firms
On Nov. 9 the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) released a draft economic program for discussion in preparation for the party’s Sixth Congress in mid-April 2011. The 32-page “Draft Economic-Social Policy Guidelines” is the latest move in plans by President Raúl Castro for a major restructuring of the Cuban economy, following the announcement in September of a program to lay off some 500,000 workers and absorb most of them in an expansion of private enterprises [see Update #1050].
The document consists of 291 brief proposals. The most important change appears to be the introduction of relative autonomy for a number of state-owned enterprises. These are to set their own wage and employment policies and control their own resources and investments; at the same time, they will no longer be able to count on subsidies from the national budget. Other significant changes include “applying flexible formulas for the exchange, purchase, sale and renting of housing”; allowing some cooperatives to join together to form larger associations; and the creation of “special development zones” for exports and for high technology--apparently meaning industrial parks such as those already growing near modernized ports like Mariel in the northwest and Cienfuegos in the south.
The document insists that “in the new forms of non-state management, the concentration of property in juridical or natural persons will not be allowed”; presumably this bars ownership by corporations or individuals. The draft program also affirms that “the system of socialist planning will continue to be the main way” of managing the economy. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/10/10 from correspondent; Prensa Latina (English) 11/10/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US
John Holloway, Crack Capitalism and Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2772-john-holloway-crack-capitalism-and-latin-america
How Far Away is Latin America from Nottingham?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2773-how-far-away-is-latin-america-from-vancouver
Argentina: Worker-run Companies Quietly Surviving
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2774-argentina-worker-run-companies-quietly-surviving
Environmental Resistance in the Uruguay River
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3596
Brazil: Ethanol Interests on Guaraní Land
https://nacla.org/node/6795
Mining Firms Alarmed at Election of Leftist Governor in Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2779-mining-firms-alarmed-at-election-of-leftist-governor-in-peru
Video: Chevron Oilfield Worker Describes Toxic Dumping in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2771-video-chevron-oilfield-worker-describes-toxic-dumping-in-ecuador
Venezuelan Government Nationalizes Transport and Textile Firms
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5771
Venezuelan Workers March for More Participation and More Rights
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5777
Google Maps at issue in Central American border conflict
http://ww4report.com/node/9241
Amnesty International and Gael García Bernal Launch Films on Migrants in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2778-amnesty-international-and-gael-garcia-bernal-launch-films-on-migrants-in-mexico
Mexico: Tens of Thousands of Missing Central American Migrants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2770-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-missing-central-american-migrants-
Oaxaca as a ‘Laboratory of Repression’: Interview with Human Rights Defender Alba Cruz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2777-oaxaca-as-a-laboratory-of-repression-interview-with-human-rights-defender-alba-cruz
Haiti: As Cholera Spreads, Heavy Rains Wreak Havoc in Camps
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2776-haiti-as-cholera-spreads-heavy-rains-wreak-havoc-in-camps
Haiti Cholera Outbreak Spreads To Port-au-Prince
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/10/haiti-cholera-outbreak-spreads-to-port-au-prince/
Coup University: SOUTHCOM and FIU Team Up on Counterinsurgency
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2775-coup-university-southcom-and-fiu-team-up-on-counterinsurgency
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1057, November 14, 2010
1. Puerto Rico: Students Protest Tuition Hike
2. Mexico: Unionists Block Congress Over Budget
3. Costa Rica: Congress Bans Open-Pit Mines
4. Haiti: Report Assails Cash for Work Programs
5. Cuba: “Autonomy” Planned for State Firms
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, 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. Puerto Rico: Students Protest Tuition Hike
Students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) slowed traffic in and out of San Juan on Nov. 9 when they demonstrated in a major highway to protest plans for raising tuition by $800 in January. The previous night the Puerto Rican Senate had created a special fund that would provide about $30 million in scholarships to low-income students, but the protesters rejected the measure as inadequate. Students also met in assemblies at the UPR’s Río Piedras, Humacao, Cayey and Arecibo campuses on Nov. 9 to discuss the tuition hike and other issues.
These were the first student assemblies since a 62-day strike last spring that shut down 10 of the UPR’s 11 campuses and defeated most of the government’s austerity plan for the public university, which serves some 65,000 students. The UPR Board of Trustees’ proposal for a special three-year tuition surcharge—originally set at $1,100 a year—was the main issue left unresolved by the strike, but the trustees postponed the increase until January [see Update #1037]. (EFE 11/9/10; Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 11/9/10)
The administration of Gov. Luis Fortuño is apparently preparing for renewed student strikes. The Chamber of Representatives voted 35-15 on Nov. 11 to ban any student demonstration that would interrupt the activities of the university; the measure would also require any student demonstration to have the support of the majority of students, as expressed by an electronic vote. The bill was sent on to the Senate, which hadn’t acted on it when the senators abruptly ended their session the evening of Nov. 11. “This measure is an attack on our constitutional right to free expression and is a total violation of the autonomy of the university,” Mariela Pérez, a spokesperson for the Action Committee of Arecibo University Students (CAUA), told reporters on Nov. 13. (El Nuevo Día (Guaynabo) 11/12/10, 11/14/10)
*2. Mexico: Unionists Block Congress Over Budget
About 15,000 protesters from independent unions, campesino organizations and other grassroots groups blocked access to the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico City on Nov. 12 and 13 to demand a reduction of allocations for the security forces in next year’s budget and an increase in the allocations for social development.
Two large marches converged on the San Lázaro Legislative Palace around noon on Nov. 12, taking congressional guards and the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) police by surprise. A column of protesters from the National Education Workers Coordinating Committee (CNTE), the main rank-and-file caucus in the huge National Education Workers Union (SNTE), confronted the guards and police agents outside the building. After some shoving and pushing, the outnumbered security group withdrew and the demonstrators started a sit-in around the building.
Most of the protesters agreed to lift the siege on Nov. 13. Jorge Cázares Torres, general secretary of SNTE Section 16 (Guadalajara), told the demonstrators that their “pressure” had succeeded in limiting a plan to reduce the education budget; Chamber of Deputies president Jorge Carlos Ramírez Marín said the political parties had agreed to restore 6.7 billion pesos (about $542 million) to the education budget. Martín Esparza, general secretary of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), told his members that legislative deputies from all but one of the political parties had agreed to meet on Nov. 16 to discuss changes to the law governing electric utilities and the possible creation of a new electric company for central Mexico; only the center-right National Action Party (PAN) of Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa wasn’t participating. The SME’s 44,000 employed members were laid off in October 2009 when Calderón abruptly liquidated their employer, the state-owned Central Light and Power Company (LFC) [see Update #1041]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/13/10, 11/14/10, ___)
In other news, some 200 students marched at the main campus of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City the evening of Nov. 9 to express solidarity with students in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua and to protest the federal government’s “war on drugs.” Federal police shot and seriously injured Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) student José Darío Alvarez Orrantía during a protest near the campus the evening of Oct. 29 [see Update #1055].
Earlier in the day UNAM students and SME members marched in downtown Mexico City around the same issues, with slogans such as: “If they do it to one, they do it to all” and “No to the militarization of Ciudad Juárez.” Students also marched in Durango, capital of the northern state of Durango, to protest the violence there. Joined by teachers, students from the Technological Institute of Durango (ITD) called for peace in Durango and demanded clarification of the Oct. 25 murder of José Alberto Pardo Saucedo, an ITD student and the son of an ITD teacher. (LJ 11/10/10; Milenio (Mexico) 11/9/10)
*3. Costa Rica: Congress Bans Open-Pit Mines
With 49 legislative deputies present, Costa Rica’s Congress voted unanimously on Nov. 9 to approve revisions to the Mining Code that would ban open-pit mining of heavy metals in future projects. The revisions would also end the use of toxic substances such as cyanide and mercury in mining. President Laura Chinchilla, who declared a moratorium on new mining projects soon after she took office in May, is expected to approve the revisions.
The ban is not retroactive, according to Claudio Monge of the Citizen Action Party, the main opposition group; it won’t affect projects that are already started, such as the Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine in San Carlos in the north of the country. Environmental activists held a hunger strike from Oct. 8 to Nov. 2 to pressure President Chinchilla to annul executive decree 34-8001 of 2008, which declares the mine, owned by the Canadian firm Infinito Gold Ltd, a matter of “national interest” [see Update #1056]. (Prensa Latina 11/10/10; Adital (Brazil) 11/11/10)
*4. Haiti: Report Assails Cash for Work Programs
A group of Haitian media organizations released a report on Nov. 8 about the “cash for work” (CFW) temporary jobs programs that international agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) set up after a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti. The programs employ tens of thousands of Haitians at jobs such as clearing away rubble in Port-au-Prince and digging latrines for the camps where more than 1 million displaced people still live. In the countryside, CFW workers dig irrigation ditches and contour canals. They are generally paid the full minimum wage of 200 gourdes (about $5) a day, although some are partially or fully paid in food.
The report found that while much of the work is useful and the payments do provide temporary relief for the workers and their families, CFW programs fail to stimulate the Haitian economic significantly: so many consumer goods are now imported that a large part of the CFW money ends up going to other countries instead of producing permanent employment inside Haiti, according to Haitian economists. The programs also increase Haiti’s dependency on other countries, deform attitudes towards work and weaken grassroots and communities efforts for reconstruction, the report said. The authors suggested that groups like the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are promoting CFW as a way to prevent the sort of militant demonstrations that thousands of displaced Mexico City residents organized to demand housing after a major earthquake there in 1985.
The report was produced by Haiti Grassroots Watch (Ayiti Kale Je, “Haiti Keep Your Eyes Open” in Creole), a collaboration of Groupe Medialternatif/AlterPresse, the Society for the Animation of Social Communication (SAKS), the Network of Women Community Radio Broadcasters (REFRAKA) and the Association of Haitian Community Media (AMEKA). (Haiti Grassroots Watch 11/8/10)
Groups of displaced people in Port-au-Prince continue to protest their living conditions, usually on or around the 12th day of each month to mark the date of the Jan. 12 quake [see Update #1049]. Hundreds of camp residents demonstrated outside the main government offices on Nov. 12, demanding housing, rejecting plans for general elections on Nov. 28 and calling for the withdrawal of the 13,000-member United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), whose troops are suspected of causing an outbreak of cholera through unsanitary conditions at a base in the Central Plateau [see Update #1056]. “No to elections under tents and tarps!” the protesters chanted. “Out with MINUSTAH, which defecated in our rivers!” (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/12/10)
*5. Cuba: “Autonomy” Planned for State Firms
On Nov. 9 the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) released a draft economic program for discussion in preparation for the party’s Sixth Congress in mid-April 2011. The 32-page “Draft Economic-Social Policy Guidelines” is the latest move in plans by President Raúl Castro for a major restructuring of the Cuban economy, following the announcement in September of a program to lay off some 500,000 workers and absorb most of them in an expansion of private enterprises [see Update #1050].
The document consists of 291 brief proposals. The most important change appears to be the introduction of relative autonomy for a number of state-owned enterprises. These are to set their own wage and employment policies and control their own resources and investments; at the same time, they will no longer be able to count on subsidies from the national budget. Other significant changes include “applying flexible formulas for the exchange, purchase, sale and renting of housing”; allowing some cooperatives to join together to form larger associations; and the creation of “special development zones” for exports and for high technology--apparently meaning industrial parks such as those already growing near modernized ports like Mariel in the northwest and Cienfuegos in the south.
The document insists that “in the new forms of non-state management, the concentration of property in juridical or natural persons will not be allowed”; presumably this bars ownership by corporations or individuals. The draft program also affirms that “the system of socialist planning will continue to be the main way” of managing the economy. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/10/10 from correspondent; Prensa Latina (English) 11/10/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, US
John Holloway, Crack Capitalism and Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2772-john-holloway-crack-capitalism-and-latin-america
How Far Away is Latin America from Nottingham?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2773-how-far-away-is-latin-america-from-vancouver
Argentina: Worker-run Companies Quietly Surviving
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2774-argentina-worker-run-companies-quietly-surviving
Environmental Resistance in the Uruguay River
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3596
Brazil: Ethanol Interests on Guaraní Land
https://nacla.org/node/6795
Mining Firms Alarmed at Election of Leftist Governor in Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2779-mining-firms-alarmed-at-election-of-leftist-governor-in-peru
Video: Chevron Oilfield Worker Describes Toxic Dumping in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2771-video-chevron-oilfield-worker-describes-toxic-dumping-in-ecuador
Venezuelan Government Nationalizes Transport and Textile Firms
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5771
Venezuelan Workers March for More Participation and More Rights
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5777
Google Maps at issue in Central American border conflict
http://ww4report.com/node/9241
Amnesty International and Gael García Bernal Launch Films on Migrants in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2778-amnesty-international-and-gael-garcia-bernal-launch-films-on-migrants-in-mexico
Mexico: Tens of Thousands of Missing Central American Migrants
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2770-mexico-tens-of-thousands-of-missing-central-american-migrants-
Oaxaca as a ‘Laboratory of Repression’: Interview with Human Rights Defender Alba Cruz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2777-oaxaca-as-a-laboratory-of-repression-interview-with-human-rights-defender-alba-cruz
Haiti: As Cholera Spreads, Heavy Rains Wreak Havoc in Camps
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2776-haiti-as-cholera-spreads-heavy-rains-wreak-havoc-in-camps
Haiti Cholera Outbreak Spreads To Port-au-Prince
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/10/haiti-cholera-outbreak-spreads-to-port-au-prince/
Coup University: SOUTHCOM and FIU Team Up on Counterinsurgency
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2775-coup-university-southcom-and-fiu-team-up-on-counterinsurgency
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
WNU #1056: Is Goldcorp Still Polluting Guatemala?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1056, November 7, 2010
1. Guatemala: Is the Goldcorp Mine Still Polluting?
2. Costa Rica: Gold Mine Protesters End Fast
3. Haiti: Hurricane Passes, Cholera Spreads
4. Peru: CIA Releases Report on “Drug Plane” Shooting
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Guatemala: Is the Goldcorp Mine Still Polluting?
Guatemala’s Environment Ministry filed a criminal complaint on Sept. 28 against Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, SA, for possible pollution of the Quivichil River at the controversial Marlin mine near the San Miguel Ixtahuacán community in the western department of San Marcos. According to the complaint, Montana, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc, acted without government authorization on Sept. 23 when it discharged water which might contain heavy metals used in the gold extraction process.
The Environment Ministry also asked the Foreign Ministry to notify the Mexican government, since the Quivichil flows into Mexico.
Montana claimed in paid newspaper ads on Sept. 30 that the discharge was necessary because of heavy rains and that it was done “in a framework of transparency, during which public institutions conducted monitoring and had regulatory oversight.” But the Environment Ministry said it was a coincidence that government inspectors were present during the discharge; they had simply been in the area to get water samples. San Miguel Ixtahuacán residents said there had been a chemical smell around the river below the mine for two months, and they suspected the mine had discharged water at various times before Sept. 23. (Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 10/4/10; Comisión Pastoral Paz y Ecología (COPAE, Guatemala) 10/8/10)
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), a Washington, DC-based agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), had ordered Guatemala in May to suspend operations at the Marlin mine [see Update #1038]. The government and Montana have apparently ignored the order, which was in response to a complaint from area residents. On July 7 two men shot a resident, Diodora Antonia Hernández Cinto, in the head, leaving her blind in one eye. Hernández Cinto has been active in resistance to the mine; according to the North American nonprofit group Rights Action, one of the two men was a former Marlin employee and the other was a current employee. (Friends of the Earth action alert, undated; Rights Action alert 9/22/10)
Montana has reportedly received three permits to explore for gold, silver, copper and zinc in the mountains of Cabricán municipality in the neighboring department of Quetzaltenango, where many residents are indigenous Mam. On Oct. 20 the Mam Council and a local group, the Environment and Territory Defense Committee, held a referendum in 34 communities in Cabricán, with observers from outside organizations, including the Presidential Human Rights Commission (Copredeh). According to the organizers, 5,265 registered voters participated, along with 2,657 adult residents without voter cards and 5,849 minors under voting age. Only 73 people voted to allow mining in the area, and 130 cancelled their ballots; the rest voted against the mining project. Angel Vicente, Cabricán’s parish priest, said the results would be sent to President Alvaro Colom and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. (Prensa Libre 10/22/10)
*2. Costa Rica: Gold Mine Protesters End Fast
A group of Costa Rican environmental activists held a “Cultural Festival for Life” on Nov. 2 to conclude a hunger strike they began on Oct. 8 against the projected Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine in San Carlos in the north of the country [see Update #1054]. The hunger strike started with 14 activists encamped in front of the Presidential Residence in San José; all but two had dropped out for medical reasons by Nov. 1, when striker David Rojas was taken by ambulance to the state-run Carlos Durán Clinic to be treated for serious dehydration and gastritis. The remaining striker, Andrés Guillén, apparently decided to end the action the next day.
The activists said their goal was to increase President Laura Chinchilla’s sensitivity to the issue, but she refused to overturn executive decree 34-8001 of 2008, in which former president Oscar Arias (1986-1990 and 2006-2010) declared the mine—which belongs to the Canadian firm Infinito Gold Ltd, formerly Vanessa Ventures--a matter of “national interest.” Chinchilla may have feared political damage from the hunger strike, however: the president’s office said she had ordered the Presidential Residence’s physician, Adrián Rechnitzer, to monitor the activists’ health during the strike. (El País (Costa Rica) 11/1/10; EFE 11/1/10 via MSN Latino; Adital (Brazil) 11/5/10)
*3. Haiti: Hurricane Passes, Cholera Spreads
At least eight people died and two disappeared when Hurricane Tomas struck Haiti the night of Nov. 5 and the morning of Nov. 6. The worst damage was reported in Grand’Anse, Nippes and South departments, located on the long peninsula that makes up the southwestern part of the country, according to a preliminary report by the government on Nov. 6. Homes and camps were flooded in Port-au-Prince, where more than 1 million people still live in improvised shelters 10 months after a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated the capital, but the rains there weren’t as heavy as had been feared. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 11/6/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/6/10)
Meanwhile, the cholera epidemic that broke out in mid-October continues, and health experts are afraid that the flooding from Tomas may help it spread, especially in the capital. The Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) reported on Nov. 4 that 501 people had died and 7,359 had been hospitalized since the start of the epidemic, with the highest number of deaths in the lower Artibonite River region. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/6/10)
On Nov. 4 a Haitian nonprofit group, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), called for an investigation into allegations that Nepalese troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were the source of the epidemic [see Update #1055]. The group pointed to longstanding problems with the MINUSTAH base at Mirebalais in the Central Plateau, where the infection seems to have started. According to RNDDH, the base was responsible for the collapse of the Latèm bridge in September 2008: containers from the base washed downstream during a tropical storm and caused the bridge to fall. MINUSTAH is a 13,000-member military-police mission that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. (AlterPresse 11/4/10)
Officials from the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have insisted that investigating the cause of the outbreak would be a distraction from fighting the spread of the disease. But cholera expert John Mekalanos, who chairs Harvard University's microbiology department, told the Associated Press wire service on Nov. 3 that he considered the official claims “an attempt to maybe do the politically right thing and leave some agencies a way out of this embarrassment.”
Melakonos said the evidence suggests that the Nepalese soldiers did in fact bring the novel and virulent strain of the cholera bacterium now present in Haiti. "The organism that is causing the disease is very uncharacteristic of [Haiti and the Caribbean],” he said, “and is quite characteristic of the region from where the soldiers in the base came.” He also cast doubt on the validity of UN tests of water near the base, saying that false negatives were common in this type of test.
At least one UN official disagreed with the UN’s position that there’s no need for further investigation. “That sounds like politics to me, not science,” Dr. Paul Farmer, the UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, told the AP. But Farmer, who is also a co-founder of the widely respected Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health clinics in Haiti, called for investigating the outbreak’s causes “without pointing fingers.” (Washington Post 11/3/10 from AP)
*4. Peru: CIA Releases Report on “Drug Plane” Shooting
On Nov. 1 the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released the full text of a declassified 2008 report on the agency’s involvement in the April 2001 downing of a small civilian plane in Peru [see Updates #586, 587, 708]. A Peruvian Air Force jet shot the plane down on orders from CIA agents as part of the US “War on Drugs,” killing US missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity. Bowers’ husband and son and a pilot were also on the plane but survived the attack.
The Bowers’ plane was one of 15 shot down in “Narcotics Airbridge Denial," a 1995-2001 US program that was supposed to interdict the shipment of coca paste from Peru to Colombia by shooting down small civilian planes when there was a "reasonable suspicion" they were transporting drugs. Many of these planes fell into remote areas of the Amazon region and were never inspected to see if there were actually drugs on board. The program was suspended after the April 2001 incident.
The report shows a pattern of violations of procedures in the attacks on the planes. “CIA officers knew of and condoned most of these violations,” according to the report, “fostering an environment of negligence and disregard for procedures.” The report also shows that CIA officials misled the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee and withheld information from Justice Department investigators.
According to a CIA press release issued on Nov. 1, 16 current and retired officers received administrative penalties from current CIA director Leon Panetta in December 2009. But ABC television revealed last February that the punishment may just be a letter of reprimand inserted in the files of the people still working for the agency.
"If there's ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it," Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) told ABC in February. The Bowers live in Hoekstra’s district, and Hoekstra, a conservative and a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has led the fight to get information on the shootdown. "The [intelligence] community's performance in terms of accountability has been unacceptable,” he said. “These were Americans that were killed with the help of their government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating." (Associated Press 11/1/10 via El Comercio (Peru); New York Times 11/2/10; ABC News 2/3/10; Drug War Chronicle #619 2/4/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Learning From Latin American Social Movements: Introduction to Dancing with Dynamite Book
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2764-learning-from-latin-american-social-movements-introduction-to-dancing-with-dynamite-book
Social Movements and States in Latin America: Dancing with Dynamite East Coast Book Tour
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2765-social-movements-in-latin-america-dancing-with-dynamite-east-coast-book-tour
Brazil’s First Woman President Overcomes Opposition, Hostile Media
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3495
Bolivian President Evo Morales Struggles To Balance Environmentalism And Development
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/04/bolivian-president-evo-morales-struggles-to-balance-environmentalism-and-development/
Peru: indigenous communities end blockade of Río Marañon —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/9225
Ollanta Humala Proposes A Nationalist Program As A Response To Globalization
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/25/ollanta-humala-proposes-a-nationalist-program-as-a-response-to-globalization/
US Court OKs Extradition of 'Butcher of the Andes' to Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2766-us-court-oks-extradition-of-butcher-of-the-andes-to-peru
Peru: judge reinstates parole for Lori Berenson
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8979#comment-322341
The U.S. Media and the Crisis in Ecuador
https://nacla.org/node/6791
Uribe ordered to testify in Drummond case
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12739-uribe-subpoenaed-testify-drummond-case.html
Colombia: Uribe ordered to testify in Drummond case
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9233
FARC guerilla who killed "Ivan Rios" gets prison
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9234
China and Colombia in trade, military pacts
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9235
Santos Visit to Caracas: Venezuela and Colombia Consolidate New Relationship
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5757
Venezuela Helps Cuba Overcome US-Imposed Internet Restrictions
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5761
Costa Rica requests OAS action on alleged Nicaraguan incursion
http://ww4report.com/node/9198#comment-322313
Honduras: indigenous mobilize against dams
http://ww4report.com/node/9221#comment-322310
How Legalizing Marijuana Would Weaken Mexican Drug Cartels
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3517
Tear Down the Dam and Rebuild the Commons (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3529
Update: Oaxaca’s Hidden Drug War Revealed in Two Additional Murders
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2767-update-oaxacas-hidden-drug-war-revealed-in-two-additional-murders
Ciudad Juarez Students Rise Up
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2010/11/03/ciudad-juarez-students-rise-up/
The Disappearance of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco: An Open Letter to Mexican President Calderón
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2763-the-disappearance-of-rosendo-radilla-pacheco-an-open-letter-to-mexican-president-calderon
Haiti: Quake Refugees Seek Moratorium on Evictions
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2761-quake-refugees-seek-moratorium-on-evictions
Sex Work Flourishes In Post-Earthquake Haiti
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/05/sex-work-flourishes-in-post-earthquake-haiti/
Action Alert: U.S. Embassies Deny Visas to SOA Watch Vigil Speakers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2762-action-alert-us-embassies-deny-visas-to-soa-watch-vigil-speakers-
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1056, November 7, 2010
1. Guatemala: Is the Goldcorp Mine Still Polluting?
2. Costa Rica: Gold Mine Protesters End Fast
3. Haiti: Hurricane Passes, Cholera Spreads
4. Peru: CIA Releases Report on “Drug Plane” Shooting
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Guatemala: Is the Goldcorp Mine Still Polluting?
Guatemala’s Environment Ministry filed a criminal complaint on Sept. 28 against Montana Exploradora de Guatemala, SA, for possible pollution of the Quivichil River at the controversial Marlin mine near the San Miguel Ixtahuacán community in the western department of San Marcos. According to the complaint, Montana, a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company Goldcorp Inc, acted without government authorization on Sept. 23 when it discharged water which might contain heavy metals used in the gold extraction process.
The Environment Ministry also asked the Foreign Ministry to notify the Mexican government, since the Quivichil flows into Mexico.
Montana claimed in paid newspaper ads on Sept. 30 that the discharge was necessary because of heavy rains and that it was done “in a framework of transparency, during which public institutions conducted monitoring and had regulatory oversight.” But the Environment Ministry said it was a coincidence that government inspectors were present during the discharge; they had simply been in the area to get water samples. San Miguel Ixtahuacán residents said there had been a chemical smell around the river below the mine for two months, and they suspected the mine had discharged water at various times before Sept. 23. (Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 10/4/10; Comisión Pastoral Paz y Ecología (COPAE, Guatemala) 10/8/10)
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), a Washington, DC-based agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), had ordered Guatemala in May to suspend operations at the Marlin mine [see Update #1038]. The government and Montana have apparently ignored the order, which was in response to a complaint from area residents. On July 7 two men shot a resident, Diodora Antonia Hernández Cinto, in the head, leaving her blind in one eye. Hernández Cinto has been active in resistance to the mine; according to the North American nonprofit group Rights Action, one of the two men was a former Marlin employee and the other was a current employee. (Friends of the Earth action alert, undated; Rights Action alert 9/22/10)
Montana has reportedly received three permits to explore for gold, silver, copper and zinc in the mountains of Cabricán municipality in the neighboring department of Quetzaltenango, where many residents are indigenous Mam. On Oct. 20 the Mam Council and a local group, the Environment and Territory Defense Committee, held a referendum in 34 communities in Cabricán, with observers from outside organizations, including the Presidential Human Rights Commission (Copredeh). According to the organizers, 5,265 registered voters participated, along with 2,657 adult residents without voter cards and 5,849 minors under voting age. Only 73 people voted to allow mining in the area, and 130 cancelled their ballots; the rest voted against the mining project. Angel Vicente, Cabricán’s parish priest, said the results would be sent to President Alvaro Colom and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. (Prensa Libre 10/22/10)
*2. Costa Rica: Gold Mine Protesters End Fast
A group of Costa Rican environmental activists held a “Cultural Festival for Life” on Nov. 2 to conclude a hunger strike they began on Oct. 8 against the projected Las Crucitas open-pit gold mine in San Carlos in the north of the country [see Update #1054]. The hunger strike started with 14 activists encamped in front of the Presidential Residence in San José; all but two had dropped out for medical reasons by Nov. 1, when striker David Rojas was taken by ambulance to the state-run Carlos Durán Clinic to be treated for serious dehydration and gastritis. The remaining striker, Andrés Guillén, apparently decided to end the action the next day.
The activists said their goal was to increase President Laura Chinchilla’s sensitivity to the issue, but she refused to overturn executive decree 34-8001 of 2008, in which former president Oscar Arias (1986-1990 and 2006-2010) declared the mine—which belongs to the Canadian firm Infinito Gold Ltd, formerly Vanessa Ventures--a matter of “national interest.” Chinchilla may have feared political damage from the hunger strike, however: the president’s office said she had ordered the Presidential Residence’s physician, Adrián Rechnitzer, to monitor the activists’ health during the strike. (El País (Costa Rica) 11/1/10; EFE 11/1/10 via MSN Latino; Adital (Brazil) 11/5/10)
*3. Haiti: Hurricane Passes, Cholera Spreads
At least eight people died and two disappeared when Hurricane Tomas struck Haiti the night of Nov. 5 and the morning of Nov. 6. The worst damage was reported in Grand’Anse, Nippes and South departments, located on the long peninsula that makes up the southwestern part of the country, according to a preliminary report by the government on Nov. 6. Homes and camps were flooded in Port-au-Prince, where more than 1 million people still live in improvised shelters 10 months after a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated the capital, but the rains there weren’t as heavy as had been feared. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 11/6/10; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 11/6/10)
Meanwhile, the cholera epidemic that broke out in mid-October continues, and health experts are afraid that the flooding from Tomas may help it spread, especially in the capital. The Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) reported on Nov. 4 that 501 people had died and 7,359 had been hospitalized since the start of the epidemic, with the highest number of deaths in the lower Artibonite River region. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 11/6/10)
On Nov. 4 a Haitian nonprofit group, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), called for an investigation into allegations that Nepalese troops from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were the source of the epidemic [see Update #1055]. The group pointed to longstanding problems with the MINUSTAH base at Mirebalais in the Central Plateau, where the infection seems to have started. According to RNDDH, the base was responsible for the collapse of the Latèm bridge in September 2008: containers from the base washed downstream during a tropical storm and caused the bridge to fall. MINUSTAH is a 13,000-member military-police mission that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. (AlterPresse 11/4/10)
Officials from the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have insisted that investigating the cause of the outbreak would be a distraction from fighting the spread of the disease. But cholera expert John Mekalanos, who chairs Harvard University's microbiology department, told the Associated Press wire service on Nov. 3 that he considered the official claims “an attempt to maybe do the politically right thing and leave some agencies a way out of this embarrassment.”
Melakonos said the evidence suggests that the Nepalese soldiers did in fact bring the novel and virulent strain of the cholera bacterium now present in Haiti. "The organism that is causing the disease is very uncharacteristic of [Haiti and the Caribbean],” he said, “and is quite characteristic of the region from where the soldiers in the base came.” He also cast doubt on the validity of UN tests of water near the base, saying that false negatives were common in this type of test.
At least one UN official disagreed with the UN’s position that there’s no need for further investigation. “That sounds like politics to me, not science,” Dr. Paul Farmer, the UN deputy special envoy to Haiti, told the AP. But Farmer, who is also a co-founder of the widely respected Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health clinics in Haiti, called for investigating the outbreak’s causes “without pointing fingers.” (Washington Post 11/3/10 from AP)
*4. Peru: CIA Releases Report on “Drug Plane” Shooting
On Nov. 1 the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released the full text of a declassified 2008 report on the agency’s involvement in the April 2001 downing of a small civilian plane in Peru [see Updates #586, 587, 708]. A Peruvian Air Force jet shot the plane down on orders from CIA agents as part of the US “War on Drugs,” killing US missionary Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity. Bowers’ husband and son and a pilot were also on the plane but survived the attack.
The Bowers’ plane was one of 15 shot down in “Narcotics Airbridge Denial," a 1995-2001 US program that was supposed to interdict the shipment of coca paste from Peru to Colombia by shooting down small civilian planes when there was a "reasonable suspicion" they were transporting drugs. Many of these planes fell into remote areas of the Amazon region and were never inspected to see if there were actually drugs on board. The program was suspended after the April 2001 incident.
The report shows a pattern of violations of procedures in the attacks on the planes. “CIA officers knew of and condoned most of these violations,” according to the report, “fostering an environment of negligence and disregard for procedures.” The report also shows that CIA officials misled the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee and withheld information from Justice Department investigators.
According to a CIA press release issued on Nov. 1, 16 current and retired officers received administrative penalties from current CIA director Leon Panetta in December 2009. But ABC television revealed last February that the punishment may just be a letter of reprimand inserted in the files of the people still working for the agency.
"If there's ever an example of justice delayed, justice denied, this is it," Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) told ABC in February. The Bowers live in Hoekstra’s district, and Hoekstra, a conservative and a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has led the fight to get information on the shootdown. "The [intelligence] community's performance in terms of accountability has been unacceptable,” he said. “These were Americans that were killed with the help of their government, the community covered it up, they delayed investigating." (Associated Press 11/1/10 via El Comercio (Peru); New York Times 11/2/10; ABC News 2/3/10; Drug War Chronicle #619 2/4/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Learning From Latin American Social Movements: Introduction to Dancing with Dynamite Book
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/2764-learning-from-latin-american-social-movements-introduction-to-dancing-with-dynamite-book
Social Movements and States in Latin America: Dancing with Dynamite East Coast Book Tour
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2765-social-movements-in-latin-america-dancing-with-dynamite-east-coast-book-tour
Brazil’s First Woman President Overcomes Opposition, Hostile Media
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3495
Bolivian President Evo Morales Struggles To Balance Environmentalism And Development
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/04/bolivian-president-evo-morales-struggles-to-balance-environmentalism-and-development/
Peru: indigenous communities end blockade of Río Marañon —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/9225
Ollanta Humala Proposes A Nationalist Program As A Response To Globalization
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/25/ollanta-humala-proposes-a-nationalist-program-as-a-response-to-globalization/
US Court OKs Extradition of 'Butcher of the Andes' to Peru
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/2766-us-court-oks-extradition-of-butcher-of-the-andes-to-peru
Peru: judge reinstates parole for Lori Berenson
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8979#comment-322341
The U.S. Media and the Crisis in Ecuador
https://nacla.org/node/6791
Uribe ordered to testify in Drummond case
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12739-uribe-subpoenaed-testify-drummond-case.html
Colombia: Uribe ordered to testify in Drummond case
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9233
FARC guerilla who killed "Ivan Rios" gets prison
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9234
China and Colombia in trade, military pacts
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9235
Santos Visit to Caracas: Venezuela and Colombia Consolidate New Relationship
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5757
Venezuela Helps Cuba Overcome US-Imposed Internet Restrictions
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5761
Costa Rica requests OAS action on alleged Nicaraguan incursion
http://ww4report.com/node/9198#comment-322313
Honduras: indigenous mobilize against dams
http://ww4report.com/node/9221#comment-322310
How Legalizing Marijuana Would Weaken Mexican Drug Cartels
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3517
Tear Down the Dam and Rebuild the Commons (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3529
Update: Oaxaca’s Hidden Drug War Revealed in Two Additional Murders
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2767-update-oaxacas-hidden-drug-war-revealed-in-two-additional-murders
Ciudad Juarez Students Rise Up
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2010/11/03/ciudad-juarez-students-rise-up/
The Disappearance of Rosendo Radilla Pacheco: An Open Letter to Mexican President Calderón
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2763-the-disappearance-of-rosendo-radilla-pacheco-an-open-letter-to-mexican-president-calderon
Haiti: Quake Refugees Seek Moratorium on Evictions
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/2761-quake-refugees-seek-moratorium-on-evictions
Sex Work Flourishes In Post-Earthquake Haiti
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/05/sex-work-flourishes-in-post-earthquake-haiti/
Action Alert: U.S. Embassies Deny Visas to SOA Watch Vigil Speakers
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2762-action-alert-us-embassies-deny-visas-to-soa-watch-vigil-speakers-
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 1 November 2010
WNU #1055: Did UN Troops “Import” Cholera to Haiti?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1055, October 31, 2010
1. Haiti: Did UN Troops “Import” the Cholera?
2. Honduras: Labor Struggles Heat Up
3. Mexico: Police Shoot Student Protester
4. Brazil: Workers Party Holds on to Presidency
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Haiti: Did UN Troops “Import” the Cholera?
Hundreds of protesters marched on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) military base at the city of Mirebalais in Haiti’s Central Plateau on Oct. 29, charging that the Nepalese troops stationed there had caused a major outbreak of cholera. At least 330 people had died and 4,714 people had been hospitalized because of the disease as of Oct. 28, just eight days after the first cases were reported, mostly in Mirebalais and in the Lower Artibonite River region in the west [see Update #1054]. “Down with MINUSTAH, down with imported cholera,” chanted the protesters, largely students and other youths.
Mirebalais mayor Laguerre Lochard, who is running for the Senate in general elections on Nov. 28, had made the accusation a few days earlier. According to Lochard, human wastes from the base were spilling into the Meillé River, which flows into the Artibonite River. Experts suspect that the vibrio cholerae, the cholera bacterium, spread as people used water from the Artibonite; the cholera cases are mostly downstream from the point where the Meillé flows into the larger river.
The United Nations quickly denied the charge, claiming that the base’s wastes are properly managed through septic tanks that are emptied every week. MINUSTAH spokesperson Vincenzo Pugliese said on Oct. 28 samples collected from the base on Oct. 22 tested negative for cholera and that none of the Nepalese troops had the disease.
But Associated Press reporters found evidence on Oct. 28 that the septic tanks were overflowing and that human waste could run to the Meille either from the overflow or from the nearby landfill where matter from the tanks is buried. There were “visible signs where water has flowed [from the landfill] during recent heavy rains,” AP reported. On Oct. 29 Pugliese admitted to AP that the Nepalese troops had not in fact been tested for cholera since the outbreak. "By none of them presenting the symptom of the cholera there was no need to do another test,” he said.
Cholera is not common in the Western Hemisphere, and Haiti had not reported a case since it started keeping records in the middle of the last century. The disease is endemic to Nepal, which had an outbreak over the summer; the Nepalese troops started arriving in shifts for a six-month rotation on Oct. 9, a little more than a week before the first cases were reported. About 75% of people infected with cholera don’t show symptoms, but they can spread the disease for about two weeks, according to an Oct. 25 press briefing by Pan American Health Organization deputy director Jon Andrus.
Scientists from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were studying samples to see if they could determine the origin of the strain, but CDC spokesperson Tom Skinner said they might not be able to pinpoint the nation it came from. (AP 10/28/10 via The Star (Malaysia), 10/29/10 via Kansas City Star; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/29/10; Al Jazeera English 10/30/10)
The Oct. 29 march in Mirebalais was the latest and largest of a series of protests against MINUSTAH, a 13,000-member military-police mission that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. MINUSTAH troops and Haitian police broke up a demonstration at a base in Port-au-Prince on Oct. 15, a day after the United Nations Security Council renewed the mission’s mandate for another year [see Update #1053]. There was also a protest at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the capital on Oct. 14, along with a protest in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, according to an Oct. 20 report from the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”). In the towns of Plaisance and Limonade, also in the north, campesino demonstrators combined the protest against the occupation with denunciations of the Monsanto Company, a US-based biotechnology multinational which offered Haitian farmers hybrid seeds after an earthquake struck southern Haiti on Jan. 12 [see Update #1036].
Activists in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, México and Puerto Rico held solidarity protests on Oct. 15 calling for an end to MINUSTAH and cancellation of Haiti’s foreign debt. MINUSTAH is led by Brazilian military commanders. (Adital (Brazil) 10/25/10)
Update, Nov. 1: The CDC has now reported that the cholera strain in Haiti matches one commonly found in South Asia, which includes Nepal. (New York Times 11/1/10 from AP)
*2. Honduras: Labor Struggles Heat Up
Representatives of Honduran unions and grassroots movements agreed on Oct. 30 to schedule a series of actions over the next two weeks around four issues: the national minimum wage, a law suspending pay increases for teachers, restrictions on pay increases for other public employees, and proposed legislation to allow temporary work.
Meeting at the Vicente Cáceres Central Institute in Tegucigalpa, representatives of the main labor federations, teachers’ organizations and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), which grew out of opposition to a June 2009 military coup d’état, decided to hold informational assemblies with teachers and public workers around the country on Nov. 1, to be followed by marches in Tegucigalpa and the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula on Nov. 3. These actions are to culminate in a “national civic strike”—a day of protests with some work stoppages--on Nov. 11.
As of Oct. 30 Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa had still not announced an increase in the minimum wage that was due in April [see Update #1047]. He finally set Nov. 1 as the date for the announcement, but the unions said the anticipated increase of 6% would not let workers catch up with increases in the cost of living.
The unions seem even more concerned about legislation that General Workers Central (CGT) general secretary Daniel Durón said would liquidate gains made by workers over many years. The National Congress voted 79-3 night of Oct. 27--with 25 legislative deputies abstaining and 21 absent from the session--to approve a measure proposed by Lobo to suspend for one year an automatic annual wage increase for teachers that was legislated in 1993. The new law also suspended special arrangements for other public employees.
Finance Minister William Chong Wong said on Oct. 28 that these measures were necessary because the government doesn’t have the “economic capacity” to pay increases. In Spain the government has lowered salaries in the public sector because of the world economic crisis, he said, but in Honduras “no one’s salary is being reduced.” The FNRP and teachers and public employees unions protested the vote with a march through the streets of Tegucigalpa and a sit-in in front of the National Congress on Oct. 28. (La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 10/31/10; Prensa Latina 10/28/10; EFE 10/28/10 via Terra.com (Spain); FNRP communiqué #76 10/28/10)
The proposed Law of Temporary Work would allow a business to utilize temporary or part-time workers for up to 40% of its workforce. Current law only allows full-time, permanent employment. The unions say this will reduce benefits for the part-time workers and allow the exploitation of seasonal employees. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 10/24/10)
*3. Mexico: Police Shoot Student Protester
On Oct. 30 Mexico’s Public Security Secretariat (SSP) announced that it had put two federal police agents “at the disposal” of Public Ministry officials investigating the shooting of a college student the evening before near the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) campus in the northern state of Chihuahua. José Darío Alvarez Orrantía, a sociology student at UACJ, was hit in the abdomen as dozens of students marched in the 11th Walk Against Death in Ciudad Juárez, an opening event in a three-day conference treating the dramatic surge in violence in northern Mexico.
Alvarez Orrantía was reported in stable condition at the city’s General Hospital after emergency surgery the night of Oct. 29 that included the removal of about one-third of his intestine.
According to a communiqué from the SSP, federal police agents in two patrol cars were taking a suspect to the Public Ministry when “they encountered various persons” at Plutarco Elías Calles avenue and Hermanos Escobar street, “among them some with their faces covered, for which reason the federal agents got out of the patrol cars and fired in the air in a preventive and warning manner.” The communiqué does not explain how Alvarez Orrantía came to be shot. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/30/10, 10/31/10, ___)
The conference--the International Forum Against Militarization and Violence organized by the local Plural Citizen Front coalition--was intended to open dialogue about the use of federal troops in the “war on drugs” declared by President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa shortly after taking office in December 2006. According to one of the organizers, Julián Contreras Álvarez, the militarization of the fight against drug trafficking is intended to repress and contain social movements and put down disturbances caused by the economic crisis. He said the policy has been an incentive and a direct cause of the violence that the border region is now suffering.
The Walk Against Death is a weekly event commemorating victims of the violence; the Oct. 29 walk was for 14 local youths gunned down at a party in the Horizontes Sur neighborhood on Oct. 22 by an unidentified armed group. (El Diario (Ciudad Juárez) 10/28/10)
UACJ Javier Sánchez Carlos said on Oct. 30 that officials from various universities had sent messages of solidarity and had protested the acts of “barbarity” by federal forces. One of the first messages came from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), where two graduate students were gunned down by federal troops on Mar. 19 [see Update #1044]. (LJ 10/31/10)
*4. Brazil: Workers Party Holds on to Presidency
Voters chose Dilma Rousseff of the leftist Workers Party (PT) to be Brazil’s 36th president in a runoff election on Oct. 31. Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) president Ricardo Lewandowski said in a press conference in the early evening that Rousseff’s victory was now mathematically certain. With 93.25% of the ballots counted, Rousseff had won 55.43% of the valid votes to 44.57% for José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB); the two candidates had led in the first round on Oct. 3. More than 93 million Brazilians participated in the Oct. 31 voting.
Rousseff, whose four-year term begins on Jan. 1, will succeed fellow PT member Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who remains popular after serving two consecutive terms. She will be the country’s first woman president. (Prensa Latina 10/31/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Hunger Strikes Across Latin America Fuelled by Institutional Deafness
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2756-hunger-strikes-across-latin-america-fuelled-by-institutional-deafness-
Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner Dies Of A Heart Attack
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/28/former-argentine-president-nestor-kirchner-dies-of-a-heart-attack/
Argentina: Kirchner's Death Raises Questions About President Fernández
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2757-argentina-kirchners-death-raises-questions-about-president-fernandez-
Peru: New Leftwing Mayor of Lima to Face Uphill Task
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2758-peru-new-leftwing-mayor-of-lima-to-face-uphill-task-
Venezuela Proposes Free Movement and Residency in South America
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5743
Venezuelan Unions March to Control Companies, Throw Out “Reformist” State Management
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5744
The Drug War: Towards a 'Plan Central America'
https://nacla.org/node/6784
Obama Administration Continues to Disregard Congressional Concern for Human Rights, Democracy in Honduras
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/obama-continues-to-disregard-human-rights-violations-in-honduras
Photo Essay: K’iche’ People in Guatemala Reject Exploitation of their Natural Resources
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/2751-photo-essay-kiche-people-in-guatemala-reject-exploitation-of-their-natural-resources
Mexico: narco-massacre in Nayarit
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9209
Mexico: police rescue 23 Central American migrants abducted for ransom
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9212
Mexico: another narco-massacre...
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9209#comment-322279
Uphold Human Rights, Halt Drug War Aid to Mexican Security Forces
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3475
Justo Castigo in Oaxaca: Political Murders, Drug Murders, or Retributive Justice?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2752-justo-castigo-in-oaxaca-political-murders-drug-murders-or-retributive-justice
Frente Auténtico Del Trabajo (FAT) Wins Election at UE Sister Shop
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=177#1187
One Year Later: Mexican Electrical Workers Continue Battle for Jobs
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=177#1191
Two Worlds Collide at Cancun Climate Talks
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3486
UN investigates cholera spread in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk-2HyQHUZ0&feature=player_embedded
Ideological dogmatism and United States policy toward Haiti
http://anthropologyworks.com/?p=2869
Sweatshops Over Homes in Haiti
https://nacla.org/node/6781
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1055, October 31, 2010
1. Haiti: Did UN Troops “Import” the Cholera?
2. Honduras: Labor Struggles Heat Up
3. Mexico: Police Shoot Student Protester
4. Brazil: Workers Party Holds on to Presidency
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Haiti: Did UN Troops “Import” the Cholera?
Hundreds of protesters marched on the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) military base at the city of Mirebalais in Haiti’s Central Plateau on Oct. 29, charging that the Nepalese troops stationed there had caused a major outbreak of cholera. At least 330 people had died and 4,714 people had been hospitalized because of the disease as of Oct. 28, just eight days after the first cases were reported, mostly in Mirebalais and in the Lower Artibonite River region in the west [see Update #1054]. “Down with MINUSTAH, down with imported cholera,” chanted the protesters, largely students and other youths.
Mirebalais mayor Laguerre Lochard, who is running for the Senate in general elections on Nov. 28, had made the accusation a few days earlier. According to Lochard, human wastes from the base were spilling into the Meillé River, which flows into the Artibonite River. Experts suspect that the vibrio cholerae, the cholera bacterium, spread as people used water from the Artibonite; the cholera cases are mostly downstream from the point where the Meillé flows into the larger river.
The United Nations quickly denied the charge, claiming that the base’s wastes are properly managed through septic tanks that are emptied every week. MINUSTAH spokesperson Vincenzo Pugliese said on Oct. 28 samples collected from the base on Oct. 22 tested negative for cholera and that none of the Nepalese troops had the disease.
But Associated Press reporters found evidence on Oct. 28 that the septic tanks were overflowing and that human waste could run to the Meille either from the overflow or from the nearby landfill where matter from the tanks is buried. There were “visible signs where water has flowed [from the landfill] during recent heavy rains,” AP reported. On Oct. 29 Pugliese admitted to AP that the Nepalese troops had not in fact been tested for cholera since the outbreak. "By none of them presenting the symptom of the cholera there was no need to do another test,” he said.
Cholera is not common in the Western Hemisphere, and Haiti had not reported a case since it started keeping records in the middle of the last century. The disease is endemic to Nepal, which had an outbreak over the summer; the Nepalese troops started arriving in shifts for a six-month rotation on Oct. 9, a little more than a week before the first cases were reported. About 75% of people infected with cholera don’t show symptoms, but they can spread the disease for about two weeks, according to an Oct. 25 press briefing by Pan American Health Organization deputy director Jon Andrus.
Scientists from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were studying samples to see if they could determine the origin of the strain, but CDC spokesperson Tom Skinner said they might not be able to pinpoint the nation it came from. (AP 10/28/10 via The Star (Malaysia), 10/29/10 via Kansas City Star; Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 10/29/10; Al Jazeera English 10/30/10)
The Oct. 29 march in Mirebalais was the latest and largest of a series of protests against MINUSTAH, a 13,000-member military-police mission that has occupied Haiti since June 2004. MINUSTAH troops and Haitian police broke up a demonstration at a base in Port-au-Prince on Oct. 15, a day after the United Nations Security Council renewed the mission’s mandate for another year [see Update #1053]. There was also a protest at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in the capital on Oct. 14, along with a protest in the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, according to an Oct. 20 report from the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”). In the towns of Plaisance and Limonade, also in the north, campesino demonstrators combined the protest against the occupation with denunciations of the Monsanto Company, a US-based biotechnology multinational which offered Haitian farmers hybrid seeds after an earthquake struck southern Haiti on Jan. 12 [see Update #1036].
Activists in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, México and Puerto Rico held solidarity protests on Oct. 15 calling for an end to MINUSTAH and cancellation of Haiti’s foreign debt. MINUSTAH is led by Brazilian military commanders. (Adital (Brazil) 10/25/10)
Update, Nov. 1: The CDC has now reported that the cholera strain in Haiti matches one commonly found in South Asia, which includes Nepal. (New York Times 11/1/10 from AP)
*2. Honduras: Labor Struggles Heat Up
Representatives of Honduran unions and grassroots movements agreed on Oct. 30 to schedule a series of actions over the next two weeks around four issues: the national minimum wage, a law suspending pay increases for teachers, restrictions on pay increases for other public employees, and proposed legislation to allow temporary work.
Meeting at the Vicente Cáceres Central Institute in Tegucigalpa, representatives of the main labor federations, teachers’ organizations and the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), which grew out of opposition to a June 2009 military coup d’état, decided to hold informational assemblies with teachers and public workers around the country on Nov. 1, to be followed by marches in Tegucigalpa and the northern industrial city of San Pedro Sula on Nov. 3. These actions are to culminate in a “national civic strike”—a day of protests with some work stoppages--on Nov. 11.
As of Oct. 30 Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa had still not announced an increase in the minimum wage that was due in April [see Update #1047]. He finally set Nov. 1 as the date for the announcement, but the unions said the anticipated increase of 6% would not let workers catch up with increases in the cost of living.
The unions seem even more concerned about legislation that General Workers Central (CGT) general secretary Daniel Durón said would liquidate gains made by workers over many years. The National Congress voted 79-3 night of Oct. 27--with 25 legislative deputies abstaining and 21 absent from the session--to approve a measure proposed by Lobo to suspend for one year an automatic annual wage increase for teachers that was legislated in 1993. The new law also suspended special arrangements for other public employees.
Finance Minister William Chong Wong said on Oct. 28 that these measures were necessary because the government doesn’t have the “economic capacity” to pay increases. In Spain the government has lowered salaries in the public sector because of the world economic crisis, he said, but in Honduras “no one’s salary is being reduced.” The FNRP and teachers and public employees unions protested the vote with a march through the streets of Tegucigalpa and a sit-in in front of the National Congress on Oct. 28. (La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 10/31/10; Prensa Latina 10/28/10; EFE 10/28/10 via Terra.com (Spain); FNRP communiqué #76 10/28/10)
The proposed Law of Temporary Work would allow a business to utilize temporary or part-time workers for up to 40% of its workforce. Current law only allows full-time, permanent employment. The unions say this will reduce benefits for the part-time workers and allow the exploitation of seasonal employees. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 10/24/10)
*3. Mexico: Police Shoot Student Protester
On Oct. 30 Mexico’s Public Security Secretariat (SSP) announced that it had put two federal police agents “at the disposal” of Public Ministry officials investigating the shooting of a college student the evening before near the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) campus in the northern state of Chihuahua. José Darío Alvarez Orrantía, a sociology student at UACJ, was hit in the abdomen as dozens of students marched in the 11th Walk Against Death in Ciudad Juárez, an opening event in a three-day conference treating the dramatic surge in violence in northern Mexico.
Alvarez Orrantía was reported in stable condition at the city’s General Hospital after emergency surgery the night of Oct. 29 that included the removal of about one-third of his intestine.
According to a communiqué from the SSP, federal police agents in two patrol cars were taking a suspect to the Public Ministry when “they encountered various persons” at Plutarco Elías Calles avenue and Hermanos Escobar street, “among them some with their faces covered, for which reason the federal agents got out of the patrol cars and fired in the air in a preventive and warning manner.” The communiqué does not explain how Alvarez Orrantía came to be shot. (La Jornada (Mexico) 10/30/10, 10/31/10, ___)
The conference--the International Forum Against Militarization and Violence organized by the local Plural Citizen Front coalition--was intended to open dialogue about the use of federal troops in the “war on drugs” declared by President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa shortly after taking office in December 2006. According to one of the organizers, Julián Contreras Álvarez, the militarization of the fight against drug trafficking is intended to repress and contain social movements and put down disturbances caused by the economic crisis. He said the policy has been an incentive and a direct cause of the violence that the border region is now suffering.
The Walk Against Death is a weekly event commemorating victims of the violence; the Oct. 29 walk was for 14 local youths gunned down at a party in the Horizontes Sur neighborhood on Oct. 22 by an unidentified armed group. (El Diario (Ciudad Juárez) 10/28/10)
UACJ Javier Sánchez Carlos said on Oct. 30 that officials from various universities had sent messages of solidarity and had protested the acts of “barbarity” by federal forces. One of the first messages came from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM), where two graduate students were gunned down by federal troops on Mar. 19 [see Update #1044]. (LJ 10/31/10)
*4. Brazil: Workers Party Holds on to Presidency
Voters chose Dilma Rousseff of the leftist Workers Party (PT) to be Brazil’s 36th president in a runoff election on Oct. 31. Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) president Ricardo Lewandowski said in a press conference in the early evening that Rousseff’s victory was now mathematically certain. With 93.25% of the ballots counted, Rousseff had won 55.43% of the valid votes to 44.57% for José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB); the two candidates had led in the first round on Oct. 3. More than 93 million Brazilians participated in the Oct. 31 voting.
Rousseff, whose four-year term begins on Jan. 1, will succeed fellow PT member Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who remains popular after serving two consecutive terms. She will be the country’s first woman president. (Prensa Latina 10/31/10)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti
Hunger Strikes Across Latin America Fuelled by Institutional Deafness
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2756-hunger-strikes-across-latin-america-fuelled-by-institutional-deafness-
Former Argentine President Néstor Kirchner Dies Of A Heart Attack
http://latindispatch.com/2010/10/28/former-argentine-president-nestor-kirchner-dies-of-a-heart-attack/
Argentina: Kirchner's Death Raises Questions About President Fernández
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2757-argentina-kirchners-death-raises-questions-about-president-fernandez-
Peru: New Leftwing Mayor of Lima to Face Uphill Task
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2758-peru-new-leftwing-mayor-of-lima-to-face-uphill-task-
Venezuela Proposes Free Movement and Residency in South America
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5743
Venezuelan Unions March to Control Companies, Throw Out “Reformist” State Management
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5744
The Drug War: Towards a 'Plan Central America'
https://nacla.org/node/6784
Obama Administration Continues to Disregard Congressional Concern for Human Rights, Democracy in Honduras
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/obama-continues-to-disregard-human-rights-violations-in-honduras
Photo Essay: K’iche’ People in Guatemala Reject Exploitation of their Natural Resources
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/2751-photo-essay-kiche-people-in-guatemala-reject-exploitation-of-their-natural-resources
Mexico: narco-massacre in Nayarit
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9209
Mexico: police rescue 23 Central American migrants abducted for ransom
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9212
Mexico: another narco-massacre...
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9209#comment-322279
Uphold Human Rights, Halt Drug War Aid to Mexican Security Forces
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3475
Justo Castigo in Oaxaca: Political Murders, Drug Murders, or Retributive Justice?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2752-justo-castigo-in-oaxaca-political-murders-drug-murders-or-retributive-justice
Frente Auténtico Del Trabajo (FAT) Wins Election at UE Sister Shop
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=177#1187
One Year Later: Mexican Electrical Workers Continue Battle for Jobs
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna_articles.php?id=177#1191
Two Worlds Collide at Cancun Climate Talks
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3486
UN investigates cholera spread in Haiti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk-2HyQHUZ0&feature=player_embedded
Ideological dogmatism and United States policy toward Haiti
http://anthropologyworks.com/?p=2869
Sweatshops Over Homes in Haiti
https://nacla.org/node/6781
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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