Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1153, November 25, 2012
1. Latin America: Leaders and Movements Protest Attack on Gaza
2. Argentina: Unions Call First General Strike in 10 Years
3. Mexico: Torture and Disappearances Are on the Rise
4. US: SOA Protests Continue; Church Expels Activist Priest
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, Trade
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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Latin America: Leaders and Movements Protest Attack on Gaza
In a Nov. 17 statement the leaders of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), a trade bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay (suspended), Uruguay and Venezuela, expressed their “strongest condemnation of the violence unleashed between Israel and Palestine” and their “concern with the disproportionate use of force” since Israel began a military offensive against Gaza on Nov. 14. Mercosur also expressed “its support to the request from the state of Palestine to obtain the status of [United Nations] observer member.”
The four active Mercosur members are among the 11 Latin American countries that have recognized Palestine as a state [see Update #1063]; the others are Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru. Mercosur signed a “free trade” agreement with the Palestinian National Authority in December 2011; it signed a similar trade agreement with Israel in 2007, a move opposed by many leftists, who feel cutting off trade with Mercosur would put pressure on the Israeli government. Israel’s annual exports to Mercosur are worth about $700 million; Brazil by itself is the third largest recipient of Israeli exports in the world. (MercoPress (Montevideo) 11/17/12; Aporrea.org (Venezuela) 11/19/12; People’s Daily (China) 11/21/12)
[Paraguay was suspended from Mercosur after the legislature's sudden impeachment of President Fernando Lugo on June 22 but remains a member; see Update #1135.]
Some Latin American leaders were stronger than others in their condemnation of the Israeli operation, codenamed “Pillar of Defense,” which was suspended in a ceasefire agreement on Nov. 21. On Nov. 19 Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said “the first step” for resolving the conflict “should be the creation of a free and independent Palestinian state that can negotiate peace as an equal with the state of Israel.” Also on Nov. 19, El Salvador’s governing leftist party, the Farabundo Martí Front for National Liberation (FMLN), condemned the offensive as a “new massacre…against the people of Palestine” and charged that Israel had provoked the conflict. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez had characterized “Pillar of Defense” as “savage” a few days earlier, while the Cuban government repeated its “most firm support for the just cause of the Palestinian people and their inalienable rights, which include the creation of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
“[W]e back the right of the Palestinian people to be able to have their own free, independent and autonomous state,” Chile’s rightwing president, Sebastián Piñera, said during a visit to Turkey on Nov. 19, but he stressed that Chile “also support[s] Israel’s right to count on secure borders in peace.” According to the Spanish wire service EFE, Chile has the largest Palestinian community outside the Middle East.
Many groups in the region held protests against the Israeli offensive. About 30 Uruguayans demonstrated in Montevideo on Nov. 19 in front of the Israeli embassy, calling Israel a “genocidal state.” Dozens of members of the Salvadoran Palestinian Association and other organizations protested the same day in front of the Israeli embassy in El Salvador. (EFE 11/19/12 via Diario de Yucatán (Mexico))
A Mexican group protested at the Angel of Independence in Mexico City on Nov. 20, and another demonstration was held in front of the Israeli embassy. Activists were planning a further show of support for the Palestinians in front of the United Nations (UN) office in Mexico City on Nov. 27, two days before Palestinian National Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is scheduled to ask the UN General Assembly for observer status for Palestine. (Adital (Brazil) 11/22/12) Hundreds of Colombians and resident Palestinians demonstrated at the Israeli embassy in Bogotá on Nov. 20; the protest tied up traffic in the city center for about two hours. A protest in Managua the next day by Nicaraguans, resident Palestinians and US citizen Nan McCurry targeted the US embassy. “I’m asking the government of my country to stop supporting Israel so that this war will end immediately,” McCurry said in a brief speech. (People’s Daily 11/21/12, 11/21/12)
A number of Arab and Palestinian groups, with the support of Brazil’s Unified Workers’ Central (CUT), are holding a Free Palestine World Social Forum in Porto Alegre in southern Brazil from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1. The goal is “to consolidate and strengthen the international solidarity movement for the rights of the Palestinians.” (Adital (Brazil) 11/20/12)
*2. Argentina: Unions Call First General Strike in 10 Years
Argentina’s largest union federation, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), and the more radical Federation of Argentine Workers (CTA) sponsored a nationwide general strike on Nov. 20 to protest President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s economic policies. The majority of the country’s unions supported the strike call, as did leftist parties and the leftist Classist and Combative Current (CCC), but the CGT section led by Antonio Caló, representing 33 industrial and service unions, ignored the strike call. Organizers called the action a success, while President Fernández dismissed it as “a phenomenon limited to some service unions and to the area around the federal capital.”
The strikers blocked the main highways into Buenos Aires and other major cities. Schools, courts, banks and gas stations were closed in Buenos Aires province, where about a third of the country’s population lives, and hospitals only accepted emergency cases. In the central province of Santa Fe, the strike shut down Rosario, the main port for the export of agricultural goods; oil production was affected in Río Negro, Neuquén and La Pampa provinces. Airports remained open but had many less flights than usual.
In addition to blocking roads, strikers reportedly threw stones at buses and punctured tires to keep people from going to work. CTA Pablo Micheli leader said strikers had blocked roads at 300 points; the media estimated that the number was 160. While claiming that hundreds of thousands of workers supported the strike, Micheli admitted that without the blockages “the strike wouldn’t have had the rate of observation that it had.” “[I]n Argentina there’s no right to strike,” he said. “We were forced to have piquetes [militant road blockages] so that the workers could justify not having gone to their work places.”
The strikers’ demands included an increase in the minimum wage and in social assistance programs; the elimination of a tax on workers’ incomes; and an increase in retirement pensions. The groups supporting the strike protested the loss of purchasing power by much of the population; some private economists claim the annual inflation rate will come to 25% this year.
The Nov. 20 action was Argentina’s first general strike since December 2002, and it marked the end of a long-time alliance between CGT general secretary Hugo Moyano and the faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) formed by President Fernández and her late husband, former president Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) [see Update #988]. (Terra.es (Spain) 11/21/12 from Europa Press and unidentified wire services;La Jornada (Mexico) 11/21/12 from correspondent)
*3. Mexico: Torture and Disappearances Are on the Rise
Complaints about abuses by Mexican police and soldiers have increased dramatically over the past seven years, according to testimony by Raúl Plascencia Villanueva, the president of the government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), to the Mexican Senate’s Human Rights Commission on Nov. 21. Plascencia was reporting principally on the period from Jan. 1, 2005 to July 31, 2012, which overlaps the administration of President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and his militarization of the “war on drugs.” Calderón took office on Dec. 1, 2006; he will be succeeded this Dec. 1 by Enrique Peña Nieto.
During the 2005-2012 period the CNDH received 5,568 complaints about alleged failures to follow required procedures in issuing or executing warrants for searches, Plascencia said. The agency is also investigating 2,126 cases of people who were reportedly disappeared. There were more than 9,000 complaints citing arbitrary detentions, a 121% increase during the period. In 2005 there was only one complaint of torture; in 2011 the number of complaints about torture or other cruel and degrading treatment had risen to 2,040. Since 2005 the CNDH has received a total of 34,385 complaints against federal public servants, with an 84% increase just in the last three years. The alleged abuses were “mainly concentrated under the headings of illegal searches, forcible disappearances, arbitrary detentions, executions and torture,” Plascencia said. (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/22/12)
On Nov. 21 Guerrero governor Angel Aguirre Rivero publicly apologized at a ceremony in Acapulco for the deaths of two students and a gas station worker during a confrontation on Dec. 12, 2011 between police and students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers’ College, located in the Guerrero village of Ayotzinapa. The apology was in response to a March recommendation by the CNDH, which also required compensation for the victims’ families and for people injured in the incident [see Update #1123]. Víctor Hugo Pérez, human rights director for the federal Public Security Secretariat (SSP), was also present to offer his “profound and heartfelt apology” for the role of federal police agents in the confrontation.
The brother of the gas station worker was the only relative of a victim to attend. The other families and students from the college boycotted the ceremony; instead, they held a press conference where they demanded punishment for the officials they say are responsible for the killings. State police agents Ismael Matadamas Salinas and Rey David Cortés Flores are the only suspects detained in the case, although the Guerrero legislature is considering a petition for lifting the immunity of former state chief prosecutor Guerrero Alberto López Rosas and former state public security secretary Ramón Almonte Borja. (LJ 11/20/12, 11/22/12)
*4. US: SOA Protests Continue; Church Expels Activist Priest
The 22nd annual protest against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), brought several thousand activists to the Army's Fort Benning base in Columbus, Georgia, for a series of events from Nov. 16 to Nov. 18. One demonstrator, Robert Norman Chantal of Americus, Georgia, was arrested when he climbed over the base's fence during the concluding event, a symbolic funeral march, on Nov. 18. He was released later on his own recognizance, according to a Fort Benning representative. Chantal, who faces a possible six-month sentence, will be tried in a US District Court on Jan. 9.
The protest’s sponsor, SOA Watch, opposes the US Army’s training of Latin American soldiers, charging that SOA graduates have been among the region’s most notorious human rights violators. The group’s protests have gained some sympathy in Latin America: Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela have ended their relations with the school, and in September Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega told a human rights delegation that Nicaragua will withdraw from SOA/WHINSEC [see Update #1144]. There may also some movement in US ruling circles. On Nov. 14 Denis McDonough, national deputy security adviser to US president Barack Obama, met with an SOA Watch delegation; the group asked for the school to be shut down by executive order. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) is planning to introduce legislation in Congress in January to suspend operations at the school and investigate human rights abuses in Latin America. (SOA Watch press release 11/18/12; Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer 11/18/12)
On Nov. 19, the day after this year’s protests, the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a Catholic religious order, issued a statement confirming that the Vatican was dismissing SOA Watch’s founder, Father Roy Bourgeois, from the priesthood and from his order for participating in an August 2008 rite ordaining a woman as a priest. Bourgeois said that the dismissal was “very difficult and painful” but that his “only regret is that it took me so long to confront the issue of male power and domination in the Catholic Church.” (Religion News Service 11/21/12 via Washington Post)
The Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH) responded to the decision with a statement noting Bourgeois’ solidarity with Hondurans after the June 2009 military coup and praising him as “a humanist, a tireless fighter for the imparting of justice, a defender of the poor and a companion to social struggles throughout the continent.” (Adital (Brazil) 11/23/12) Bourgeois’ supporters have started an online petition at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=11972 where people can express their solidarity with his “decision to follow his conscience.”
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, Trade
#Radical Media: Communication Unbound (Latin America)
http://nacla.org/news/2012/11/20/radical-media-communication-unbound
Latin America’s Left Turn Collides with Indigenous Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3974-latin-americas-left-turn-collides-with-indigenous-movements
Argentina fights US order to pay $1.33 billion debt
http://ww4report.com/node/11719
Industrial Soy and Sugar Cane Fuel Native Land Conflicts in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/3978-industrial-soy-and-sugar-cane-fuel-native-land-conflicts-in-brazil
Brazil: crime wars rock Sao Paulo
http://ww4report.com/node/11728
Brazil: Amazon native killed by federal police
http://ww4report.com/node/11727
Brazil: violence halts work at Belo Monte dam
http://ww4report.com/node/11726
Bolivia: dissent over indigenous identity in census
http://ww4report.com/node/11725
Peru: Amazonian leaders press land demarcation
http://ww4report.com/node/11724
Peru: campesino alliance with "illegal" miners
http://ww4report.com/node/11723
Colombia: indigenous peace proposal advanced
http://ww4report.com/node/11722
Colombia rejects Hague ruling in Nicaragua maritime dispute
http://ww4report.com/node/11729
Mass Participation in Debate on Venezuela’s Socialist Plan
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7498
EL Salvador: Proposed Culture Law Would Provide Healthcare and Funding for Artists
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3985-el-salvador-proposed-culture-law-would-provide-healthcare-and-funding-for-artists
Murders of Teenagers and Opposition Party Members Underscore Impunity in Honduras and the Failure of U.S. “Vetting”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3977-murders-of-teenagers-and-opposition-party-members-underscore-impunity-in-honduras-and-the-failure-of-us-vetting
Honduras’ Party Primaries: Voters Went to the Polls, But Can Next Year’s Elections be “Free and Fair”?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/honduras-party-primaries-voters-went-to-the-polls-but-can-next-years-elections-be-free-and-fair
Action Alert! Protect Pacific Resistance in San José del Golfo, Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3983-action-alert-protect-pacific-resistance-in-san-jose-del-golfo-guatemala
Canadian Mining on Trial (Guatemala)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3980-canadian-mining-on-trial
Guatemala’s ‘Little School of the Americas’
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3976-guatemalas-little-school-of-the-americas
Should Chiapas Farmers Suffer for California’s Carbon? (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3975-should-chiapas-farmers-suffer-for-californias-carbon
War or Peace in Mexico?
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2012/11/24/war-or-peace-in-mexico/
Mexico: pressure mounts for drug legalization
http://ww4report.com/node/11730
Returning Migrant Children Pose Educational Challenge in Mexico
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/11/returning-migrant-children-pose-educational-challenge-in-mexico.php
The Caribbean’s Agricultural Crisis
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/23/caribbean%E2%80%99s-agricultural-crisis
Cholera Continues to Spread After Hurricane Sandy (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/cholera-continues-to-spread-after-hurricane-sandy
Quebec fracking ban challenged under NAFTA
http://ww4report.com/node/11731
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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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/
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Monday, 7 May 2012
WNU #1128: Latin American May 1 Demos Focus on Minimum Wage
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1128, May 6, 2012
1. Latin America: May 1 Demonstrations Focus on Minimum Wage
2. Mexico: Unions Hold “Last May Day of the PAN Era”
3. Haiti: Sweatshops Raise Wages on May 1--for One Day
4. Nicaragua: Last of the FSLN’s Founders Dies
5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Immigration
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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Latin America: May 1 Demonstrations Focus on Minimum Wage
Many of the traditional celebrations of International Workers Day on May 1 this year had the minimum wage as a central theme—in some cases because governments marked the occasion by increasing wages, in other cases because the governments refused to do so.
Between 40,000 and 100,000 Chileans marched in Santiago on May 1 in a demonstration organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT) and bringing together unionists and protesters from the student movement [see Update #1127]. CUT president Arturo Martínez called for “a real minimum wage, which this year should reach 250,000 pesos” a month (about $520). According to Labor Minister Evelyn Matthei this “isn’t possible”; she claimed it would cause an increase in unemployment. As frequently happens in Chile, violence broke out at the end of the peaceful protest: some 200 hooded youths threw rocks at police agents, journalists and other demonstrators. Six agents from the carabineros militarized police were reportedly injured and some 20 people were arrested.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s industrial center, unionists marched for a 40-hour week and for lower rates of interest on loans; labor leaders claimed a victory in center-left president Dilma Rousseff’s call the day before for banks to make credit more accessible. The Força Sindical labor confederation claimed that one million people participated in the day’s events. In Sao Luís in the northeastern state of Maranhao, unionists protested the murder of journalist Décio Sa, the fourth reporter to be killed in Brazil this year. (EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre (Dominican Republic); La Jornada (Mexico) 5/2/12 from AFP, DPA, PL, Xinhua, Notimex, correspondent)
In Bolivia President Evo Morales marked May 1 by renationalizing the country’s main electric grid, which was privatized in 1997. Morales promised to work out a compensation arrangement within 180 days with the current owner, Empresa Transportadora de Electricidad, a subsidiary of the Spanish company Red Eléctrica de España, S.A. The Spanish government was clearly upset by the takeover, which followed just two weeks after the Argentine government announced its plan to renationalize the oil company YPF SA from Spain’s Repsol [see Update #1126]. Morales’ move “is sending a negative message that generates distrust,” Spanish ambassador Ramon Santos told reporters. Ironically, the power grid was already partially nationalized—to the Spanish government, which owns 20% of Red Eléctrica de España.
Morales has used May Day for similar announcements in the past: he started the process of nationalizing the oil and gas sector on May 1 in 2006, and in 2008 he chose May 1 to announce that the nationalization of the main phone company, Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Entel), had been completed. (AP 5/1/12 via El Paso (Texas) Times; Adital (Brazil) 5/2/12)
Peruvian president Ollanta Humala and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez both announced raises in the monthly minimum wage on May 1—from 675 soles ($253.70) to 750 soles ($281.90) in Peru and from 1,548.22 bolívares ($360) to 2,047 bolívares ($476) in Venezuela. Chávez’s government also reduced the work week from 44 hours to 40 hours, while Humala promised to fight against child labor and the disparity in wages between men and women.
In Colombia, Tarsicio Mora, president of the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), charged that six unionists have been murdered so far this year and that the number has reached 3,000 for the past 15 years, making “Colombia the most dangerous country for carrying out union activities.” Some 64 people were arrested in Bogotá for carrying objects that the authorities said might be used to disrupt the official ceremony, at which President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree regulating teletrabajo (work outside the office via telecommunications) and expressed sorrow that the killing of unionists was continuing. (EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre; LJ 5/2/12 from AFP, DPA, PL, Xinhua, Notimex, correspondent)
Hundreds of thousands of Cuban workers marched in Havana on May 1, along with a total of 1,700 unionists from 117 other countries, but the demonstration was unusually short, just one hour. The ceremony included an announcement by Salvador Valdés, head of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC), that there will be no increase in wages until the country has managed to eliminate subsidies and reduce public sector employment. Until now the trend has been to link wages to productivity. In 2010 the government reported a a 4.2% increase in productivity and a 4.4% increase in the median wage; in 2011, the increase in productivity was 2.8% and the wage increase was 2.7%.
The austerity measure is in line with a radical economic restructuring plan, announced in September 2010, to eliminate 500,000 jobs in state enterprises while building up the private sector [see Update #1057]. The CTC said that 140,000 public sector jobs were eliminated in 2011, somewhat short of the goal of 170,000 layoffs for the year. According to the Labor and Social Security Minister, as of February the country had 371,200 micro-enterprises; the government hopes they will absorb the laid-off state employees. (LJ 5/2/12 from correspondent)
*2. Mexico: Unions Hold “Last May Day of the PAN Era”
Left-leaning independent unions dominated celebrations of International Workers Day in Mexico on May 1, while some centrist labor federations decided not to hold marches, reportedly because of concern over security. Tens of thousands of unionists, campesinos and other activists participated in the independent unions’ annual march to Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo; the left-leaning daily La Jornada reported that more unions and more unionists took part than in previous years.
The demonstration was largely a repudiation of what participants called the “PRI-AN”: the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which controlled the national government and most state governments from 1929 to 2000, and the center-right National Action Party (PAN), which has held the presidency since 2000. Speakers called for a “punishment vote” against both parties in the presidential and national elections on July 1 and referred to this year’s demonstration as “the last Labor Day march of the PANista era.” Martín Esparza, secretary general of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) [see Update #1097], called for unionists to back center-left presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “the only one who has made commitments to the working class.” Esparza denounced the National Electoral Institute, which controls the electoral process, and called for workers to prevent electoral fraud by forming a “parallel IFE.” López Obrador lost to current president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa in 2006 by very narrow margin in the official tally. (La Jornada 5/2/12; EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre (Dominican Republic))
The end of the PAN’s control of the presidency this year seems inevitable. According to a poll by the GEA-ISA group published in the daily Milenio, PRI presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto leads with 47.3% of the preferences of voters who have made up their minds. PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota trailed with 27.3%, followed closely by López Obrador, running for a coalition that includes the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), with 24%. About 25.6% of voters remain undecided, according to the survey, based on face-to-face polling of 1,152 Mexicans from May 3 to May 5. (Milenio 5/5/12)
The “PANista era” may already be over on the labor front. During the past six years two successive PAN administrations have tried to remove Napoleón Gómez Urrutia from his post as the general secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) see Update #1106]. In 2006 the government of then-president Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) charged Gómez Urrutia in a $55 million corruption case involving union funds, and in 2008 Calderón’s administration overturned his reelection as SNTMMSRM general secretary. Gómez Urrutia has been living in exile in Vancouver since 2006.
But the fight against the union leader collapsed this spring. On Apr. 24 Mexicans learned that Judge Manuel Bárcena Villanueva in Mexico City had quashed the warrant for Gómez Urrutia’s arrest, and on May 2 a panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) upheld a lower court ruling that the government exceeded its authority in nullifying the union’s elections. Gómez Urrutia will return to Mexico shortly, according to his lawyer. (Milenio 4/24/12; LJ 5/3/12, 5/4/12)
*3. Haiti: Sweatshops Raise Wages on May 1--for One Day
About 100 Haitian unionists and activists observed International Workers Day on May 1 with a march in Port-au-Prince to demand better wages and conditions for the country’s assembly workers, who mainly produce apparel for sale in North America. Groups organizing the march included the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), the leftist workers’ organization Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), the Women’s Network of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI) and the Mobilization Collective for Compensation for Cholera Victims (Komodevik). SOTA and Batay Ouvriye have been working since the fall to organize assembly plant workers in the capital [see Update #1108].
The march started at the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi), a “free trade zone” (FTZ) for assembly plants near the airport in the north of Port-au-Prince; the protesters then proceeded to the Parliament downtown; the day’s slogan was “Work yes, slavery no.” Despite the small size of the demonstration, plant managers took measures to keep assembly workers from joining the march. The managers threatened the workers with firing if they left the plants, and paid them 500 gourdes (about $11.80) for staying on the job during the day. [In August 2009 thousands of Sonapi workers walked off the job to join marches for a daily minimum wage of 200 gourdes (about $2.95); see Update #1001.]
Guy Numa, a member of the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), which helped organize the march, noted that in 2009 the factory owners said they couldn’t afford an increased minimum wage. “These bosses, who did everything they could to block the vote on the 200 gourde minimum wage [back then], are proving on this May Day that they can pay as much as 500 gourdes,” he said. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/30/12, 5/2/12)
On May 3 Commerce and Industry Minister Wilson Laleau was working to interest Chinese, Dominican and US investors in a massive FTZ being built in the Northeast department, the Caracol Industrial Park (PIC) [see Update #1112]. The authorities say the plants at the new park will eventually create 65,000 jobs.
At a press conference that day Laleau admitted that there were problems with the project, which is being promoted by the US government and international agencies, but added that “the positive impacts should largely compensate for the negative impacts.” He was asked about plans for housing, since exaggerated promises of assembly plant jobs in the 1970s and 1980s had led job seekers to move into the Cité Soleil commune near the factories in the north of Port-au-Prince; the result was a huge, overcrowded neighborhood with substandard housing and virtually no public services. Laleau answered that the housing situation was being studied and the results would be released in June. “[I]t is out of the question that what happened around the Port-au-Prince industrial park should be reproduced at Caracol,” he promised. (AlterPresse 5/4/12)
*4. Nicaragua: Last of the FSLN’s Founders Dies
Nicaraguan revolutionary Tomás Borge Martínez died in a Managua military hospital on Apr. 30 at age 81 from pneumonia and other health problems. He was the last surviving member of the small group, including Carlos Fonseca Amador, that founded the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1961. At the time of his death he was serving as Nicaragua’s ambassador to Peru.
Born to a poor family in Matagalpa, Borge left university studies in the 1950s to fight against the Somoza family dictatorship. He was imprisoned in the 1970s but was freed as a result of the FSLN’s dramatic seizure of the National Palace in August 1978. After the triumph of the revolution in 1979, Borge served as interior minister, controlling various police agencies and the prison system. During those years he was accused of numerous human rights violations. Indigenous Miskitos charged that he engineered a policy of displacement and murders against rebels on the Atlantic Coast; others accused him of ordering the killing of 37 imprisoned opponents in Granada, a charge which Borge always denied. He was also accused of enriching himself from government funds after the FSLN was voted out of office in 1990.
“They only remember the errors we committed, like establishing press censorship, which at this point I think was an error,” he said in an interview that he gave many years later to the conservative daily La Prensa, which the FSLN government closed down temporarily in the 1980s. Nobody remembered the improvements he made in prison conditions, Borge said, adding that the policies he implemented as interior minister were collectively decided on by the FSLN’s nine-member National Directorate.
When the FSLN began to split in the 1990s, Borge sided with the faction headed by current Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, while many of his friends joined opposition factions and eventually left the party. Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli, who quit the FSLN, is widely quoted as saying that Borge “ended up as a tragicomic figure” during this period. But after his death Belli wrote: “What remains of Tomás for me is affection… I am sure that Tomás loved the idea of the Revolution as much as any of us who lived to make it and to see it triumph. Who of us who lived in that time can say that we managed to live and be the ideal person that we dreamed of?” (AP 5/1/12 via La Prensa (Nicaragua); El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua) 5/1/12, 5/3/12)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Immigration
South American Fiber Optic Ring
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3609-south-american-fiber-optic-ring
The Washington Post’s Flimsy Critique of Argentina
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/2/washington-posts-flimsy-denunciation-argentina
The Right to Memory in Chile: An Interview with Erika Hennings, President of Londres 38
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3618-the-right-to-memory-in-chile-an-interview-with-erika-hennings-president-of-londres-38
Chilean Supreme Court Red Lights Goldcorp Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3607-chilean-supreme-court-red-lights-goldcorp-mine
Amazon Indians’ Fishing Ritual Brought to Halt in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3610-amazon-indians-fishing-ritual-brought-to-halt
Scientist Calls Peru Conga Mining Project an ‘Environmental Disaster:’ Interview with Reinhard Seifert
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3608-scientist-calls-peru-conga-mining-project-an-environmental-disaster-interview-with-reinhard-seifert
Venezuela's Inflation Falls for 5 Months in a Row
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6970
El Salvador: Court Deliberates on Constitutionality of Military Appointments
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3612-el-salvador-court-deliberates-on-constitutionality-of-military-appointments
Drug Plane "Forced" to Land!? (Honduras)
http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2012/05/drug-plane-forced-to-land.html
Guatemala: Decriminalization? Don't Believe the Hype
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3606-guatemala-decriminalization-dont-believe-the-hype
Iron Fist Cracks Down on Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3613-iron-fist-cracks-down-on-guatemala
Mexico approves law to aid victims of narco violence
http://ww4report.com/node/11057
"Black Friday" in Nuevo Laredo: 23 dead
http://ww4report.com/node/11061
Mexico: Calderón Government Monitoring Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity Leaders
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3611-mexico-calderon-government-monitoring-movement-for-peace-with-justice-and-dignity-leaders-
Haiti’s Hotel Boom: Progress or Trickledown Economics?
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/4/haiti%E2%80%99s-hotel-boom-progress-or-trickledown-economics
A Dangerously Slippery Slope: Drones and the Dream of Remote Control in the Borderlands
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/3/dangerously-slippery-slope-drones-and-dream-remote-control-borderlands
May Day heralds revived movement —but wingnuts (or provocateurs?) mar some marches (Argentina, Chile, Peru, Cuba, US)
http://ww4report.com/node/11051
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1128, May 6, 2012
1. Latin America: May 1 Demonstrations Focus on Minimum Wage
2. Mexico: Unions Hold “Last May Day of the PAN Era”
3. Haiti: Sweatshops Raise Wages on May 1--for One Day
4. Nicaragua: Last of the FSLN’s Founders Dies
5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Immigration
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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. Latin America: May 1 Demonstrations Focus on Minimum Wage
Many of the traditional celebrations of International Workers Day on May 1 this year had the minimum wage as a central theme—in some cases because governments marked the occasion by increasing wages, in other cases because the governments refused to do so.
Between 40,000 and 100,000 Chileans marched in Santiago on May 1 in a demonstration organized by the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT) and bringing together unionists and protesters from the student movement [see Update #1127]. CUT president Arturo Martínez called for “a real minimum wage, which this year should reach 250,000 pesos” a month (about $520). According to Labor Minister Evelyn Matthei this “isn’t possible”; she claimed it would cause an increase in unemployment. As frequently happens in Chile, violence broke out at the end of the peaceful protest: some 200 hooded youths threw rocks at police agents, journalists and other demonstrators. Six agents from the carabineros militarized police were reportedly injured and some 20 people were arrested.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s industrial center, unionists marched for a 40-hour week and for lower rates of interest on loans; labor leaders claimed a victory in center-left president Dilma Rousseff’s call the day before for banks to make credit more accessible. The Força Sindical labor confederation claimed that one million people participated in the day’s events. In Sao Luís in the northeastern state of Maranhao, unionists protested the murder of journalist Décio Sa, the fourth reporter to be killed in Brazil this year. (EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre (Dominican Republic); La Jornada (Mexico) 5/2/12 from AFP, DPA, PL, Xinhua, Notimex, correspondent)
In Bolivia President Evo Morales marked May 1 by renationalizing the country’s main electric grid, which was privatized in 1997. Morales promised to work out a compensation arrangement within 180 days with the current owner, Empresa Transportadora de Electricidad, a subsidiary of the Spanish company Red Eléctrica de España, S.A. The Spanish government was clearly upset by the takeover, which followed just two weeks after the Argentine government announced its plan to renationalize the oil company YPF SA from Spain’s Repsol [see Update #1126]. Morales’ move “is sending a negative message that generates distrust,” Spanish ambassador Ramon Santos told reporters. Ironically, the power grid was already partially nationalized—to the Spanish government, which owns 20% of Red Eléctrica de España.
Morales has used May Day for similar announcements in the past: he started the process of nationalizing the oil and gas sector on May 1 in 2006, and in 2008 he chose May 1 to announce that the nationalization of the main phone company, Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (Entel), had been completed. (AP 5/1/12 via El Paso (Texas) Times; Adital (Brazil) 5/2/12)
Peruvian president Ollanta Humala and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez both announced raises in the monthly minimum wage on May 1—from 675 soles ($253.70) to 750 soles ($281.90) in Peru and from 1,548.22 bolívares ($360) to 2,047 bolívares ($476) in Venezuela. Chávez’s government also reduced the work week from 44 hours to 40 hours, while Humala promised to fight against child labor and the disparity in wages between men and women.
In Colombia, Tarsicio Mora, president of the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), charged that six unionists have been murdered so far this year and that the number has reached 3,000 for the past 15 years, making “Colombia the most dangerous country for carrying out union activities.” Some 64 people were arrested in Bogotá for carrying objects that the authorities said might be used to disrupt the official ceremony, at which President Juan Manuel Santos signed a decree regulating teletrabajo (work outside the office via telecommunications) and expressed sorrow that the killing of unionists was continuing. (EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre; LJ 5/2/12 from AFP, DPA, PL, Xinhua, Notimex, correspondent)
Hundreds of thousands of Cuban workers marched in Havana on May 1, along with a total of 1,700 unionists from 117 other countries, but the demonstration was unusually short, just one hour. The ceremony included an announcement by Salvador Valdés, head of the Cuban Workers’ Confederation (CTC), that there will be no increase in wages until the country has managed to eliminate subsidies and reduce public sector employment. Until now the trend has been to link wages to productivity. In 2010 the government reported a a 4.2% increase in productivity and a 4.4% increase in the median wage; in 2011, the increase in productivity was 2.8% and the wage increase was 2.7%.
The austerity measure is in line with a radical economic restructuring plan, announced in September 2010, to eliminate 500,000 jobs in state enterprises while building up the private sector [see Update #1057]. The CTC said that 140,000 public sector jobs were eliminated in 2011, somewhat short of the goal of 170,000 layoffs for the year. According to the Labor and Social Security Minister, as of February the country had 371,200 micro-enterprises; the government hopes they will absorb the laid-off state employees. (LJ 5/2/12 from correspondent)
*2. Mexico: Unions Hold “Last May Day of the PAN Era”
Left-leaning independent unions dominated celebrations of International Workers Day in Mexico on May 1, while some centrist labor federations decided not to hold marches, reportedly because of concern over security. Tens of thousands of unionists, campesinos and other activists participated in the independent unions’ annual march to Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo; the left-leaning daily La Jornada reported that more unions and more unionists took part than in previous years.
The demonstration was largely a repudiation of what participants called the “PRI-AN”: the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which controlled the national government and most state governments from 1929 to 2000, and the center-right National Action Party (PAN), which has held the presidency since 2000. Speakers called for a “punishment vote” against both parties in the presidential and national elections on July 1 and referred to this year’s demonstration as “the last Labor Day march of the PANista era.” Martín Esparza, secretary general of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) [see Update #1097], called for unionists to back center-left presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, “the only one who has made commitments to the working class.” Esparza denounced the National Electoral Institute, which controls the electoral process, and called for workers to prevent electoral fraud by forming a “parallel IFE.” López Obrador lost to current president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa in 2006 by very narrow margin in the official tally. (La Jornada 5/2/12; EFE 5/1/12 via Diario Libre (Dominican Republic))
The end of the PAN’s control of the presidency this year seems inevitable. According to a poll by the GEA-ISA group published in the daily Milenio, PRI presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto leads with 47.3% of the preferences of voters who have made up their minds. PAN candidate Josefina Vázquez Mota trailed with 27.3%, followed closely by López Obrador, running for a coalition that includes the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), with 24%. About 25.6% of voters remain undecided, according to the survey, based on face-to-face polling of 1,152 Mexicans from May 3 to May 5. (Milenio 5/5/12)
The “PANista era” may already be over on the labor front. During the past six years two successive PAN administrations have tried to remove Napoleón Gómez Urrutia from his post as the general secretary of the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM) see Update #1106]. In 2006 the government of then-president Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) charged Gómez Urrutia in a $55 million corruption case involving union funds, and in 2008 Calderón’s administration overturned his reelection as SNTMMSRM general secretary. Gómez Urrutia has been living in exile in Vancouver since 2006.
But the fight against the union leader collapsed this spring. On Apr. 24 Mexicans learned that Judge Manuel Bárcena Villanueva in Mexico City had quashed the warrant for Gómez Urrutia’s arrest, and on May 2 a panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) upheld a lower court ruling that the government exceeded its authority in nullifying the union’s elections. Gómez Urrutia will return to Mexico shortly, according to his lawyer. (Milenio 4/24/12; LJ 5/3/12, 5/4/12)
*3. Haiti: Sweatshops Raise Wages on May 1--for One Day
About 100 Haitian unionists and activists observed International Workers Day on May 1 with a march in Port-au-Prince to demand better wages and conditions for the country’s assembly workers, who mainly produce apparel for sale in North America. Groups organizing the march included the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), the leftist workers’ organization Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), the Women’s Network of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI) and the Mobilization Collective for Compensation for Cholera Victims (Komodevik). SOTA and Batay Ouvriye have been working since the fall to organize assembly plant workers in the capital [see Update #1108].
The march started at the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi), a “free trade zone” (FTZ) for assembly plants near the airport in the north of Port-au-Prince; the protesters then proceeded to the Parliament downtown; the day’s slogan was “Work yes, slavery no.” Despite the small size of the demonstration, plant managers took measures to keep assembly workers from joining the march. The managers threatened the workers with firing if they left the plants, and paid them 500 gourdes (about $11.80) for staying on the job during the day. [In August 2009 thousands of Sonapi workers walked off the job to join marches for a daily minimum wage of 200 gourdes (about $2.95); see Update #1001.]
Guy Numa, a member of the Popular Democratic Movement (MODEP), which helped organize the march, noted that in 2009 the factory owners said they couldn’t afford an increased minimum wage. “These bosses, who did everything they could to block the vote on the 200 gourde minimum wage [back then], are proving on this May Day that they can pay as much as 500 gourdes,” he said. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/30/12, 5/2/12)
On May 3 Commerce and Industry Minister Wilson Laleau was working to interest Chinese, Dominican and US investors in a massive FTZ being built in the Northeast department, the Caracol Industrial Park (PIC) [see Update #1112]. The authorities say the plants at the new park will eventually create 65,000 jobs.
At a press conference that day Laleau admitted that there were problems with the project, which is being promoted by the US government and international agencies, but added that “the positive impacts should largely compensate for the negative impacts.” He was asked about plans for housing, since exaggerated promises of assembly plant jobs in the 1970s and 1980s had led job seekers to move into the Cité Soleil commune near the factories in the north of Port-au-Prince; the result was a huge, overcrowded neighborhood with substandard housing and virtually no public services. Laleau answered that the housing situation was being studied and the results would be released in June. “[I]t is out of the question that what happened around the Port-au-Prince industrial park should be reproduced at Caracol,” he promised. (AlterPresse 5/4/12)
*4. Nicaragua: Last of the FSLN’s Founders Dies
Nicaraguan revolutionary Tomás Borge Martínez died in a Managua military hospital on Apr. 30 at age 81 from pneumonia and other health problems. He was the last surviving member of the small group, including Carlos Fonseca Amador, that founded the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1961. At the time of his death he was serving as Nicaragua’s ambassador to Peru.
Born to a poor family in Matagalpa, Borge left university studies in the 1950s to fight against the Somoza family dictatorship. He was imprisoned in the 1970s but was freed as a result of the FSLN’s dramatic seizure of the National Palace in August 1978. After the triumph of the revolution in 1979, Borge served as interior minister, controlling various police agencies and the prison system. During those years he was accused of numerous human rights violations. Indigenous Miskitos charged that he engineered a policy of displacement and murders against rebels on the Atlantic Coast; others accused him of ordering the killing of 37 imprisoned opponents in Granada, a charge which Borge always denied. He was also accused of enriching himself from government funds after the FSLN was voted out of office in 1990.
“They only remember the errors we committed, like establishing press censorship, which at this point I think was an error,” he said in an interview that he gave many years later to the conservative daily La Prensa, which the FSLN government closed down temporarily in the 1980s. Nobody remembered the improvements he made in prison conditions, Borge said, adding that the policies he implemented as interior minister were collectively decided on by the FSLN’s nine-member National Directorate.
When the FSLN began to split in the 1990s, Borge sided with the faction headed by current Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, while many of his friends joined opposition factions and eventually left the party. Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli, who quit the FSLN, is widely quoted as saying that Borge “ended up as a tragicomic figure” during this period. But after his death Belli wrote: “What remains of Tomás for me is affection… I am sure that Tomás loved the idea of the Revolution as much as any of us who lived to make it and to see it triumph. Who of us who lived in that time can say that we managed to live and be the ideal person that we dreamed of?” (AP 5/1/12 via La Prensa (Nicaragua); El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua) 5/1/12, 5/3/12)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Immigration
South American Fiber Optic Ring
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3609-south-american-fiber-optic-ring
The Washington Post’s Flimsy Critique of Argentina
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/2/washington-posts-flimsy-denunciation-argentina
The Right to Memory in Chile: An Interview with Erika Hennings, President of Londres 38
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3618-the-right-to-memory-in-chile-an-interview-with-erika-hennings-president-of-londres-38
Chilean Supreme Court Red Lights Goldcorp Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3607-chilean-supreme-court-red-lights-goldcorp-mine
Amazon Indians’ Fishing Ritual Brought to Halt in Brazil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3610-amazon-indians-fishing-ritual-brought-to-halt
Scientist Calls Peru Conga Mining Project an ‘Environmental Disaster:’ Interview with Reinhard Seifert
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3608-scientist-calls-peru-conga-mining-project-an-environmental-disaster-interview-with-reinhard-seifert
Venezuela's Inflation Falls for 5 Months in a Row
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6970
El Salvador: Court Deliberates on Constitutionality of Military Appointments
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3612-el-salvador-court-deliberates-on-constitutionality-of-military-appointments
Drug Plane "Forced" to Land!? (Honduras)
http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2012/05/drug-plane-forced-to-land.html
Guatemala: Decriminalization? Don't Believe the Hype
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3606-guatemala-decriminalization-dont-believe-the-hype
Iron Fist Cracks Down on Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3613-iron-fist-cracks-down-on-guatemala
Mexico approves law to aid victims of narco violence
http://ww4report.com/node/11057
"Black Friday" in Nuevo Laredo: 23 dead
http://ww4report.com/node/11061
Mexico: Calderón Government Monitoring Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity Leaders
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3611-mexico-calderon-government-monitoring-movement-for-peace-with-justice-and-dignity-leaders-
Haiti’s Hotel Boom: Progress or Trickledown Economics?
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/4/haiti%E2%80%99s-hotel-boom-progress-or-trickledown-economics
A Dangerously Slippery Slope: Drones and the Dream of Remote Control in the Borderlands
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/3/dangerously-slippery-slope-drones-and-dream-remote-control-borderlands
May Day heralds revived movement —but wingnuts (or provocateurs?) mar some marches (Argentina, Chile, Peru, Cuba, US)
http://ww4report.com/node/11051
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 23 April 2012
WNU #1126: Campesinos Hold Worldwide Day of Action
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1126, April 22, 2012
1. International: Campesinos Hold Worldwide Day of Action
2. Honduras: Thousands Occupy Land in Massive Agrarian Protest
3. Argentina: Government Plans to Re-Nationalize Oil Company
4. Mexico: Questions Surround 8 Deaths in Logging Dispute
5: Mexico: Counterinsurgency General Assassinated
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Caribbean, 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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. International: Campesinos Hold Worldwide Day of Action
Campesino groups around the world planned more than 250 activities to mark the International Day of Campesino Struggles on Apr. 17, according to the international rural workers movement Vía Campesina. The day of action--which was announced at the International Campesino Conference held in Mali last Nov. 14-17—was intended to bring attention to the need for carrying out agrarian reform, for stopping the concentration of land in the hands of wealthy landowners, and for maintaining agricultural production based on campesino farming and the principles of food sovereignty. A special focus this year was to be opposition to monoculture for export and to the production of bio-fuel crops.
The Apr. 17 activities were expected to range from marches and land occupations to conferences and photographic exhibits. Countries with participating groups included Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay, Indonesia, Mozambique, Canada, the US, France, Spain, Australia and the Palestinian territories.
Groups in Brazil got a head start on Apr. 16 when the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) occupied the Agrarian Development Ministry in Brasilia; a tax office in Cuiabá, capital of the western state of Mato Grosso; the headquarters of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), located in Rio de Janeiro; and an estate in the southern state of Río Grande do Sul. (Adital (Brazil) 4/17/12; TeleSUR 4/17/12)
In Haiti, more than 1,000 campesinos demonstrated on Apr. 17 in the town of Colladère, near Hinche in the Central Plateau, to demand agrarian reform and oppose the monopolization of land for biofuel production. The protest was organized by the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP), whose spokesperson, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, praised a model of biological agriculture which he said was able both to counteract global warming and to provide enough food for the world’s 7 billion inhabitants.
The group used the occasion to present what it called “the country’s first ecological village,” which houses 10 families that moved to the countryside after a January 2010 earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince and nearby cities. The homes were built using local materials, with financial aid from a US faith-based group, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City. Jean-Baptiste said the MPP plans to build a total of five of these villages for people displaced by the earthquake. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/17/12)
Campesinos groups chose Apr. 17 for the international day of action as a way of commemorating the massacre of 19 Brazilian campesinos on Apr. 17, 1996, when police attacked a demonstration by some 1,500 MST members in Eldorado dos Carajás in the northern state of Pará. All but two of the police agents involved were acquitted [see Updates #646, 847]. (Adital 4/17/12)
*2. Honduras: Thousands Occupy Land in Massive Agrarian Protest
In a dramatic show of force, more than 3,500 Honduran campesino families occupied land in estates in different parts of the country early in the morning of Apr. 17 to demand implementation of an effective national agrarian reform policy. The mobilization, the Honduran activity for the International Day of Campesino Struggles, was organized by a coalition of 10 campesino groups, including the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) and the Honduran branch of the international rural workers’ movement Vía Campesina. In a statement issued on Apr. 17, the organizers said protesters had occupied a total of 12,000 hectares in eight of the country’s 18 departments: Cortés, Yoro, Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, El Paraíso, Choluteca, Comayagua, and Francisco Morazán.
On Apr. 18 security forces dispersed the largest land occupation, at a 2,500-hectare estate operated by a sugar company in San Manuel, near San Pedro Sula in the northern department of Cortés. The campesinos, members of the San Manuel Campesino Movement (MOCSAM), left peacefully in the afternoon after a police contingent arrived with a court order.
The protest organizers said the lands the campesinos occupied either belonged to the government or were not “fulfilling a social function.” “The [Agrarian] Reform Law is clear and states that government lands are for the purposes of the Agrarian Reform,” the organizers said in their statement, but despite requests for these lands over the years with the National Agrarian Institute (INA), the government’s response had been “open repression, violent evictions, the imprisonment of campesinos and campesinas.” If the lands were turned over to the campesino families, they would produce “4 million quintales of corn, 1.5 million quintales of rice, and 800,000 quintales of beans for the food sovereignty of our people,” according to the statement. (A Honduran quintal is about 46 kg.) The protesters were also demanding passage of a law they proposed in October 2011 for “integral agrarian transformation.”
Government officials charged that the mass mobilization was politically motivated. But protesters dismissed the claim. “We aren’t criminals,” Marvin Morales, a schoolteacher and a leader in the San Manuel occupation, told a reporter, “and what has forced us to move into the land is hunger, not the influence of other political sectors.” (Communiqué from Honduran campesino goups 4/17/12, posted on Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular website; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 4/18/12; AP 4/19/12 via Fox News Latino)
On Apr. 19 thousands of students, unionists and others marched in various cities in a protest called by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) to protest increases in the price of fuel, basic foods, public transportation and public utilities. In Tegucigalpa a large march started from the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogic University (UPNFM) and moved to the center of the city, where a committee including activist leaders Juan Barahona and Carlos H. Reyes and former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales presented the National Congress with a list of popular demands. Thousands also marched in the industrial capital, the northern city of San Pedro Sula, and there were protests in El Paraíso, Juticalpa, Choluteca, La Ceiba, Santa Bárbara and Colón. (Red Morazánica de Información 4/19/12 via FNRP website)
*3. Argentina: Government Plans to Re-Nationalize Oil Company
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced on Apr. 16 that her government planned to take control of 51% of the shares in YPF SA, the country’s largest oil company. The Spanish company Repsol has had majority ownership of the Argentine company, formerly known as Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, since 1999. Later in the week the government took control of YPF Gas, which is also owned mostly by Repsol. A tribunal is to determine how much Argentina will pay in compensation to the companies' private shareholders.
A telephone survey conducted by Argentina’s Poliarquia polling institute and published on Apr. 22 by the daily La Nación found 26% of respondents strongly in favor of the move, with another 36% supporting it less strongly. (New York Times 4/17/12; AFP 4/22/12 via France24)
The plan to expropriate the company came in the midst of continuing economic instability in Europe, and the Spanish government reacted angrily to Argentina’s move. After an interview with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in Brussels on Apr. 19, Spanish foreign affairs minister José Manuel García-Margallo told a press conference that Spain and the US “are going to analyze the way in which it might be possible to collaborate together to restore international legality.” He said the two countries might work together in the World Bank, “in the International Monetary Fund [IMF], in the G-20 [Group of 20 major economies], in the Paris Club, in any other institution in which one could carry out an action to try to have the government of Argentina correct itself.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 4/20/12 from DPA)
The privatization of the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales was the most important element in the massive sell-off of government enterprises carried out by the government of former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) during an era of extreme neoliberal policies that ended with economic collapse in late 2001 and early 2002. The Menem government started by laying off 50,000 employees in four years. On Sept. 24, 1992, the Chamber of Deputies approved a law privatizing the firm, now named YPF SA, with majority control going to provincial governments. The private sector gradually bought more and more shares in the YPF until 1999, when Repsol obtained complete control. Later the Petersen Group, headed by Argentine entrepreneur Enrique Eskenazi, acquired about 25%.
The decision to re-nationalize the company has a number of ironies. President Fernández’s general secretary of the presidency, Oscar Parrilli, was a promoter of the privatization in 1992, when he was a deputy from Neuquén province. “We are here in this session,” he said in a pro-privatization speech in Congress that year, “with the firm conviction that we are taking the steps that Argentine society and the world are demanding of us in order to achieve the transformation of our country.” Cristina Fernández, then a provincial legislator in Santa Cruz, also supported the privatization. (La Capital (Rosario) 4/17/12)
The main force behind selling off YPF was Carlos Menem, who is now a senator for La Rioja province. In an Apr. 20 interview in the daily Crónica he said he planned to vote in favor of the re-nationalization. “The scenario has changed, the situation isn’t the same as when I privatized it,” he explained. “I know they’re going to beat me up, but it won’t be the first time.” (Clarín (Buenos Aires) 4/21/12) [Until last year Menem was in a faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) that strongly opposes the PJ faction that Fernández heads. Menem became a Fernández ally around the time he was starting to face trials on various criminal charges; see Update #1097].
*4. Mexico: Questions Surround 8 Deaths in Logging Dispute
Eight indigenous Purépecha were shot dead the morning of Apr. 18 near the autonomous community of Cherán in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Two of the victims were from Cherán, which has been engaged in a year-long struggle to protect local forests from illegal loggers; six of the people killed were from the town of Casimiro Leco, better known as El Cerecito, where many of the loggers live.
According to Cherán residents, the violence began when a group of men from El Cerecito ambushed some 20 laborers from Cherán who were doing reforestation work as temporary employees for the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat. The Michoacán authorities treated the incident as a shootout, blaming Cherán residents for the deaths of the six people from El Cerecito. Police agents detained a number of Cherán residents later on Apr. 18, and community people responded by detaining a dozen police agents from the Special Operations Group (GOE) and holding them until the next day.
Cherán’s governing council denied that Cherán residents were responsible for the killings of the six from El Cerecito. The workers from Cherán were attacked by “paramilitary groups associated with organized crime and the loggers,” Cherán activist Salvador Campanur told reporters. The same people “are planting corpses in our territory,” Campanur explained. “We don’t know the motive for the six deaths… [T]here are internal disputes between organized crime and the paramilitaries, and what the authorities are doing is to make these deaths appear to be part of a confrontation that didn’t take place.” [Campanur also works with the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity (MPJD), which was founded by the poet Javier Sicilia last year to oppose the Mexican government’s militarized “war on drugs”; see Update #1079.]
But relatives of the victims from El Cerecito blamed Cherán residents. At the burial of five of the dead, in the community of Tanaco, on Apr. 19, family members—“who live in extreme poverty,” according to reporters from the Mexican daily La Jornada—denounced Cherán residents as “murderers.”
A little more than a year ago, on Apr. 15, 2011, the people of Cherán rose up against the criminal gangs and illegal loggers who had destroyed a large part of the local forests. Cherán residents then declared their community autonomous, throwing out the municipal government and replacing it with an assembly and a council selected according to Purépecha “uses and customs.” Community patrols provide security and guard the entrances to the town, and the inhabitants plan to boycott state and federal elections.
Even in Cherán there is some sympathy for impoverished Purépecha from El Cerecito who engage in illegal logging. “It isn’t just a police matter,” an unnamed teacher at the Superior Technological Institute of de Cherán told La Jornada, noting that the logging provides employment for hundreds of poor families, who in effect become serfs of the people who trade in the timber. “There need to be options for these people,” he said. “Or if not, what are they going to do afterwards?” (LJ 4/19/12, 4/20/12; EFE 4/20/12 via Latin American Herald Tribune)
*5: Mexico: Counterinsurgency General Assassinated
An unknown assailant killed retired Mexican general Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro Escapite with three shots to the head on the evening of Apr. 20 at an auto shop in the Anáhuac section of Mexico City; the general had just brought his car there for repairs. The killer and an accomplice escaped on a motorcycle. This was the second attack against the general in two years; he was shot in the abdomen in Mexico City on May 18, 2010, in a supposed robbery attempt.
Acosta Chaparro joined the Mexican military in the 1960s and received training in counterinsurgency and psychological warfare from the US Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He became part of the so-called “White Brigade,” formed to combat rebel groups, especially the Sept. 23 Communist League and the Party of the Poor, which operated in the southwestern state of Guerrero under the leadership of Lucio Cabañas Barrientos.
In 2000 Acosta Chaparro was convicted of protecting Juárez Cartel head Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of the Skies” for his use of jets to carry drugs. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison but later won acquittal on appeal. In 2002 Acosta Chaparro was charged, along with Gen. Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo, with the murder of campesinos in Guerrero during the “dirty war” against the Army of the Poor in the 1970s. He was eventually cleared of these charges as well.
Activists have accused Acosta Chaparro of involvement in “death flights” to dispose of bodies of the military’s victims by dropping them into the sea from airplanes. There were also reports that Acosta Chaparro was present when security forces massacred 17 campesinos at Aguas Blancas, in Coyuca de Benítez municipality, Guerrero, on June 28, 1995 [see Updates #392, 661]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 4/21/12; AP 4/23/12 via El Paso (Texas) Times)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Caribbean, Cuba, Haiti
Latin America Unravels the Populist Putdown
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/20/latin-america-unravels-populist-putdown
Argentina's Critics Are Wrong Again About Renationalising Oil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3584-argentinas-critics-are-wrong-again-about-renationalising-oil
New Twist for TIPNIS Road: Bolivia Cancels Highway Contract
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/16/new-twist-tipnis-road-bolivia-cancels-highway-contract
Peru: new environmental review of Conga project submitted —as protests continue
http://ww4report.com/node/11005
Cajamarca Anti-Mining Movements Celebrate and Question Study Results For Peru Conga Gold Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3591-cajamarca-anti-mining-movements-celebrate-and-question-study-results-for-peru-conga-gold-mine
Peru: new report on Conga project fails to win social peace
http://ww4report.com/node/11019
La Oroya: "Peru's Chernobyl" to stay closed —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/11018
Peru: Sendero contests official story in Camisea hostage affair
http://ww4report.com/node/11006
Peru: Trade Deal Injustice for the Children of La Oroya
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3581-peru-trade-deal-injustice-for-the-children-of-la-oroya
Contradictions in Power: Reflections on the Plurinational March for Water and Extractivism in Ecuador
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/19/contradictions-power-reflections-plurinational-march-water-and-extractivism-ecuador
Ecuador: clergy question mineral model
http://ww4report.com/node/10930#comment-341928
Colombia: sex scandal overshadows ongoing war
http://ww4report.com/node/11003
Colombia: The Movement against the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project Deepens its Resistance
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3585-colombia-the-movement-against-the-quimbo-hydroelectric-project-deepens-its-resistance
Obama approves Colombia FTA —despite continued anti-labor violence
http://ww4report.com/node/11004
Progress or Promises? Free Trade and Labor Rights in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3579-progress-or-promises-free-trade-and-labor-rights-in-colombia
Venezuela: Complexities of the Socialist Alternative
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3586-venezuela-complexities-of-the-socialist-alternative
More than 1 Million Venezuelans Benefit from Land Reform Program
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6938
The History and Resurgence of Death Squads in Central America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3580-the-history-and-resurgence-of-death-squads-in-central-america
Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/17/drugs-and-business-central-america-faces-another-round-violence
Uighur Gitmo detainees released to El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/11009
Mexico’s False Dilemma: Human Rights or Security
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6748
The Politics of the Drug War in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6743
FNS News: 1,700 Disappeare?d People (Mexico)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april182012/disappeared-people.php
Mexican Seeds, the New Spoils for Food Corporations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3583-mexican-seeds-the-new-spoils-for-food-corporations
A Colonial WikiLeaks? The Migrated Archives and the Caribbean Pt.2
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/19/colonial-wikileaks-migrated-archives-and-caribbean-pt2
Last Summit of the Americas Without Cuba
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3578-last-summit-of-the-americas-without-cuba
Liquid Death (Haiti)
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2012/4/17/liquid-death.html
Haiti Using Funds from PetroCaribe to Finance Reconstruction
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haiti-using-funds-from-petrocaribe-to-finance-reconstruction
Why Haiti Wasn’t “Built Back Better”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3582--why-haiti-wasnt-built-back-better
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1126, April 22, 2012
1. International: Campesinos Hold Worldwide Day of Action
2. Honduras: Thousands Occupy Land in Massive Agrarian Protest
3. Argentina: Government Plans to Re-Nationalize Oil Company
4. Mexico: Questions Surround 8 Deaths in Logging Dispute
5: Mexico: Counterinsurgency General Assassinated
6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Caribbean, 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. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. International: Campesinos Hold Worldwide Day of Action
Campesino groups around the world planned more than 250 activities to mark the International Day of Campesino Struggles on Apr. 17, according to the international rural workers movement Vía Campesina. The day of action--which was announced at the International Campesino Conference held in Mali last Nov. 14-17—was intended to bring attention to the need for carrying out agrarian reform, for stopping the concentration of land in the hands of wealthy landowners, and for maintaining agricultural production based on campesino farming and the principles of food sovereignty. A special focus this year was to be opposition to monoculture for export and to the production of bio-fuel crops.
The Apr. 17 activities were expected to range from marches and land occupations to conferences and photographic exhibits. Countries with participating groups included Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay, Indonesia, Mozambique, Canada, the US, France, Spain, Australia and the Palestinian territories.
Groups in Brazil got a head start on Apr. 16 when the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) occupied the Agrarian Development Ministry in Brasilia; a tax office in Cuiabá, capital of the western state of Mato Grosso; the headquarters of the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (Incra), located in Rio de Janeiro; and an estate in the southern state of Río Grande do Sul. (Adital (Brazil) 4/17/12; TeleSUR 4/17/12)
In Haiti, more than 1,000 campesinos demonstrated on Apr. 17 in the town of Colladère, near Hinche in the Central Plateau, to demand agrarian reform and oppose the monopolization of land for biofuel production. The protest was organized by the Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP), whose spokesperson, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, praised a model of biological agriculture which he said was able both to counteract global warming and to provide enough food for the world’s 7 billion inhabitants.
The group used the occasion to present what it called “the country’s first ecological village,” which houses 10 families that moved to the countryside after a January 2010 earthquake devastated Port-au-Prince and nearby cities. The homes were built using local materials, with financial aid from a US faith-based group, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Iowa City. Jean-Baptiste said the MPP plans to build a total of five of these villages for people displaced by the earthquake. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/17/12)
Campesinos groups chose Apr. 17 for the international day of action as a way of commemorating the massacre of 19 Brazilian campesinos on Apr. 17, 1996, when police attacked a demonstration by some 1,500 MST members in Eldorado dos Carajás in the northern state of Pará. All but two of the police agents involved were acquitted [see Updates #646, 847]. (Adital 4/17/12)
*2. Honduras: Thousands Occupy Land in Massive Agrarian Protest
In a dramatic show of force, more than 3,500 Honduran campesino families occupied land in estates in different parts of the country early in the morning of Apr. 17 to demand implementation of an effective national agrarian reform policy. The mobilization, the Honduran activity for the International Day of Campesino Struggles, was organized by a coalition of 10 campesino groups, including the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) and the Honduran branch of the international rural workers’ movement Vía Campesina. In a statement issued on Apr. 17, the organizers said protesters had occupied a total of 12,000 hectares in eight of the country’s 18 departments: Cortés, Yoro, Santa Bárbara, Intibucá, El Paraíso, Choluteca, Comayagua, and Francisco Morazán.
On Apr. 18 security forces dispersed the largest land occupation, at a 2,500-hectare estate operated by a sugar company in San Manuel, near San Pedro Sula in the northern department of Cortés. The campesinos, members of the San Manuel Campesino Movement (MOCSAM), left peacefully in the afternoon after a police contingent arrived with a court order.
The protest organizers said the lands the campesinos occupied either belonged to the government or were not “fulfilling a social function.” “The [Agrarian] Reform Law is clear and states that government lands are for the purposes of the Agrarian Reform,” the organizers said in their statement, but despite requests for these lands over the years with the National Agrarian Institute (INA), the government’s response had been “open repression, violent evictions, the imprisonment of campesinos and campesinas.” If the lands were turned over to the campesino families, they would produce “4 million quintales of corn, 1.5 million quintales of rice, and 800,000 quintales of beans for the food sovereignty of our people,” according to the statement. (A Honduran quintal is about 46 kg.) The protesters were also demanding passage of a law they proposed in October 2011 for “integral agrarian transformation.”
Government officials charged that the mass mobilization was politically motivated. But protesters dismissed the claim. “We aren’t criminals,” Marvin Morales, a schoolteacher and a leader in the San Manuel occupation, told a reporter, “and what has forced us to move into the land is hunger, not the influence of other political sectors.” (Communiqué from Honduran campesino goups 4/17/12, posted on Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular website; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 4/18/12; AP 4/19/12 via Fox News Latino)
On Apr. 19 thousands of students, unionists and others marched in various cities in a protest called by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) to protest increases in the price of fuel, basic foods, public transportation and public utilities. In Tegucigalpa a large march started from the Francisco Morazán National Pedagogic University (UPNFM) and moved to the center of the city, where a committee including activist leaders Juan Barahona and Carlos H. Reyes and former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales presented the National Congress with a list of popular demands. Thousands also marched in the industrial capital, the northern city of San Pedro Sula, and there were protests in El Paraíso, Juticalpa, Choluteca, La Ceiba, Santa Bárbara and Colón. (Red Morazánica de Información 4/19/12 via FNRP website)
*3. Argentina: Government Plans to Re-Nationalize Oil Company
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner announced on Apr. 16 that her government planned to take control of 51% of the shares in YPF SA, the country’s largest oil company. The Spanish company Repsol has had majority ownership of the Argentine company, formerly known as Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales, since 1999. Later in the week the government took control of YPF Gas, which is also owned mostly by Repsol. A tribunal is to determine how much Argentina will pay in compensation to the companies' private shareholders.
A telephone survey conducted by Argentina’s Poliarquia polling institute and published on Apr. 22 by the daily La Nación found 26% of respondents strongly in favor of the move, with another 36% supporting it less strongly. (New York Times 4/17/12; AFP 4/22/12 via France24)
The plan to expropriate the company came in the midst of continuing economic instability in Europe, and the Spanish government reacted angrily to Argentina’s move. After an interview with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton in Brussels on Apr. 19, Spanish foreign affairs minister José Manuel García-Margallo told a press conference that Spain and the US “are going to analyze the way in which it might be possible to collaborate together to restore international legality.” He said the two countries might work together in the World Bank, “in the International Monetary Fund [IMF], in the G-20 [Group of 20 major economies], in the Paris Club, in any other institution in which one could carry out an action to try to have the government of Argentina correct itself.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 4/20/12 from DPA)
The privatization of the state-owned Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales was the most important element in the massive sell-off of government enterprises carried out by the government of former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) during an era of extreme neoliberal policies that ended with economic collapse in late 2001 and early 2002. The Menem government started by laying off 50,000 employees in four years. On Sept. 24, 1992, the Chamber of Deputies approved a law privatizing the firm, now named YPF SA, with majority control going to provincial governments. The private sector gradually bought more and more shares in the YPF until 1999, when Repsol obtained complete control. Later the Petersen Group, headed by Argentine entrepreneur Enrique Eskenazi, acquired about 25%.
The decision to re-nationalize the company has a number of ironies. President Fernández’s general secretary of the presidency, Oscar Parrilli, was a promoter of the privatization in 1992, when he was a deputy from Neuquén province. “We are here in this session,” he said in a pro-privatization speech in Congress that year, “with the firm conviction that we are taking the steps that Argentine society and the world are demanding of us in order to achieve the transformation of our country.” Cristina Fernández, then a provincial legislator in Santa Cruz, also supported the privatization. (La Capital (Rosario) 4/17/12)
The main force behind selling off YPF was Carlos Menem, who is now a senator for La Rioja province. In an Apr. 20 interview in the daily Crónica he said he planned to vote in favor of the re-nationalization. “The scenario has changed, the situation isn’t the same as when I privatized it,” he explained. “I know they’re going to beat me up, but it won’t be the first time.” (Clarín (Buenos Aires) 4/21/12) [Until last year Menem was in a faction of the Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) that strongly opposes the PJ faction that Fernández heads. Menem became a Fernández ally around the time he was starting to face trials on various criminal charges; see Update #1097].
*4. Mexico: Questions Surround 8 Deaths in Logging Dispute
Eight indigenous Purépecha were shot dead the morning of Apr. 18 near the autonomous community of Cherán in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. Two of the victims were from Cherán, which has been engaged in a year-long struggle to protect local forests from illegal loggers; six of the people killed were from the town of Casimiro Leco, better known as El Cerecito, where many of the loggers live.
According to Cherán residents, the violence began when a group of men from El Cerecito ambushed some 20 laborers from Cherán who were doing reforestation work as temporary employees for the federal Environment and Natural Resources Secretariat. The Michoacán authorities treated the incident as a shootout, blaming Cherán residents for the deaths of the six people from El Cerecito. Police agents detained a number of Cherán residents later on Apr. 18, and community people responded by detaining a dozen police agents from the Special Operations Group (GOE) and holding them until the next day.
Cherán’s governing council denied that Cherán residents were responsible for the killings of the six from El Cerecito. The workers from Cherán were attacked by “paramilitary groups associated with organized crime and the loggers,” Cherán activist Salvador Campanur told reporters. The same people “are planting corpses in our territory,” Campanur explained. “We don’t know the motive for the six deaths… [T]here are internal disputes between organized crime and the paramilitaries, and what the authorities are doing is to make these deaths appear to be part of a confrontation that didn’t take place.” [Campanur also works with the Movement for Peace With Justice and Dignity (MPJD), which was founded by the poet Javier Sicilia last year to oppose the Mexican government’s militarized “war on drugs”; see Update #1079.]
But relatives of the victims from El Cerecito blamed Cherán residents. At the burial of five of the dead, in the community of Tanaco, on Apr. 19, family members—“who live in extreme poverty,” according to reporters from the Mexican daily La Jornada—denounced Cherán residents as “murderers.”
A little more than a year ago, on Apr. 15, 2011, the people of Cherán rose up against the criminal gangs and illegal loggers who had destroyed a large part of the local forests. Cherán residents then declared their community autonomous, throwing out the municipal government and replacing it with an assembly and a council selected according to Purépecha “uses and customs.” Community patrols provide security and guard the entrances to the town, and the inhabitants plan to boycott state and federal elections.
Even in Cherán there is some sympathy for impoverished Purépecha from El Cerecito who engage in illegal logging. “It isn’t just a police matter,” an unnamed teacher at the Superior Technological Institute of de Cherán told La Jornada, noting that the logging provides employment for hundreds of poor families, who in effect become serfs of the people who trade in the timber. “There need to be options for these people,” he said. “Or if not, what are they going to do afterwards?” (LJ 4/19/12, 4/20/12; EFE 4/20/12 via Latin American Herald Tribune)
*5: Mexico: Counterinsurgency General Assassinated
An unknown assailant killed retired Mexican general Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro Escapite with three shots to the head on the evening of Apr. 20 at an auto shop in the Anáhuac section of Mexico City; the general had just brought his car there for repairs. The killer and an accomplice escaped on a motorcycle. This was the second attack against the general in two years; he was shot in the abdomen in Mexico City on May 18, 2010, in a supposed robbery attempt.
Acosta Chaparro joined the Mexican military in the 1960s and received training in counterinsurgency and psychological warfare from the US Army at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He became part of the so-called “White Brigade,” formed to combat rebel groups, especially the Sept. 23 Communist League and the Party of the Poor, which operated in the southwestern state of Guerrero under the leadership of Lucio Cabañas Barrientos.
In 2000 Acosta Chaparro was convicted of protecting Juárez Cartel head Amado Carrillo Fuentes, known as “The Lord of the Skies” for his use of jets to carry drugs. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison but later won acquittal on appeal. In 2002 Acosta Chaparro was charged, along with Gen. Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo, with the murder of campesinos in Guerrero during the “dirty war” against the Army of the Poor in the 1970s. He was eventually cleared of these charges as well.
Activists have accused Acosta Chaparro of involvement in “death flights” to dispose of bodies of the military’s victims by dropping them into the sea from airplanes. There were also reports that Acosta Chaparro was present when security forces massacred 17 campesinos at Aguas Blancas, in Coyuca de Benítez municipality, Guerrero, on June 28, 1995 [see Updates #392, 661]. (La Jornada (Mexico) 4/21/12; AP 4/23/12 via El Paso (Texas) Times)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, El Salvador, Mexico, Caribbean, Cuba, Haiti
Latin America Unravels the Populist Putdown
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/20/latin-america-unravels-populist-putdown
Argentina's Critics Are Wrong Again About Renationalising Oil
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3584-argentinas-critics-are-wrong-again-about-renationalising-oil
New Twist for TIPNIS Road: Bolivia Cancels Highway Contract
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/16/new-twist-tipnis-road-bolivia-cancels-highway-contract
Peru: new environmental review of Conga project submitted —as protests continue
http://ww4report.com/node/11005
Cajamarca Anti-Mining Movements Celebrate and Question Study Results For Peru Conga Gold Mine
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3591-cajamarca-anti-mining-movements-celebrate-and-question-study-results-for-peru-conga-gold-mine
Peru: new report on Conga project fails to win social peace
http://ww4report.com/node/11019
La Oroya: "Peru's Chernobyl" to stay closed —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/11018
Peru: Sendero contests official story in Camisea hostage affair
http://ww4report.com/node/11006
Peru: Trade Deal Injustice for the Children of La Oroya
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3581-peru-trade-deal-injustice-for-the-children-of-la-oroya
Contradictions in Power: Reflections on the Plurinational March for Water and Extractivism in Ecuador
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/19/contradictions-power-reflections-plurinational-march-water-and-extractivism-ecuador
Ecuador: clergy question mineral model
http://ww4report.com/node/10930#comment-341928
Colombia: sex scandal overshadows ongoing war
http://ww4report.com/node/11003
Colombia: The Movement against the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project Deepens its Resistance
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3585-colombia-the-movement-against-the-quimbo-hydroelectric-project-deepens-its-resistance
Obama approves Colombia FTA —despite continued anti-labor violence
http://ww4report.com/node/11004
Progress or Promises? Free Trade and Labor Rights in Colombia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3579-progress-or-promises-free-trade-and-labor-rights-in-colombia
Venezuela: Complexities of the Socialist Alternative
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3586-venezuela-complexities-of-the-socialist-alternative
More than 1 Million Venezuelans Benefit from Land Reform Program
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6938
The History and Resurgence of Death Squads in Central America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3580-the-history-and-resurgence-of-death-squads-in-central-america
Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/17/drugs-and-business-central-america-faces-another-round-violence
Uighur Gitmo detainees released to El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/11009
Mexico’s False Dilemma: Human Rights or Security
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6748
The Politics of the Drug War in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6743
FNS News: 1,700 Disappeare?d People (Mexico)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april182012/disappeared-people.php
Mexican Seeds, the New Spoils for Food Corporations
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3583-mexican-seeds-the-new-spoils-for-food-corporations
A Colonial WikiLeaks? The Migrated Archives and the Caribbean Pt.2
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/19/colonial-wikileaks-migrated-archives-and-caribbean-pt2
Last Summit of the Americas Without Cuba
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3578-last-summit-of-the-americas-without-cuba
Liquid Death (Haiti)
http://haitigrassrootswatch.squarespace.com/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2012/4/17/liquid-death.html
Haiti Using Funds from PetroCaribe to Finance Reconstruction
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/haiti-using-funds-from-petrocaribe-to-finance-reconstruction
Why Haiti Wasn’t “Built Back Better”
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/haiti-archives-51/3582--why-haiti-wasnt-built-back-better
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 12 March 2012
WNU #1121: Latin American Women March and Petition on Women’s Day
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1121, March 11, 2012
1. South America: Activists March and Petition on Women’s Day
2. Central America: Women Demand Political Equality, No More Impunity
3. Mexico: Government Apologizes in 2002 Rape Case
4. Haiti: Women’s Groups Protest UN Troops, Duvalier Impunity
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. South America: Activists March and Petition on Women’s Day
This year the United Nations (UN) designated Mar. 8, International Women’s Day, as an occasion to honor rural women, but as in previous years, many of the marches and protests celebrating the day focused on violence against women [see Update #1071]; others emphasized demands for abortion rights and equality in political representation.
Some 10,000 Chileans celebrated International Women’s Day in Santiago with a march from the Plaza Italia to La Moneda, the presidential residence. The demonstration, entitled “Power, Rights, Freedoms,” was organized by women’s organizations and the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the country’s largest labor federation, and included union presidents and leaders of last year’s student strike. As often happens in Chile, the march concluded with confrontations near La Moneda between the carabineros militarized police and hooded youths. Police agents used water cannons and tear gas on protesters, while unidentified youths set a microbus on fire, along with some partitions and chairs from a bank; 20 people were reportedly arrested.
The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera marked the day by sending Congress an initiative for reducing the maximum workweek for domestic workers from 72 to 45 hours, in line with the workweek for other workers; the proposed law would allow another 15 hours but at a higher rate of pay. (AFP 3/8/12 via Univision; EFE 3/9/12 via lainformacion.com) [Piñera’s popular support has declined as his neoliberal policies face challenges from the student movement and from protests in the Aysén region in the south; see Updates #1110, 1120.]
In Argentina activists gathered postcards in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo calling on President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the 257 legislative deputies in Congress to legalize abortion. “Not one more woman dead from clandestine aboritions” and “Neither husband nor boss, my body, my choice” were some of the signs the activists displayed. Clandestine abortions are the main cause of death for women of child-bearing age in Argentina, with a toll of one death every two days, according to Laura Velazco, an activist in the center-left Free of the South Movement.
In Uruguay activists posted signs on buildings and statues on Mar. 8 to call for decriminalization of abortion, while Paraguayan protesters banged on pots and pans in a cacerolada to demand that public institutions provide more aid for pregnant women.
In Brazil the Senate approved a bill during the week of International Women’s Day to impose fines on companies that pay less to women than to men doing the same work. In 2011 Brazilian women’s pay was 72.3% of the pay for men, unchanged since 2009, according to the governmental Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
In Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, some women marked Mar. 8 by donating their hair to make wigs for women who had lost their own hair when men assaulted them with acid, a form of violence against women that has been on the rise. According to statistics released by Presidential Adviser on Equality for Women Cristina Plazas, 1,444 women were murdered in Colombia in 2010, 26% of them in their own homes. Women represent 84% of the victims of sexual crimes, with 16,916 cases in 2010; 51% of the crimes were committed by relatives. (AFP 3/8/12 via La Nación (Costa Rica); EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
*2. Central America: Women Demand Political Equality, No More Impunity
Nicaragua’s National Assembly observed International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 by unanimously passing a law which requires political parties to have women as at least 50% of their candidates for municipal posts. The government’s special attorney for women, Deborah Gradinson, said Nicaraguan society remains in many ways “tolerant” of violence against women, with at least 17 women murdered so far in 2012 by partners, former partners or acquaintances. The María Elena Cuadra Movement of Working and Unemployed Women reported that only half of the 81 cases of women killed by violence in 2011 ever reached a court. “Justice for women, no more impunity” should be the slogan for the day, according to human rights activist Vilma Núñez.
Thousands of Salvadoran women marched in the main streets of San Salvador on Mar. 8 to demand an end to gender-based violence and full compliance with the Law of Equality, Equity and No Discrimination Against Women, which was passed in 2010. “We need a better climate for women in the country,” said Ima Guirola, a representative of the Norma Virginia Guirola de Herrera Institute of Women’s Studies (CEMUJER). UN Women, a United Nations agency for women’s rights, reports that 647 Salvadoran women were murdered in 2011, up dramatically from 193 in 2000. Also on Mar. 8, Vanda Pignato, President Mauricio Funes’ wife, criticized “the little party leadership groups that don’t let women get into power” and demanded laws to increase women’s representation in the next legislature. Only 23% of the candidates in the current Mar. 11 legislative and municipal elections are women. (AFP 3/8/12 via La Nación (Costa Rica); EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
In Honduras, women in the country’s branch of the international campesino movement Vía Campesina launched a new campaign on Mar. 8 under the slogan “for women’s dignity, we demand our right to the land.” Some 2,000 campesino, indigenous and African-descended women from around the country marched in front of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) and the National Congress in Tegucigalpa to demand a new agrarian reform law and an end to violence against women. Femicides (misogynist murders) “have increased in recent years without any investigation being carried out,” Ana Ferrera, director of the Center for Women’s Studies (CEM), told the Spanish wire service EFE. “Just this year some 50 women have been reported killed by violence.” (EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com; Adital (Brazil) 3/9/12 from Vía Campesina)
*3. Mexico: Government Apologizes in 2002 Rape Case
Mexican governance secretary Alejandro Poiré formally apologized to indigenous campesina Inés Fernández Ortega at a ceremony in Ayutla de los Libres in the southwestern state of Guerrero on Mar. 6 for her rape by three Mexican soldiers in 2002. Along with Valentina Rosendo, who was raped by soldiers in a separate incident, Fernández filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), which ruled in October 2010 that the Mexican government was responsible and must apologize to the two women. Federal attorney general Marisela Morales and Guerrero governor Angel Aguirre were also present for the apology.
The Mexican government initially denied the charges and accused Fernández of lying. In the apology he offered on Mar. 6, Poiré simply referred to the rape as “regrettable acts” and failed to mention that the perpetrators were soldiers. When Fernández’ turn came to speak, soldiers in civilian dress at first blocked her access to the podium, apparently not realizing that the indigenous woman was the guest of honor.
Fernández, who only speaks the Me’phaa (Tlapaneco) language), ignored the officials and addressed her community: “Listen to me, everyone, men, women, children: the people from the government, even though they say they’re on your side, they’re not going to come through. Don’t pay attention to them.” She said the soldiers committed the crime against her “because we are poor,” and went on to describe continuing aggressions, including checkpoints, interrogations, illegal searches, the murder of her brother Lorenzo, the theft of their crops, and orders by municipal presidents not to provide resources to her village, Barranca Tecuan. “The government doesn’t let us organize,” she charged. “The soldiers go on not letting us move freely in our communities.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/7/12)
The ceremony in Guerrero came just two days before International Women’s Day. “[T]here’s not much to celebrate” in Mexico, human rights activist Norma Esther Andrade told the Spanish wire service EFE, “and less on Women’s Day.” Andrade’s daughter was murdered in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua in 2001; Norma Andrade herself was attacked in Juárez in December 2011, and then again on Feb. 3 in Mexico City, where she’d moved for greater security [see Update # 1116]. The National Femicide Monitoring Center (OCNF) reports that 1,235 women were murdered from January 2010 to June 2011 in just eight of the country’s 32 federal entities (31 states and the Federal District, which includes Mexico City). (EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
*4. Haiti: Women’s Groups Protest UN Troops, Duvalier Impunity
Hundreds of Haitians marked International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 with a march in downtown Port-au-Prince to demand justice for the women who were victims of the 1957-1986 Duvalier family dictatorship and to call for the departure of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 11,200-member international police and military force.
“[Former dictator Jean-Claude] Duvalier and his accomplices must be judged,” "Impunity can’t be Haiti’s destiny,” “Down with the occupation, down with those who sell the country out,” “Good working conditions for women,” and “Women won’t step back” were among the main signs at the march, which was organized by Haitian Women’s Solidarity (SOFA) and the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), with support from the Women’s Network of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), the Mobilization Collective for Compensation for the Cholera Victims (Komodevik) and other groups.
One focus of the demonstration was a Jan. 30 decision by investigative judge Carvès Jean that one-time “president for life” Duvalier (1971-1986) should face trial for corruption but not for the brutal crimes committed by his government. Another focus was the refusal by the United Nations (UN) to take responsibility for the cholera epidemic that started in October 2010 because of poor sanitary practices at a MINUSTAH base [see Update #1105]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 3/9/12)
On Mar. 7, the day before the march, former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), now the UN special envoy for Haiti, admitted during a visit to the country that MINUSTAH troops brought the epidemic. “I don’t know that the person who introduced cholera into Haiti, the UN peacekeeping soldier from South Asia, was aware that he was carrying the virus,” Clinton said, in response to a question from independent US journalist Ansel Herz. “It was the proximate cause of cholera, that is, he was carrying the cholera strain,” Clinton went on, but then added that “what really caused it is that you don’t have a sanitation system.” Rather than blame the soldiers, he said, “it's better to focus on fixing it.”
This is the first time a UN official has acknowledged that the disease, which has killed 7,000 Haitians so far, came from the UN troops. (Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Relief and Reconstruction Watch 3/7/12; ABC News 3/9/12) [Note: cholera is a bacterial disease; it is not caused by a virus.]
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti
Argentine Women Refused Legal Abortions in Cases of Rape
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3492-argentine-women-refused-legal-abortions-in-cases-of-rape
Chile: Attack On Gay Man Highlights Debate On Anti-Discrimination Law
http://latindispatch.com/2012/03/08/chile-attack-on-gay-man-highlights-debate-on-anti-discrimination-law/
Peasants Launch Manifesto for Agrarian Reform after Historic Meeting in Brasilia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3503-peasants-launch-manifesto-for-agrarian-reform-after-historic-meeting-in-brasilia
Peru: successor to captured Shining Path leader captured —already
http://ww4report.com/node/10905
Peru: more strikes and protests rock mineral sector
http://ww4report.com/node/10906
CONAIE and Social Movements Mobilize in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3498-1-conaie-and-social-movements-mobilize-in-ecuador
Ecuador: anti-mining march advances; Correa intransigent
http://ww4report.com/node/10907
Colombia: Despite Diverting of the River, Movement Against Quimbo Dam Vows to Grow Stronger
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3495-colombia-despite-diverting-of-the-river-movement-against-quimbo-dam-vows-to-grow-stronger
Colombia: 'Carbon credit' scheme a cover for land grab
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3500-colombia-carbon-credit-scheme-a-cover-for-land-grab
The FARC and its Peace Initiative in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/8/farc-and-its-peace-initiative-colombia
Colombia: 49 Human Rights Activists Murdered in 2011
http://latindispatch.com/2012/03/06/colombia-49-human-rights-activists-murdered-in-2011/
Colombia’s Santos and Venezuela’s Chavez Meet in Havana, Sign Accords
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6859
US Ruling Against Salvadoran Ex-General a ‘Huge’ Victory for Victims
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3504-us-ruling-against-salvadoran-ex-general-a-huge-victory-for-victims
Hondurans Continue Protests in Bajo Aguán Region
http://nacla.org/news/2012/3/9/hondurans-continue-protests-bajo-agu%C3%A1n-region
Carbon Blood Money in Honduras
http://www.fpif.org/articles/carbon_blood_money_in_honduras
Justice for Whom? The Massacre at El Aguacate, Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3496-justice-for-whom-the-massacre-at-el-aguacate-guatemala
Guatemala Women Defenders Defy Canadian Mines and Plead for Help
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3502-guatemala-women-defenders-defy-canadian-mines-and-plead-for-help-
Violence Batters Former Mexican Showcase
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/02/violence-batters-former-mexican-showcase.php
Epidemic of Sexual Assault on Migrant Trail in Mexico: Excerpt from book "Migrants Don't Matter
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3497-epidemic-of-sexual-assault-on-migrant-trail-in-mexico-excerpt-from-book-qmigrants-dont-matterq
Recovery in the U.S. and Mexico: A View From the Bottom
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/6/recovery-us-and-mexico-view-bottom
Hypocritical Justice: Police Killings Rattle Jamaica
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/8/hypocritical-justice-police-killings-rattle-jamaica
Reconstruction Money Flushed Away? (Haiti)
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2012/3/8/reconstruction-money-flushed-away.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1121, March 11, 2012
1. South America: Activists March and Petition on Women’s Day
2. Central America: Women Demand Political Equality, No More Impunity
3. Mexico: Government Apologizes in 2002 Rape Case
4. Haiti: Women’s Groups Protest UN Troops, Duvalier Impunity
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
*1. South America: Activists March and Petition on Women’s Day
This year the United Nations (UN) designated Mar. 8, International Women’s Day, as an occasion to honor rural women, but as in previous years, many of the marches and protests celebrating the day focused on violence against women [see Update #1071]; others emphasized demands for abortion rights and equality in political representation.
Some 10,000 Chileans celebrated International Women’s Day in Santiago with a march from the Plaza Italia to La Moneda, the presidential residence. The demonstration, entitled “Power, Rights, Freedoms,” was organized by women’s organizations and the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the country’s largest labor federation, and included union presidents and leaders of last year’s student strike. As often happens in Chile, the march concluded with confrontations near La Moneda between the carabineros militarized police and hooded youths. Police agents used water cannons and tear gas on protesters, while unidentified youths set a microbus on fire, along with some partitions and chairs from a bank; 20 people were reportedly arrested.
The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera marked the day by sending Congress an initiative for reducing the maximum workweek for domestic workers from 72 to 45 hours, in line with the workweek for other workers; the proposed law would allow another 15 hours but at a higher rate of pay. (AFP 3/8/12 via Univision; EFE 3/9/12 via lainformacion.com) [Piñera’s popular support has declined as his neoliberal policies face challenges from the student movement and from protests in the Aysén region in the south; see Updates #1110, 1120.]
In Argentina activists gathered postcards in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo calling on President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the 257 legislative deputies in Congress to legalize abortion. “Not one more woman dead from clandestine aboritions” and “Neither husband nor boss, my body, my choice” were some of the signs the activists displayed. Clandestine abortions are the main cause of death for women of child-bearing age in Argentina, with a toll of one death every two days, according to Laura Velazco, an activist in the center-left Free of the South Movement.
In Uruguay activists posted signs on buildings and statues on Mar. 8 to call for decriminalization of abortion, while Paraguayan protesters banged on pots and pans in a cacerolada to demand that public institutions provide more aid for pregnant women.
In Brazil the Senate approved a bill during the week of International Women’s Day to impose fines on companies that pay less to women than to men doing the same work. In 2011 Brazilian women’s pay was 72.3% of the pay for men, unchanged since 2009, according to the governmental Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
In Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, some women marked Mar. 8 by donating their hair to make wigs for women who had lost their own hair when men assaulted them with acid, a form of violence against women that has been on the rise. According to statistics released by Presidential Adviser on Equality for Women Cristina Plazas, 1,444 women were murdered in Colombia in 2010, 26% of them in their own homes. Women represent 84% of the victims of sexual crimes, with 16,916 cases in 2010; 51% of the crimes were committed by relatives. (AFP 3/8/12 via La Nación (Costa Rica); EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
*2. Central America: Women Demand Political Equality, No More Impunity
Nicaragua’s National Assembly observed International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 by unanimously passing a law which requires political parties to have women as at least 50% of their candidates for municipal posts. The government’s special attorney for women, Deborah Gradinson, said Nicaraguan society remains in many ways “tolerant” of violence against women, with at least 17 women murdered so far in 2012 by partners, former partners or acquaintances. The María Elena Cuadra Movement of Working and Unemployed Women reported that only half of the 81 cases of women killed by violence in 2011 ever reached a court. “Justice for women, no more impunity” should be the slogan for the day, according to human rights activist Vilma Núñez.
Thousands of Salvadoran women marched in the main streets of San Salvador on Mar. 8 to demand an end to gender-based violence and full compliance with the Law of Equality, Equity and No Discrimination Against Women, which was passed in 2010. “We need a better climate for women in the country,” said Ima Guirola, a representative of the Norma Virginia Guirola de Herrera Institute of Women’s Studies (CEMUJER). UN Women, a United Nations agency for women’s rights, reports that 647 Salvadoran women were murdered in 2011, up dramatically from 193 in 2000. Also on Mar. 8, Vanda Pignato, President Mauricio Funes’ wife, criticized “the little party leadership groups that don’t let women get into power” and demanded laws to increase women’s representation in the next legislature. Only 23% of the candidates in the current Mar. 11 legislative and municipal elections are women. (AFP 3/8/12 via La Nación (Costa Rica); EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
In Honduras, women in the country’s branch of the international campesino movement Vía Campesina launched a new campaign on Mar. 8 under the slogan “for women’s dignity, we demand our right to the land.” Some 2,000 campesino, indigenous and African-descended women from around the country marched in front of the National Agrarian Institute (INA) and the National Congress in Tegucigalpa to demand a new agrarian reform law and an end to violence against women. Femicides (misogynist murders) “have increased in recent years without any investigation being carried out,” Ana Ferrera, director of the Center for Women’s Studies (CEM), told the Spanish wire service EFE. “Just this year some 50 women have been reported killed by violence.” (EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com; Adital (Brazil) 3/9/12 from Vía Campesina)
*3. Mexico: Government Apologizes in 2002 Rape Case
Mexican governance secretary Alejandro Poiré formally apologized to indigenous campesina Inés Fernández Ortega at a ceremony in Ayutla de los Libres in the southwestern state of Guerrero on Mar. 6 for her rape by three Mexican soldiers in 2002. Along with Valentina Rosendo, who was raped by soldiers in a separate incident, Fernández filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), which ruled in October 2010 that the Mexican government was responsible and must apologize to the two women. Federal attorney general Marisela Morales and Guerrero governor Angel Aguirre were also present for the apology.
The Mexican government initially denied the charges and accused Fernández of lying. In the apology he offered on Mar. 6, Poiré simply referred to the rape as “regrettable acts” and failed to mention that the perpetrators were soldiers. When Fernández’ turn came to speak, soldiers in civilian dress at first blocked her access to the podium, apparently not realizing that the indigenous woman was the guest of honor.
Fernández, who only speaks the Me’phaa (Tlapaneco) language), ignored the officials and addressed her community: “Listen to me, everyone, men, women, children: the people from the government, even though they say they’re on your side, they’re not going to come through. Don’t pay attention to them.” She said the soldiers committed the crime against her “because we are poor,” and went on to describe continuing aggressions, including checkpoints, interrogations, illegal searches, the murder of her brother Lorenzo, the theft of their crops, and orders by municipal presidents not to provide resources to her village, Barranca Tecuan. “The government doesn’t let us organize,” she charged. “The soldiers go on not letting us move freely in our communities.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 3/7/12)
The ceremony in Guerrero came just two days before International Women’s Day. “[T]here’s not much to celebrate” in Mexico, human rights activist Norma Esther Andrade told the Spanish wire service EFE, “and less on Women’s Day.” Andrade’s daughter was murdered in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua in 2001; Norma Andrade herself was attacked in Juárez in December 2011, and then again on Feb. 3 in Mexico City, where she’d moved for greater security [see Update # 1116]. The National Femicide Monitoring Center (OCNF) reports that 1,235 women were murdered from January 2010 to June 2011 in just eight of the country’s 32 federal entities (31 states and the Federal District, which includes Mexico City). (EFE 3/8/12 via terra.com)
*4. Haiti: Women’s Groups Protest UN Troops, Duvalier Impunity
Hundreds of Haitians marked International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 with a march in downtown Port-au-Prince to demand justice for the women who were victims of the 1957-1986 Duvalier family dictatorship and to call for the departure of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a 11,200-member international police and military force.
“[Former dictator Jean-Claude] Duvalier and his accomplices must be judged,” "Impunity can’t be Haiti’s destiny,” “Down with the occupation, down with those who sell the country out,” “Good working conditions for women,” and “Women won’t step back” were among the main signs at the march, which was organized by Haitian Women’s Solidarity (SOFA) and the labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), with support from the Women’s Network of the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), the Mobilization Collective for Compensation for the Cholera Victims (Komodevik) and other groups.
One focus of the demonstration was a Jan. 30 decision by investigative judge Carvès Jean that one-time “president for life” Duvalier (1971-1986) should face trial for corruption but not for the brutal crimes committed by his government. Another focus was the refusal by the United Nations (UN) to take responsibility for the cholera epidemic that started in October 2010 because of poor sanitary practices at a MINUSTAH base [see Update #1105]. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 3/9/12)
On Mar. 7, the day before the march, former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), now the UN special envoy for Haiti, admitted during a visit to the country that MINUSTAH troops brought the epidemic. “I don’t know that the person who introduced cholera into Haiti, the UN peacekeeping soldier from South Asia, was aware that he was carrying the virus,” Clinton said, in response to a question from independent US journalist Ansel Herz. “It was the proximate cause of cholera, that is, he was carrying the cholera strain,” Clinton went on, but then added that “what really caused it is that you don’t have a sanitation system.” Rather than blame the soldiers, he said, “it's better to focus on fixing it.”
This is the first time a UN official has acknowledged that the disease, which has killed 7,000 Haitians so far, came from the UN troops. (Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Relief and Reconstruction Watch 3/7/12; ABC News 3/9/12) [Note: cholera is a bacterial disease; it is not caused by a virus.]
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti
Argentine Women Refused Legal Abortions in Cases of Rape
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3492-argentine-women-refused-legal-abortions-in-cases-of-rape
Chile: Attack On Gay Man Highlights Debate On Anti-Discrimination Law
http://latindispatch.com/2012/03/08/chile-attack-on-gay-man-highlights-debate-on-anti-discrimination-law/
Peasants Launch Manifesto for Agrarian Reform after Historic Meeting in Brasilia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3503-peasants-launch-manifesto-for-agrarian-reform-after-historic-meeting-in-brasilia
Peru: successor to captured Shining Path leader captured —already
http://ww4report.com/node/10905
Peru: more strikes and protests rock mineral sector
http://ww4report.com/node/10906
CONAIE and Social Movements Mobilize in Ecuador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3498-1-conaie-and-social-movements-mobilize-in-ecuador
Ecuador: anti-mining march advances; Correa intransigent
http://ww4report.com/node/10907
Colombia: Despite Diverting of the River, Movement Against Quimbo Dam Vows to Grow Stronger
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3495-colombia-despite-diverting-of-the-river-movement-against-quimbo-dam-vows-to-grow-stronger
Colombia: 'Carbon credit' scheme a cover for land grab
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3500-colombia-carbon-credit-scheme-a-cover-for-land-grab
The FARC and its Peace Initiative in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/8/farc-and-its-peace-initiative-colombia
Colombia: 49 Human Rights Activists Murdered in 2011
http://latindispatch.com/2012/03/06/colombia-49-human-rights-activists-murdered-in-2011/
Colombia’s Santos and Venezuela’s Chavez Meet in Havana, Sign Accords
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6859
US Ruling Against Salvadoran Ex-General a ‘Huge’ Victory for Victims
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3504-us-ruling-against-salvadoran-ex-general-a-huge-victory-for-victims
Hondurans Continue Protests in Bajo Aguán Region
http://nacla.org/news/2012/3/9/hondurans-continue-protests-bajo-agu%C3%A1n-region
Carbon Blood Money in Honduras
http://www.fpif.org/articles/carbon_blood_money_in_honduras
Justice for Whom? The Massacre at El Aguacate, Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3496-justice-for-whom-the-massacre-at-el-aguacate-guatemala
Guatemala Women Defenders Defy Canadian Mines and Plead for Help
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3502-guatemala-women-defenders-defy-canadian-mines-and-plead-for-help-
Violence Batters Former Mexican Showcase
http://newamericamedia.org/2012/02/violence-batters-former-mexican-showcase.php
Epidemic of Sexual Assault on Migrant Trail in Mexico: Excerpt from book "Migrants Don't Matter
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3497-epidemic-of-sexual-assault-on-migrant-trail-in-mexico-excerpt-from-book-qmigrants-dont-matterq
Recovery in the U.S. and Mexico: A View From the Bottom
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/6/recovery-us-and-mexico-view-bottom
Hypocritical Justice: Police Killings Rattle Jamaica
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/3/8/hypocritical-justice-police-killings-rattle-jamaica
Reconstruction Money Flushed Away? (Haiti)
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2012/3/8/reconstruction-money-flushed-away.html
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
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