WNU #1155: Colombia GM Workers Resume Hunger Strike

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1155, December 9, 2012

1. Colombia: Injured GM Workers Resume Hunger Strike
2. Mexico: Evidence Mounts of Police Repression on Dec. 1
3. Mexico: Will Court Ruling Legalize Same-Sex Marriage?
4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. 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. Colombia: Injured GM Workers Resume Hunger Strike
On Nov. 20 Jorge Parra, a former employee of GM Colmotores, the Colombian subsidiary of the Detroit-based General Motors Company (GM), resumed a liquids-only hunger strike that he and 11 other former employees started last summer to pressure the company to reinstate them and compensate them for work-related injuries [see Update #1142]. They had suspended the fast on Aug. 24 after General Motors agreed to enter mediation, but they decided to go back on strike when management appeared unwilling to meet their demands. The former workers say Colmotores fired them because they developed disabilities due to injuries on the job, repetitive stress injuries or other work-related illnesses.

Parra, the president of the Association of Injured Workers and Ex-Workers of Colmotores (Asotrecol), was in the US to attend the annual protest at Fort Benning, Georgia against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), Nov. 16-18 [see Update #1153]. United Auto Workers (UAW) president Bob King, who was also at the protest, told Parra that the mediation was going nowhere, leading to the decision to resume the strike. Melvin Thompson, a Detroit autoworker and former president of UAW Local 140, went on a water-only hunger strike as a statement of solidarity with the Colmotores workers, and eight Colombian workers joined the hunger strike at the encampment they’ve maintained in front of the US embassy in Bogotá since Aug. 1, 2011. Parra remained in the US, demanding a meeting with top GM executives.

About 50 UAW members and other supporters protested at GM headquarters in Detroit on Nov. 29, chanting “down with exploitation, up with mediation!” A small group also demonstrated outside the US State Department in Washington, DC, where Hillary Clinton was presenting the department’s annual Award for Corporate Excellence. Although GM didn’t win, it was selected to be one of the 11 finalists. [As a result of a 2009 bailout, the US government is GM’s largest shareholder; see Update #1141.] On Dec. 7 more than a dozen protesters held a candlelight vigil outside the Rochester, Michigan home of GM vice president Cathy Clegg, the company official in charge of labor relations.

Former UAW local 909 president Frank Hammer noted in an interview with The Real News Network that the strong solidarity by US autoworkers was partly a result of the pressure unionists in Michigan are under as rightwing forces push for the state legislature to pass an anti-labor “right-to-work” law. “I think that here in Michigan, our union rights are on the chopping block,” Hammer said. “[I]f General Motors had its way, we would look a lot more like Colombia.”

Brazilian unionists have also expressed solidarity. “We know that not only in Brazil are we being attacked by GM’s plans,” Herbert Claros da Silva, vice president of the metalworkers union in San José dos Campos in Brazil, wrote in a letter to US activists. “We also know that in Colombia, Mexico, France and Germany, [GM wants] to end the jobs and workers’ rights.” (Workday Minnesota 12/3/12 from Labor Notes; The Oakland Press (Pontiac, Michigan) 12/7/12; TRNN 12/9/12)

Supporters of the Colmotores workers have started an online petition calling on GM chair and GEO Dan Akerson, GM South America president Jaime Ardila, US ambassador to Colombia Peter McKinley, Colombia labor minister Rafael Pardo Rueda, and US labor secretary Hilda Solis to reach an agreement that will end the strike. The petition is at https://www.change.org/petitions/gm-resolve-situation-of-workers-dismissed-for-occupational-injuries?utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

*2. Mexico: Evidence Mounts of Police Repression on Dec. 1
On Dec. 9 Mexican authorities released 56 of the 69 people who had been in detention for more than a week on suspicion of “attacking public peace” during protests in Mexico City against the inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. A total of 106 people were reportedly arrested on a day which included violent confrontations between police and protesters and widespread destruction of property [see Update #1154], but 28 were quickly released. Judge María del Carmen Mora Brito of the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) court system ordered the Dec. 9 releases after “analyzing videos, testimonies and expert witnesses’ reports,” the DF Superior Court of Justice (TSJDF) announced in a communiqué. (Europa Press 12/10/12)

The judge's action followed a week of demonstrations against police repression and charges that agents had repeatedly attacked, beaten and arrested peaceful protesters and bystanders while failing to arrest the people who had been engaged in vandalism. There were also accusations that agents provocateurs had infiltrated the protests. Complaints about the police seemed to be supported by videos that circulated widely on the internet. One, a compilation by the student video collective Imágenes En Rebeldía, appears to show unprovoked police attacks, arrests of nonviolent protesters, and men dressed in civilian clothes and armed with crowbars and chains standing and walking among uniformed federal police agents behind metal barriers around the Chamber of Deputies building.

On Dec. 6 the DF Human Rights Commission (CDHDF) reported that the DF police had arrested at least 22 people arbitrarily and that four people showed signs of having been tortured. A total of 88 people claimed to have been arrested without justification, the governmental commission said; 15 youths were charged with taking part in vandalism on Juárez Avenue even though the vandalism occurred after the time of their arrests. Among the people arrested on Dec. 1 was Mircea Topolenau, a Romanian photographer covering the events for a magazine. CDHDF president Luis González Placencia noted that his organization was only reporting actions by the DF police and that it was up to the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) to investigate alleged abuses by the federal police. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/7/12)

On Dec. 7 the Mexican branch of the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) presented President Peña Nieto and Miguel Angel Mancera, the head of the DF government, with 20,000 signatures from Mexican citizens demanding an investigation of police abuses. “Every innocent person arrested, accused of a crime he or she didn’t commit, not only represents a tragedy in itself and a clear violation of human rights, but is also a reflection of a system of justice that has failed to try the guilty party and is maintaining impunity,” AI Mexico impact and mobilization coordinator Daniel Zapico said. (LJ 12/8/12) Mancera took office on Dec. 5, succeeding Marcelo Ebrard; both men are members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which has governed the DF since 1997.

Two protesters were seriously injured during the Dec. 1 protests. Drama teacher Francisco Kuykendall Leal was hit by a tear gas canister and was hospitalized with cranial injuries. He is an active supporter of The Other Campaign, a political movement inspired by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) [see Update #832]. Uriel Sandoval Díaz, a student majoring in environmental and climate change studies at the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM), lost an eye and suffered fractures when he was hit by a rubber bullet. “This struggle won’t end until poverty ends,” Uriel said from a wheelchair as he was being released from the General Hospital on Dec. 6. “An eye is nothing [when] every day thousands of human beings have nothing to eat.” (Kaos en la Red 12/4/12 from Desinformémonos; Milenio (Mexico) 12/7/12)

In related news, an online petition has been started calling on Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust to withdraw the offer of a fellowship at the university’s John F. Kennedy School of Government to outgoing president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012). Tens of thousands of Mexicans have died in the militarized “war on drugs” Calderón initiated soon after he took office in December 2006. The petition is at http://www.change.org/petitions/harvard-university-president-faust-deny-outgoing-mexican-president-felipe-calderon-employment-at-harvard

*3. Mexico: Will Court Ruling Legalize Same-Sex Marriage?
A four-justice panel of Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) decided unanimously on Dec. 5 to uphold a challenge that three same-sex couples brought against the marriage law in the southern state of Oaxaca. State authorities had refused to marry the couples last year under Oaxaca Civil Code Article 143, which defines marriage as “a civil contract carried out between one man and one woman, who join together to perpetuate the species and to provide mutual aid.” The justices ruled that the requirement “to procreate to perpetuate the species violates the constitutional principle of self-determination of persons and the right of each individual to the free development of personality.” The SCJN ordered the Oaxaca Civil Registry to act on the applications the three couples made for marriage authorization and not to discriminate against them.

The decision doesn’t completely invalidate Article 143, but it opens the way for same-sex couples denied the right to wed in any of the country’s 31 states to appeal to the Supreme Court. One of the justices, José Ramón Cossío, told the Mexican daily La Jornada that the SCJN didn’t strike the law down because if it had, “in a practical sense we would have left the Oaxaca Civil Code without an article [on marriage], and it would have affected people of the same sex as much as heterosexuals.” But in the future the justices might make a general declaration of unconstitutionality, Cossío said, and “afterwards it is foreseeable that the effect might be broader”—that is, the court could rule to legalize same-sex marriage throughout the country. (La Jornada (Mexico) 12/5/12)

The Federal District (DF, Mexico City) already permits same-sex marriage. The SCJN ruled in August 2010 that same-sex marriages performed in the DF are valid in all the country’s states; it also upheld the DF’s legalization of adoption by same-sex couples [see Update #1044].

*4. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago

Argentina’s Biggest Human Rights Trial Begins
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/4001-argentinas-biggest-human-rights-trial-begins

ICJ opens hearings in Chile-Peru maritime dispute
http://ww4report.com/node/11750

Paraguayan Government Deploys Joint Military-Police Force to Monitor Upcoming Human Rights March for "Violent Infiltrators"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/4013-paraguayan-government-deploys-joint-military-police-force-to-monitor-upcoming-human-rights-march-for-qviolent-infiltratorsq

Peru's cabinet in bid to save Conga project
http://ww4report.com/node/11752

Ecuador's Correa Seeks South American Allies in Conflict with Anti-Mining Social Movements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/4006-ecuadors-correa-seeks-south-american-allies-in-conflict-with-anti-mining-social-movements

A Dream Come True for the Mining Industry: A Response to Correa's Proposal to "Deal With Radicals"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/4012-a-dream-come-true-for-the-mining-industry-a-response-to-correas-proposal-to-qdeal-with-radicalsq

Ecuador: indigenous protests as oil blocs sold
http://ww4report.com/node/11751

International Court Investigates Colombia for “False Positive” Killings
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4008-international-court-investigates-colombia-for-false-positive-killings

Colombian Military and a Local Businessman Agree to Build a Base on Stolen Land
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4005-colombian-military-and-a-local-businessman-agree-to-build-a-base-on-stolen-land

Venezuela’s Chavez’s Cancer Returns, Leaves Vice-President in Charge
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7532

Latin leaders legitimize legalization (Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica)
http://globalganjareport.com/content/latin-leaders-legitimize-legalization

Canal intrigues behind Nicaragua border disputes
http://ww4report.com/node/11749

Honduras: Drug War as Counterinsurgency?
http://ww4report.com/node/11757

'Outing' Honduras: A Human Rights Catastrophe in the Making
http://nacla.org/news/2012/11/29/outing-honduras-human-rights-catastrophe-making

Honduran President Calls Supreme Court an Enemy of the State
http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.com/2012/12/lobo-supreme-court-is-enemy-of-state.html

Deaf Ear Turned to Local Opposition to Mines in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/4011-deaf-ear-turned-to-local-opposition-to-mines-in-guatemala

Peña’s Promises (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/8435

Mexico’s presidential inauguration marked by vows and violence
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/8449

A New Era for Mexico, Juarez?
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2012/12/05/a-new-era-for-mexico-juarez/

Convicts, Collateral Damage, and the “War on Drugs” in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/12/5/convicts-collateral-damage-and-%E2%80%9Cwar-drugs%E2%80%9D-us-mexico-borderlands

New Report Finds Economic Insecurity Increasingly Puts Haitian Girls at Risk of Violence
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/new-report-finds-economic-insecurity-increasingly-puts-haitian-girls-at-risk-of-violence

Hunger Strike against Trinidad Highway Continues
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/caribbean-archives-45/4007-hunger-strike-against-trinidad-highway-continues

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. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as “Weekly News Update on the Americas” and include a link. 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/   

WNU #1144: Nicaragua to Withdraw From the SOA

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1144, September 9, 2012

1. Nicaragua: Ortega Announces Withdrawal From SOA
2. Central America: Dole Starts to Pay in Pesticide Settlement
3. Honduras: “Model Cities” Project Set to Begin?
4. Mexico: Persecuted Gay Teacher Wins Asylum in US
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Curaçao, Haiti, US/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. Nicaragua: Ortega Announces Withdrawal From SOA
Nicaragua will no longer send military personnel to the US military’s controversial Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), President Daniel Ortega said during a meeting with a delegation of human rights activists in Managua on Sept. 4. Nicaragua will be the first Central American country to withdraw from the school, which critics say has trained many of Latin America’s most notorious human rights violators since its founding in 1946. Five South American nations have ended their relations with SOA/WHINSEC: Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Venezuela, and, as of June 27, Ecuador (see World War 4 Report 6/28/12).

“The SOA is an ethical and moral anathema,” President Ortega said during the meeting. “All of the countries of Latin America have been victims of its graduates. The SOA is a symbol of death, a symbol of terror.” Nicaragua has reduced its participation in the school since he returned to the presidency in 2007, Ortega said, sending five soldiers in 2011 and none this year. The country has also withdrawn from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR, for its initials in Spanish), a military pact linked to the Organization of American States (OAS).

Ortega is the leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and served a term as Nicaragua's president from 1985 to 1990, at a time when the US was funding and training the rightwing contra rebels fighting against the FSLN government. Withdrawing from SOA/WHINSEC “is the least that we can do,” Ortega said. “We have been its victims.” But he indicated that the move was difficult, since Nicaragua is a small, impoverished nation whose economy is largely dependent on its ties to the US.

The human rights delegation was organized by two US-based organizations: the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), which seeks the closing of SOA/WHINSEC, and the Nicaragua Network, an organization promoting solidarity with Nicaragua. Delegation members included SOAW founder Father Roy Bourgeois, SOAW Latin America coordinator Lisa Sullivan and Alejandro Ramírez, a member of a Honduran human rights organization, the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH). SOAW is planning a delegation to meet with representatives of the government of US president Barack Obama on Sept. 17 to push for closing the school.

SOA/WHINSEC trained nearly 14,000 military and police personnel from 2001 to 2011. Almost half were from Colombia; Chile and Peru also sent large numbers of soldiers and police agents. The Central American countries with the greatest participation from 2008 to 2011 were Honduras, with 234 soldiers, and El Salvador, with 227. (Adital (Brazil) 9/5/12; SOAW press release 9/6/12)

*2. Central America: Dole Starts to Pay in Pesticide Settlement
On Sept. 4 the giant California-based fruit and vegetable producer Dole Food Company, Inc. finally began funding a settlement it made more than a year earlier with some 5,000 former banana workers in Central America who said their health had been damaged by exposure to the pesticides Nemagon and Fumazone, brand names for dibromochloropropane (DBCP). Dole had refused to pay until all judgments against it had been dismissed and each of the plaintiffs had signed a release agreeing not to sue Dole again for injuries linked to DBCP.

Speaking in Chinandega in northwestern Nicaragua on Sept. 6, Dole spokesperson Humberto Hurtado confirmed that the money was available. The settlement covers 3,157 Nicaraguans along with 780 Costa Ricans and 1,000 Hondurans; they all worked for Dole during the period from 1973 to 1980 when the company used the pesticides, which are now banned. Many of the workers spent 16 years struggling to win the settlement, which covers five lawsuits in the US and 33 in Nicaragua; the Nicaraguan suits were for a total of $9 billion in damages.

Only the former banana workers represented by the Texas-based law firm Provost Umphrey are included in the settlement. Another 13,874 Nicaraguan workers have pending cases being handled by other law firms [see Update #1094]. Hurtado said Dole “might be available for possible agreements with other groups.”

Dole wouldn’t reveal the size of the settlement, but the company indicated that the payments wouldn’t significantly affect its financial condition. A statement from Dole executive vice president C. Michael Carter insisted that “there is no reliable scientific basis for alleged injuries from the agricultural field application of DBCP.” (Ventura County Star (California) 9/6/12; La Prensa (Nicaragua) 9/7/12)

*3. Honduras: “Model Cities” Project Set to Begin?
Honduran National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández announced on Sept. 4 that the government’s Commission for the Promotion of Public-Private Alliances (COALIANZA) had signed an agreement for the first of three “model city” projects--semi-autonomous regions mandated under a 2010 constitutional amendment [see World War 4 Report 6/9/12]. COLIANZA claims the project, which still needs approval from the Congress, will create 5,000 direct and indirect jobs this year, 15,000 jobs in 2013, 30,000 in 2014, and 45,000 in 2015.

The project is likely to be located near Puerto Cortés or Puerto Castilla on the Atlantic coast, or in Choluteca department on the country’s narrow Pacific coast. “It should be noted that these model cities will be established in depopulated areas of Honduras,” Hernández told the media. “It does not imply the displacement of people or social groups.” The Honduras Culture and Politics blog noted: “None of these regions is completely vacant. Reading between the lines, what Hernández is saying is that there are no large cooperatives or powerful landowners in these regions, groups that might vocally protest the expropriation of the land on which they live and work.”

The main funding for the “model city” is coming from an unidentified Canadian company. Other funders include a US company identified as the “NKG Group” or “MKG Group,” and a start-up called Future Cities Development Corporation. Both companies seem to have rightwing libertarian orientations. A leading executive at NKG Group, Michael Strong, appears to be associated with Whole Foods CEO John Mackey; a Michael Strong is listed with Mackey as a co-founder of FLOW, an organization dedicated to “liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good.” One of Future Cities Development Corporation’s founders is Patri Friedman, the grandson of University of Chicago economist and neoliberal theorist Milton Friedman. (Honduras Culture and Politics 9/5/12)

Some 14 groups or individuals--including campesino organizations and the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH)—filed a legal challenge to the “model cities” law on Sept. 7, citing a motion filed in October 2011 by Oscar Cruz, a former government attorney for constitutional issues. Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, the presidential candidate of the leftist Freedom and Refoundation (LIBRE) party and the wife of former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009), issued a statement denouncing the law as “incompatible with the concept of sovereignty, independence and equality of opportunity for national and foreign investment.” She warned people who start these projects that “they are exposing themselves to the loss of their investments.”

LIBRE was formed in June 2011 by the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of unions and grassroots organizations that led the resistance to the June 2009 military coup that removed former president Zelaya from office.

The project has even received criticism from Paul Romer, the New York University professor whose “charter cities” concept is the basis for the Honduran “model cities” law. Romer reportedly may quit the Honduran transparency commission he was chairing because he feels he hasn’t been give sufficient information and authority to carry out his responsibilities. (Honduras Culture and Politics 9/7/12; Xiomara Castro de Zelaya statement 9/7/12 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras))

*4. Mexico: Persecuted Gay Teacher Wins Asylum in US
The Mexican daily La Jornada reported on Sept. 6 that the US had granted political asylum to Mexican teacher Agustín Estrada Negrete, who claimed he had suffered persecution and torture from officials of México state because of his homosexuality. Estrada was removed from his post as a school principal after he had appeared in women’s clothes at a festival against homophobia in May 2007. Following a march demanding his reinstatement in 2009, México state police arrested Estrada in Toluca and took him to the La Palma prison, where he said he was beaten and gang-raped. He arrived in San Diego in September 2010 in a wheelchair to seek asylum.

Jaime López Vela, the president of the sexual diversity collective Agenda LGBT, told La Jornada that the grant of asylum to Estrada “shows that the human rights violations he reported have been fully proven.” “Throughout the process we always demanded that his labor rights be restored, but there were only rejections by the México state authorities, based on homophobia, since they said that as long as he continued with his ‘homosexual attitudes,’ he wouldn’t go back to work.” The state’s governor during the period was Enrique Peña Nieto, the official winner of this year’s July 1 presidential election; his inauguration takes place in December.

In addition to his US asylum bid, Estrada filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), which issued a precautionary measure, number MC 222/09, in April 2010 calling on México state to protect the lives and physical integrity of Estrada and his family. According to CIDH spokesperson María Isabel Rivero, the measure is still active, since Estrada’s mother and sister remain in Mexico. (La Jornada 9/6/12; Los Angeles Press 9/6/12)

In an interview with the Spanish-language website Los Angeles Press in April 2012, Estrada claimed that he and Peña Nieto were secretly lovers for seven years and implied that the president-elect had persecuted him in an effort to conceal the affair. (Los Angeles Press 4/25/12)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Curaçao, Haiti, US/immigration

South America: Soy's Great Homeland
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3849-south-america-soys-great-homeland

Enforced Disappearances in the Americas are a Crime of the Present
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3846-enforced-disappearances-in-the-americas-are-a-crime-of-the-present

Interview with Camila Vallejo: “Another Chile Is Possible, with Greater Democracy and Social Rights” (Chile)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3847-interview-with-camila-vallejo-another-chile-is-possible-with-greater-democracy-and-social-rights

Chile: The Disappeared of Cuartel Simón Bolivar
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3851-chile-the-disappeared-of-cuartel-simon-bolivar

Brazil: Landowners Declare War against Indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/3844-brazil-landowners-declare-war-against-indigenous-guarani-kaiowa-in-mato-grosso-do-sul

Bolivia: TIPNIS consultation extended amid protests over militarization
http://ww4report.com/node/11473

Peru: protests as "terrorism denial" law introduced
http://ww4report.com/node/11491

Indigenous Consultations in Peru to Debut in Amazon Oil Region
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3848-indigenous-consultations-in-peru-to-debut-in-amazon-oil-region

Peru: mine tailing spill contaminates Río Huallaga
http://ww4report.com/node/11471

Peru: justice sought in slaying of mine opponent
http://ww4report.com/node/11492

A Tale of Two Asylums: Assange, Palacio, and Media Hypocrisy (Ecuador)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/9/6/tale-two-asylums-assange-palacio-and-media-hypocrisy

Colombia: army general gets 25 years for para collaboration
http://ww4report.com/node/11470

Colombia: peace talks announced with rappin' FARC
http://ww4report.com/node/11474

Hope in the Colombian Peace Talks
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/9/2/hope-colombian-peace-talks

Colombia: no ceasefire during peace talks
http://ww4report.com/node/11490

Venezuelan authorities deny Yanomami massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/11476

Venezuelan Opposition Legislator Decries MUD “Hidden Agenda”, Expelled Hours Later
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7238

OAS rights body presses for truth in Yanomami massacre claims (Venezuela)
http://ww4report.com/node/11489

Goldcorp on Trial: First International People's Health Tribunal Held in Guatemala
http://ww4report.com/node/11484

Guatemala: Swiss arrest ex-police commander
http://ww4report.com/node/11459

Guatemala ex-president to be extradited to US for embezzlement trial
http://ww4report.com/node/11472

Nueva Esperanza, Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3852-nueva-esperanza-guatemala

Mexico ex-prez gets immunity in massacre suit
http://ww4report.com/node/11488

Mexico’s Felipe Calderon Defends Security Policies in Final Speech
http://latindispatch.com/2012/09/04/mexicos-felipe-calderon-defends-security-policies-in-final-speech/

“We won’t back down,” assert Zapatistas in response to a series of aggressions (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/7909

Mexican Peace Caravan Occupies Wall Street: Opposing the "Drug War" on Both Sides of the Border
http://ww4report.com/node/11493

PDVSA oil spill fouls Curaçao
http://ww4report.com/node/11475

Reduced Charges Against Uruguayan MINUSTAH Troops Latest Example of Lack of UN Accountability
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/reduced-charges-against-uruguayan-minustah-troops-latest-example-of-lack-of-un-accountability

In the Name of Anti-Trafficking: Racism, Detention, and Deportation (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/9/4/old-anti-trafficking-propaganda-same-new-anti-trafficking-propaganda

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:
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WNU #1134: Could an “All-Out” Effort End Haiti’s Cholera Epidemic?

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1134, June 24, 2012

1. Haiti: Could an "All-Out" Effort End the Cholera Now?
2. Haiti: UN Troops Try to Invade Public University
3. Costa Rica: Port Workers Strike Again in Anti-Privatization Struggle
4. Honduras: Woman Dies in Airport After US Deportation Flight
5. Mexico: OAS Agency Reports 8 LGBT Murders in Guerrero
6. Mexico: Republicans Push "Fast and Furious" Conspiracy Theory
7. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/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. Haiti: Could an "All-Out" Effort End the Cholera Now?
The cholera epidemic that has killed more than 7,200 people in Haiti since October 2010 could possibly be brought to an end “in just months,” according to a leading French cholera expert, Dr. Renaud Piarroux. “But it would be necessary to go all out in the areas where cholera is being transmitted,” he added in a little-noted interview with Radio France Internationale on Apr. 16, “and, of course, we’d need to have the means of identifying [the cholera], with an epidemiological surveillance that is faster and more effective than what is being done currently.”

Piarroux is an epidemiologist and specialist in tropical medicine at a public hospital in Marseilles and at the University of Aix-Marseilles. He was the first medical expert to identify a base maintained by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) near Mirebalais as the source of the outbreak [see Update #1060]. Later studies confirmed MINUSTAH’s role in bringing the epidemic to Haiti.

In the radio interview, Piarroux based his conviction that the epidemic can ended quickly on the decline in cases earlier this year compared to the same period last year. “[W]hile there were more than 1,000 deaths because of cholera during the first trimester of 2011,” he said, “only some 40 have been counted between Jan. 1 and Mar. 27” of this year. But Piarroux warned that “there are still active centers [of the disease], particularly in the north of the island, and these centers could expand in the rainy season.” In these places “it’s necessary to fight the cholera with the maximum of tools. For example, it’s necessary to bring chlorine, to bring water, to bring soap.”

The Haitian government and the United Nations deputy special envoy for Haiti, Paul Farmer, a US doctor who started the widely respected clinics of Partners in Health/Zanmi Lasante, are promoting a vaccination campaign instead of the sort of effort Piarroux described [see Update #1105]. Piarroux expressed doubts about the campaign. “[T]he vaccine that will be used is of mediocre effectiveness,” he said. “The protection afforded by this vaccine is a little above 50%. This is not a very effective vaccine.”

He also questioned the plans for the initial phase of the campaign, in which about 1% of the population would be vaccinated. This would take place in areas like the western coastal city of Saint-Marc, where there are now very few cholera cases, rather than in the active centers that remain dangerous. “Maybe if the companies that are marketing a vaccine want to test their vaccine, want to use it in field trials, that’s is where they should intervene,” Piarroux said. (Haiti Chery blog 4/20/12; interview transcript by Haiti Chery 4/20/12; AlterPresse (Haiti) 6/15/12)

[A field trial of the cholera vaccine, Shanchol, in February 2011 on 240,000 inhabitants of Mirpur, a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh, led to protests by the Health Rights Movement National Committee of Bangladesh, citing many of the same concerns raised by Piarroux. (News from Bangladesh Special Report 9/29/11)]

US media coverage has been promoting the vaccination option. In a May 26 editorial, the Washington Post wrote that “until recently, international health organizations dragged their feet on vaccines, worrying they might be too expensive or difficult to administer. They preferred a systemic infrastructure fix. That’s simply indefensible.” The editorial predicted that “[I]t would take just $40 million to administer oral vaccines to every person in Haiti,” while admitting that “there will be logistical hurdles” for a vaccination program.

The Post dismissed the claims of “thousands of Haitian cholera victims [who] have demanded millions of dollars of reparations from the United Nations, citing the disease’s introduction by the [MINUSTAH] peacekeepers.” Money from the United Nations “would be more profitably spent on a much more aggressive cholera vaccination program,” the editors wrote. (WP 5/26/12)

*2. Haiti: UN Troops Try to Invade Public University
Brazilian soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) made three attempts on June 15 to enter the Human Sciences Faculty (FASCH) of the State University of Haiti (UEH) in Port-au-Prince by force, according to faculty, students and local media. “We don’t know the reason for this criminal and inopportune visit,” the FASCH’s dean, Hancy Pierre, told the online Haitian news service AlterPresse. “It’s a disgrace for the country.” In Haiti security forces are expected to get permission from university authorities before entering a campus.

The soldiers arrived at the FASCH around 11 am. Students quickly closed the front gates, and the soldiers reacted by firing rubber bullets and sending a tear gas grenade into the school’s enclosure. “We didn’t fail to remind them that there was no one to rape at the FASCH and that we didn’t need for them to come infect us with cholera,” one student said, referring to the 10,000-member international force’s responsibility for a number of sexual abuses and for triggering the outbreak of cholera in 2010 [see Updates #1060, 1095]. MINUSTAH troops made two more attempts to enter the school in the afternoon, disrupting classes and a student-faculty assembly.

Some FASCH professors have denounced MINUSTAH as an occupation force since its arrival in Haiti in June 2004, and student organizations have protested the troops with press releases, signs and banners, including signs they have posted at the school’s entrance. On June 18 the Mobilizing Committee for Reparations for Cholera Victims issued a press release citing three other attacks by MINUSTAH soldiers on UEH students: the Jan. 20, 2009, beating of student and artist Don Camelo; the beating of student Jean Willy Belfleur the next day; and the May 24, 2010 arrest of student Frantz Mathieu Junior [see Update #1035]. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 6/15/12; AlterPresse (Haiti) 6/18/12; Let Haiti Live website 6/19/12)

According to MINUSTAH communications director Eliane Nabaa, the Brazilian troops were carrying out “a reconnaissance patrol in the area so as to be able to identify displaced persons camps [when] suddenly they were attacked with rocks and broken bottles by the local population and the students.” The FASCH is located in a residential neighborhood; none of the camps for people who were left homeless by a January 2010 earthquake are in the area. (AlterPresse 6/21/12)

*3. Costa Rica: Port Workers Strike Again in Anti-Privatization Struggle
The 1,500 workers in Costa Rica’s two Caribbean ports, Limón and Moín, went on strike on June 12 to oppose a 30-year concession the government of President Laura Chinchilla has granted to a Netherlands-based container management multinational, APM Terminals. The two ports handle about 80% of the country’s international trade.

The strike quickly shut down shipping operations, leading to a loss of some 300 million colones ($600,000) in its first 36 hours, according to Alan Hidalgo, the head of the Board of Port Administration and Economic Development of the Atlantic Shelf (JAPDEVA), which manages the ports. On June 14 the government sent some 500 police agents to the ports, with specialized units from the Ministry of Public Security taking control of Costa Rica’s two main roads. Clashes broke out in Limón between police and unidentified persons who set a truck on fire and blocked roads with ditches.

The “acts of vandalism aren’t by the workers but by common criminals,” José Luis Castillo, the head of the JAPDEVA Workers Union (SINTRAJAP), said on June 15. Union leaders charged that the authorities had brought in Panamanian workers to staff the facilities but said the Limón port was only operating at 5% capacity despite the presence of police and strikebreakers. According to Castillo, 100% of the Costa Rican workers were participating in the strike.

The job action was the latest phase of the workers’ fight against government moves for complete privatization of the ports, which started in 2006 with a plan to sell off JAPDEVA. The union agreed in principle to the privatization of JAPDEVA in May 2010 [see Update #1033], but the concession granted to APM Terminals appears to be the first step putting the agreement in practice. The multinational is to invest some $990 million in building a port that can handle the larger ships that will take advantage of the expanded Panama Canal starting in 2014. The government claims that the building and operation of the facility, to be completed in 2016, will create 2,000 jobs directly and another 8,000 indirectly. The workers argue that the concession gives the company a monopoly over the ports and will lead to a loss of jobs.

The government and the union reached an accord on June 19 after a 15-hour negotiating session. The union agreed to end the strike, while the government promised to invest $70 million in modernizing the existing port facilities. Castillo called the strike a “first round” in the struggle against the APM concession, with subsequent actions to take place in the courts. Meanwhile, other unions are planning a one-day strike on June 26 against the government’s fiscal policies and in support of the port workers. (Prensa Latina 6/14/12; AFP 6/15/12 via Terra (Peru); EFE 6/19/12 via Siglo 21 (Guatemala))

*4. Honduras: Woman Dies in Airport After US Deportation Flight
Honduran national Cintia Yadira Herrera died of heart problems on June 18 shortly after arriving at San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras on a mass deportation flight arranged by US immigration authorities. She took a few steps after disembarking from the plane in Ramón Villeda Morales Airport and then collapsed, according to firefighters who came to her assistance; she died in the airport. Herrera was 33 or 34, according to different media reports, and was the mother of three children.

According to some of the other 102 Honduran deportees on the chartered plane, Herrera had said she felt ill from the beginning of the flight. Her family blamed the US government for her death. “The immigration authorities in the US didn’t listen to my daughter’s pleas, even though she told them she didn’t feel well,” José Herrera told reporters.

Cintia Herrera left her home in the eastern department of Olancho in March to join her husband, Luis Matute, in the US. She was captured by US immigration authorities the day she arrived in the country and was held in detention until she was put on the flight. Humanitarian organizations estimate that each day about 100 Hondurans leave their country to look for work in the US. About one million Hondurans now live in the US, and remittances from US-based Hondurans to Honduras exceed $2.5 billion a year. The US deports more than 20,000 Hondurans annually. (La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 6/20/12; EFE 6/21/12 via Univision)

*5. Mexico: OAS Agency Reports 8 LGBT Murders in Guerrero
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), reported on June 18 that eight members of the LGBT community in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero have been murdered since the beginning of the year. The latest victim was 18-year-old Antonio Calderón Peralta, whose body was found in Chilpancingo, the state capital, on June 9. The youth, who was dressed in women’s clothes, had been beaten to death. The discovery of Calderón’s body came two days after Guerrero’s LGBT community held a march in Chilpancingo supporting sexual diversity.

The IACHR called on the Guerrero government to investigate the killing, to determine “whether this murder was committed because of the victim’s gender identity or sexual orientation,” and “to punish the persons who are found to responsible.” The agency noted that the killings have taken place “in a context of impunity and lack of due investigation of these deeds.” (AFP 6/19/12 via Noticias de Querétaro; La Jornada de Guerrero 6/22/12)

*6. Mexico: Republicans Push "Fast and Furious" Conspiracy Theory
US president Barack Obama invoked executive privilege on June 20 to justify the Justice Department’s refusal to provide the House of Representatives with some of its documents relating to Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled program in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) inadvertently let about 2,000 firearms “walk” into Mexico during 2009 and 2010. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had subpoenaed the documents from the Justice Department. The House of Representatives could vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for refusing to comply with the subpoena.

The bickering between Obama, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled House over Fast and Furious comes as Obama campaigns to win reelection on Nov. 6 in what is expected to be a close race with the presumed Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Rep. Issa denies that there is any political motivation in his investigation of Fast and Furious. (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/21/12 from AFP)

Issa and Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA) vigorously pursued the Fast and Furious investigation last year, but the probe appeared to lose momentum in October when the two Congress members learned that the administration of Republican former president George W. Bush (2001-2009) had run a similar program, Operation Wide Receiver [see Update #1104]. Another drawback for the investigation was the way it focused attention on the lax gun control laws in the US; these law make it relatively easy to purchase weapons in Southwestern states and then smuggle them to drug cartels in Mexico, where nearly 50,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since the end of 2006. Issa and Grassley are both strong opponents of gun control [see Update #1095].

But recently Fox News and other rightwing media have started promoting a conspiracy theory—originated by Michael Vanderboegh, a blogger reportedly connected to anti-government militias—that makes the Fast and Furious investigation more acceptable to gun control opponents. According to Vanderboegh, the Obama administation purposely let the guns go to the drug cartels so that the resulting bloodbath in Mexico could be used to justify strict federal gun control legislation.

Issa and Grassley have picked up on this idea. Grassley cited it in a television interview, while Issa asked at the National Rifle Association’s April convention: “Could it be that what they really were thinking of was in fact to use this walking of guns in order to promote an assault weapons ban? Many think so.” Issa went further on Fox News. “Very clearly,” he said, “they made a crisis and they’re using this crisis to somehow take away or limit people’s 2nd Amendment rights.” (Los Angeles Times 6/22/12; New York Times 6/22/12)

While acknowledging the political motive for the Republicans’ Fast and Furious inquiry, the left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada reminded Mexican readers that the Obama administration is in fact holding back information on an operation that “exhibits the government in Washington as a provider of arms for the drug cartels that operate in our country.” The new government elected in Mexico’s presidential and legislative voting on July 1 will “need to analyze seriously the appropriateness of continuing” with the current militarized “war on drugs,” which La Jornada described as “a security strategy promoted by the US that not only has been ineffective in [achieving] its objective and has generated counterproductive effects for the country; it has also implied an unacceptable abandonment of national sovereignty and has exposed Washington’s hypocrisy in its supposed promise to combat narco trafficking and eradicate violence.” (LJ 6/21/12)

*7. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico, US/immigration

Repsol Sues Argentina Over YPF Nationalization
http://ww4report.com/node/11184

Uruguay plans to legalize marijuana sale
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3697-uruguay-plans-to-legalize-marijuana-sale

Paraguay: deadly clash as police evict armed peasant squatters
http://ww4report.com/node/11167

Paraguay: 'There are More Dead Comrades'
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/3699-paraguay-there-are-more-dead-comrades

Paraguay: "express coup d'etat" in wake of peasant massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/11206

What will Washington do about Fernando Lugo's ouster in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3701-what-will-washington-do-about-fernando-lugos-ouster-in-paraguay

Tragic Week in Paraguay
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/3705-tragic-week-in-paraguay

Rio+20: Declaration of Kari-Oca II Adopted by Five Hundred Indigenous Representatives in Sacred Ceremony (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/brazil-archives-63/3698-rio-20-declaration-of-kari-oca-ii-adopted-by-five-hundred-indigenous-representatives-in-sacred-ceremony

Brazil Takes Steps to Confiscate Property of Landowners Using Slave Labour
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3693-brazil-takes-steps-to-confiscate-property-of-landowners-using-slave-labour

Bolivia: police mutiny, mineral interests protest nationalization
http://ww4report.com/node/11202

Bolivian police mutiny over pay widens
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3700-bolivian-police-mutiny-over-pay-widens

Bolivia: Evo fetes Ahmadinejad, betrays Iran's indigenous Kurds
http://ww4report.com/node/11179

Bolivian indigenous leaders "unmask" Evo Morales at Rio People's Summit
http://ww4report.com/node/11197

Bolivia: Aymara mark year 5520 with pledge to fight for Mother Earth
http://ww4report.com/node/11212

Democracy from Below in Bolivia: An Interview with Oscar Olivera
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3695-democracy-from-below-in-bolivia-an-interview-with-oscar-olivera

Peru: new violence in Cajamarca anti-mining struggle
http://ww4report.com/node/11205

REDD: Land-Grab In The Name Of Climate Change Mitigation? Peruvian Rainforest Dwellers Charge Privatization Scheme
http://ww4report.com/node/11183

Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadorean embassy in London
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3696-julian-assange-seeking-asylum-in-ecuadorean-embassy-in-london-

Assange to Ecuador: three questions nobody (on the left) is asking
http://ww4report.com/node/11201

Colombia: Movement for the Defense and Liberation of Mother Earth Commences the Festival of the Sun
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3706-the-movement-for-the-defense-and-liberation-of-mother-earth-commences-the-festival-of-the-sun

Our Man in Caracas: The U.S. Media and Henrique Capriles
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/18/our-man-caracas-us-media-and-henrique-capriles

Accused mastermind in Facundo Cabral slaying faces charges in three countries (Central America)
http://ww4report.com/node/11203

U.S. Hand in Honduran Massacre
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/7246

Honduras: DEA agent kills in Miskito Coast narco raid
http://ww4report.com/node/11211

Occupy Guatemala: Shantytown Dwellers Occupy Congress—And Win
http://ww4report.com/node/11185

Guatemala: Exhumation Inside Coban’s Military Garrison
http://latindispatch.com/2012/06/19/guatemala-exhumation-inside-cobans-military-garrison/

Peña Nieto signals further "Colombianization" of Mexico
http://ww4report.com/node/11179

Mexico: El Chapo's son not arrested; hidden war in Tamaulipas goes on
http://ww4report.com/node/11208

Behind the Headlines in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3694-behind-the-headlines-in-mexico

Mexican Student Movement Challenges Media Manipulation of Elections
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3691-mexican-student-movement-challenges-media-manipulation-of-elections

Inside Mexico’s New Youth Rebellion
http://www.grass-roots-press.com/2012/06/19/inside-mexicos-new-youth-rebellion/

The Mexican Campaign: AMLO Against the Polls
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/19/mexican-campaign-amlo-against-polls

Bullets and Blood: The High Price of Anti-Mining Resistance in San José del Progreso
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/7267

Violence Forces Mexican Workers Center to Close
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=202#1463

Women Workers at Flex-N-gate Demand Their Labor Rights
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=202#1468

Mexican High-Tech Workers Demand Justice
http://ww4report.com/node/11187

UNASUR Debates Reduction of MINUSTAH Contingent (Haiti)
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/unasur-debates-reduction-of-minustah-contingent

Undeserved Confidence: A Broken System of Aid in Haiti – Part 2
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/21/undeserved-confidence-broken-system-aid-haiti-%E2%80%93-part-2

ACLU report: Puerto Rico police abusing power
http://ww4report.com/node/11210

ALBA Expels USAID from Member Countries (US)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7069

Barack Obama’s Immigration Reform for Youth: A Dream Deferred? (US/Immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/22/barack-obama%E2%80%99s-immigration-reform-youth-dream-deferred

Supreme Court partially strikes down Arizona immigration law (US/Immigration)
http://ww4report.com/node/11213

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/

WNU #1131: Mexican Presidential Race Heats Up as Students Protest

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1131, June 3, 2012

1. Mexico: Presidential Race Heats Up; Student Protests Continue
2. Mexico: Indigenous Leader Murdered in Michoacán
3. Guatemala: Pérez Molina Downsizes Peace Archives
4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/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.

Note: Last week’s Update was misdated. The date should have been May 27, 2012.

*1. Mexico: Presidential Race Heats Up; Student Protests Continue
Former México state governor Enrique Peña Nieto is still favored to win Mexico’s July 1 presidential elections, but polls released at the end of May showed his lead over the other candidates slipping. After being considered the certain winner for months, Peña Nieto, the candidate of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was only four percentage points ahead of former Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a poll published by the conservative daily Reforma on May 31. Peña Nieto led voter intentions with 38%, according to Reforma, down from 45% in March; López Obrador, who is running with a center-left coalition, followed closely with 34%, up from 22% in March; and Josefina Vázquez Mota, the candidate of the governing center-right National Action Party (PAN), came in third with 23%, down from 32% in March.

Three other polls from the same period showed Peña Nieto with a larger lead and López Obrador and Vázquez Mota close to each other in voter intentions. Milenio/GEA-ISA, for example, showed Peña Nieto with 45.9%; López Obrador was far behind with 24.9% and was virtually tied with Vázquez Mota, who had 24.3%. However, most polls agreed that Peña Nieto and Vázquez Mota were losing ground and López Obrador was gaining. “The possibility exists that [the Reforma poll] is going in the right direction, that the contest is moving that way,” Roy Campos, from the rival Consulta Mitofsky polling company, told a reporter. (ADNpolitico.com (Mexico) 5/31/12)

Peña Nieto and his campaign advisers are said to be concerned by the improved numbers for López Obrador, who lost the 2006 presidential race by a very narrow margin in a disputed official count. The left-leaning daily La Jornada reports that PRI leaders don’t believe that López Obrador is just four points behind their candidate--but they also don’t believe Peña Nieto is ahead by 20 or 21 points. The student protests that have started to plague Peña Nieto’s public appearances are another factor worrying the candidate’s advisers, according to La Jornada. (LJ (Mexico) 6/2/12)

The student movement--widely known as “#YoSoy132” (“I’m number 132”) and sometimes as “Mexican Spring”—appeared suddenly in May to challenge media coverage of the campaign and the perception that the PRI candidate was sure to win [see Update #1130]. While continuing to march against Peña Nieto and the television networks, the students are now also developing links with other Mexican protest movements.

A meeting at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City on June 1 called on students to participate in the capital’s annual LGBT Pride march the next day and in a protest on June 3 in defense of the Wirikuta, a site in the north central state of San Luis Potosí that is sacred to the Wixárika (Huichol) indigenous group; the Wixárika say the site is threatened by a mining concession granted to the Canadian firm First Majestic Silver Corp (FMS) [see Update #1081]. On June 4 students planned to protest in solidarity with some of the parents of the 49 children that died in a fire in the Guardería ABC, a childcare center in Hermosillo, Sonora on June 5, 2009. (LJ 6/2/12; Terra (Mexico) 6/2/12)

Correction: Last week’s Update described a May 19 march in Mexico City as sponsored by university students. Students accounted for much of the participation, but no group sponsored the demonstration, which was organized through social networks.

*2. Mexico: Indigenous Leader Murdered in Michoacán
The body of indigenous teacher and activist Teódulo Santos Girón was found on May 16 in the town cemetery in La Ticla in the western Mexican state of Michoacán. According to official sources, Santos Girón, who had just finished his term as a local official in the indigenous Nahua community of Santa María Ostula, had been kidnapped in La Ticla the night before; he was shot in the head and in the body.

Santos Girón was active in promoting maintenance of the Náhuatl language and culture, and he was a strong supporter of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) who also admired the indigenous rebels of the Zapatista National Liberation Front (EZLN), based in the southeastern state of Chiapas. He helped lead the movement of Ostula residents that occupied disputed land near the Pacific coast in the summer of 2009. The occupiers were subsequently granted more than 1,000 hectares by Michoacán’s state government, but drug dealers and other forces have been trying to drive the community out of the area. As of last December, 28 community members had been murdered, including leaders Trinidad de la Cruz Crisóstomo (“Don Trino”) and Pedro Leyva Domínguez [see Update #1110]. (La Crónica de Hoy (Mexico) 5/18/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/19/12)

Another Michoacán indigenous activist, Jesús Sebastián Ortiz, was found dead on May 24 in the Cherán autonomous municipality, where he was a community leader. He had left his home a week earlier to go to a ranch, but he never returned. Community members feared he had been attacked by forcesengaged in illegal logging; eight people were killed near Cherán the morning of Apr. 18 during a dispute between Cherán residents and loggers [see Update #1126]. But the state Attorney General’s Office said on May 25 that an autopsy showed Sebastián Ortiz had died of a heart problem. An older brother accepted the autopsy results, saying that the community leader, who was 70, had suffered from heart disease. (LJ 5/25/12; El Universal (Mexico) 5/25/12)

*3. Guatemala: Pérez Molina Downsizes Peace Archives
During the last week of May the government of Guatemalan president Otto Pérez Molina began a process that human rights defenders charge will virtually close down the Peace Archives, the agency in charge of preserving and investigating military and police records from the country’s bloody 1960-1996 civil war. Newly appointed Peace Secretary Antonio Arenales Forno announced that the agency was unnecessary. Its function, he said, is “to computerize and analyze military archives to establish human rights violations, but this is the responsibility of the human rights community, and the investigation of crimes is the responsibility of the Prosecutor’s Office.”

The government notified 17 workers in the Peace Archives on May 28 that they would be laid off at the end of June, and Arenales Forno indicated that there more than 100 unnecessary positions in the Peace Secretariat that might be eliminated. The government hasn’t decided where the Archives’ records will kept, but they may be divided between several different Guatemalan agencies and the General Archives of Central America.

Mandated by the peace accords of 1996 and put into operation in 2008, the Peace Archives has already computerized two million documents and published nine reports on topics ranging from the National Police archives to forced disappearances during the war years and the illegal adoptions of children. Staffers from the agency have served as expert witnesses in trials for genocide and crimes against humanities, including the ongoing trial of former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983).

Kate Doyle, a director of investigations at the Washington, DC-based research group National Security Archive, wrote on June 1 that “[t]he closing of the Peace Archives ends an important source of support to human rights prosecutions in Guatemala, and may in part reflect the current government’s particular distaste for the genocide cases.” President Pérez Molina has denied that there was ever genocide in the military’s counterinsurgency campaigns. The president himself was a major in the army during the Ríos Montt dictatorship, operating around Nebaj, El Quiché department, in the Ixil Mayan region [see Updates #1114, 1115]. (Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 5/31/12; EFE 6/1/12 via Terra.com (Peru); National Security Archive blog 6/1/12)

*4. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/immigration

Rocky Road to Gender Equality in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3661-rocky-road-to-gender-equality-in-latin-america

The Pentagon Seeks to Regain the Initiative in South America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3658-the-pentagon-seeks-to-regain-the-initiative-in-south-america

Peru: four dead, mayor arrested in Cuzco mining conflict
http://ww4report.com/node/11132

Peru: police fire on protesters in Cajamarca
http://ww4report.com/node/11133

Peru: Mick Jagger drawn into dispute over expansion of Camisea gas fields
http://ww4report.com/node/11134

Colombia: "armed strike" against glyphosate spraying
http://ww4report.com/node/11129

Colombia signs pact with China for trans-oceanic pipeline
http://ww4report.com/node/11130

The Path of the Free Trade Agreement between Colombia and the United States
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6911

Colombia Denounced for Continued Impunity for Human Rights Crimes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3656-colombia-denounced-for-continued-impunity-for-human-rights-crimes

DEA-linked Deaths Show Faults in Central American Drug Plan
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3657-dea-linked-deaths-show-faults-in-central-american-drug-plan

U.S. Human rights activists document U.S. participation in massacre of Moskito people
http://www.rightsaction.org/action-content/us-human-rights-activists-document-us-participation-massacre-moskito-people

World Press Freedom Day: An Opportunity to Ignore Honduras
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/30/world-press-freedom-day-opportunity-ignore-honduras

Human Rights Violations in Guatemala: Hearing Indigenous Voices
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3660-human-rights-violations-in-guatemala-hearing-indigenous-voices

'Dirty War' Tactic of Disappearances Reappears in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3659-dirty-war-tactic-of-disappearances-reappears-in-mexico-

The Mexican State Goes on Trial in Ciudad Juarez
http://fnsnews.nmsu.edu/2012/05/30/the-mexican-state-goes-on-trial-in-ciudad-juarez/

Two Murders in Veracruz, Mexico
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/29/two-murders-veracruz-mexico

A Civil War in Mexico?
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/29/civil-war-mexico

A Mexican Spring begins to blossom
http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/a-mexican-spring-begins-to-blossom/

"No Matter What the Result, We Will Continue to Resist," Says Mexican Electrical Workers Union Leader
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9534-no-matter-what-the-result-we-wil

Going for Broke: The Corporate Players Behind the Demise of the Caribbean Banana Trade (Part 2)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/31/going-broke-corporate-players-behind-demise-caribbean-banana-trade-part-2

GOLD RUSH IN HAITI! – Who will get rich?
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/journal/2012/5/30/gold-rush-in-haiti-ruee-vers-lor-en-haiti.html

Video: The Migrant Trail Walk
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/1/video-migrant-trail-walk

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/

WNU #1129: Chilean Activists Protest New US Base

Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1129, May 13, 2012

1. Chile: Human Rights Activists Protest New US Base
2. Peru: Questions Persist on 1997 Hostage Rescue
3. Honduras: One Journalist Murdered, One Kidnapped
4. Mexico: Demand Grows for Release of Chiapas Schoolteacher
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico

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. Chile: Human Rights Activists Protest New US Base
A US military training center in the port city of Concón, in the central Chilean province of Valparaíso, will be used for exercises “clearly oriented toward the control and repression of the civilian population,” according to an open letter that more than 20 human rights organizations sent Defense Minister Andrés Allamand on May 7. The US government has spent $460,000 constructing the installation, which opened on Apr. 5 at the Chilean military’s Fort Aguayo naval base. UPI Business News writes that the site “is growing into a major destination for regional military trainers and defense industry contractors.”

According to the US Southern Command (USSC), which heads US military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, the installation will be used for training in Military Operations on Urban Terrain (MOUT) by Latin American soldiers as they prepare for international operations, such as United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions. But the human rights groups wrote in their letter that the Fort Aguayo training ground—a simulation of an urban zone, with eight buildings and sidewalks and roads—suggests plans for military intervention in civilian society. The groups noted that the installation was opened at a time when “broad and massive social demonstrations are developing on the part of the citizenry throughout the country.” [The government of rightwing president Sebastián Piñera has been shaken over the past year by militant protests by students, the indigenous Mapuche, residents of the southern region of Aysén, and other groups; see Updates #1122, 1127].

The human rights organizations said the US lacks “the moral quality to teach ‘peace operations,’” since “it has promoted coups, financed destabilization operations in sister countries, and has promoted war in the world. We don’t forget that in 2009 the Soto Cano base in Honduras, with US military personnel, was used to implement the coup d’état” against former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales [2006-2009]. The letter also held the US responsible for the brutal 1973 coup in Chile and for training “the worst human rights violators in our country” at the US Army’s School of the Americas. (El Ciudadano (Chile) 5/9/12; Adital (Brazil) 5/10/12; People’s World 4/26/12; UPI Business News 4/30/12)

The Southern Command is also planning to build an installation in Argentina, at the airport in Resistencia, capital of the northeastern province of Chaco. The plan seems to contradict center-left president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s policy against allowing foreign military bases, although the province’s governor, Jorge Milton Capitanich, insists that the installation isn’t a “base,” since the US now describes its facilities with terms like “Cooperative Security Location” (CSL) and “Forward Operating Location” (FOL).

The $3 million installation in Chaco will ostensibly be a humanitarian aid center for dealing with natural disasters, but critics suspect the real goal is to monitor the sensitive Triple Frontier region, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, and the Guaraní Aquifer, one of the world’s largest sources of fresh water. The US officer in charge of the project is Col. Edwin Passmore, who was expelled from Venezuela in 2008 on a charge that he had engaged in espionage while serving as US military attaché there. In November 2011 Passmore was involved in an incident in which a US military plane landed in Buenos Aires carrying undeclared electronic monitoring equipment, medications, and intelligence transmission devices.

The US currently has about 800 bases worldwide, with 22 in Latin America, including bases in Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Paraguay and Peru; naval stations in Aruba and Curaçao; and a “CSL” under construction in the Dominican Republic. (People’s World 4/26/12; El Ciudadano 5/5/12)

*2. Peru: Questions Persist on 1997 Hostage Rescue
The Peruvian military held a ceremony at its Chorrillos base, near Lima, on Apr. 20 to commemorate a commando operation 15 years earlier that freed 71 hostages who had been held by rebels from the leftist Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) for 126 days at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in the capital. One hostage, two soldiers and all 14 rebels were killed in the operation, which took place on Apr. 22, 1997. The raid, codenamed Operation Chavín de Huántar, was ordered by the government of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), then a US ally; Fujimori is now serving a 25-year prison term in Peru for corruption and for ordering killings and kidnappings [see Update #1109].

The brief military ceremony, broadcast on national television, included a reenactment of the rescue using a full-scale replica of the ambassador’s residence built at the base under the Fujimori administration; the Japanese government tore down the original building a few months after the rescue. (AFP 4/20/12 via Univision)

A small unit of the now-defunct MRTA seized the ambassador’s residence on Dec. 17, 1996, during a reception honoring the Japanese emperor’s birthday. A large part of Peru’s political class was attending, and the rebels initially took about 700 hostages, although most were freed within days. The successful rescue in April 1997 helped diminish the embarrassment the MRTA’s seizure of the residence caused the security forces and the Fujimori government. But the success was marred almost immediately by reports from a few police agents and freed hostages that at least three of the rebels had been executed after they surrendered [see Update #378].

Relatives of Eduardo (“Tito”) Cruz Sánchez, one of the MRTA rebels allegedly executed, repeatedly tried to get the Peruvian court system to act on the reports; currently the charges are included in proceedings against Fujimori’s intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, that have been languishing in the courts for years. Starting this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish) has taken up the case as well, infuriating the government of President Ollanta Humala, a former military officer [see World War 4 Report 3/18/12, 4/13/12].

Hidetaka Ogura, a former hostage who was first secretary at the Japanese embassy in the 1990s, is an important witness in the case; he says he saw “Tito” Cruz Sánchez alive and bound after the rescue. The Peruvian military has dismissed Ogura’s testimony and has suggested that he might have collaborated with the MRTA. Another important source of evidence for the case is a secret cable dated June 10, 1997, from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); the National Security Archive, a Washington, DC-based research group, obtained it from the US government in 2007 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The cable cites an intelligence source apparently involved in the rescue who graphically described a commando killing an unarmed rebel, Roli (“Arabe”) Rojas Fernández, and said an unnamed “female MRTA militant was also executed during the operation after she surrendered.” The intelligence source said Fujimori had given a “take no prisoners” order.

On Apr. 29, a little more than a week after the 15th anniversary celebration, the Peruvian daily La República reported that Kate Doyle, a director of investigations at the National Security Archive, had testified recently at the Montesinos trial on the Callao military base. In addition to confirming that the DIA cable was authentic, she noted that declassified US government documents had been used “in various trials in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala and in Perú, in the Fujimori case.” (Three former military officers are being tried along with Montesinos: Gen. Nicolás Hermoza Ríos, Col. Roberto Huamán Azcurra and Col. Jesús Zamudio Aliaga.) (National Security Archive press release 12/10/07; EFE 4/29/12 via Univision)

There have also been persistent questions about the killing of Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti Acuña, the one hostage to die in the rescue and an opponent of Fujimori’s changes to the Constitution. In 2002 a protected witness told a Peruvian prosecutor that Montesinos had ordered Giusti's death and had put Col. Huamán Azcurra in charge of carrying out the killing, according to La República. In March of this year Argentine lawyer Alejandro Teitelbaum, citing a 1997 investigation by the Association of American Jurists, charged that Giusti was wounded in the leg and left to bleed to death. (LR 5/16/02; El Diario Internacional 3/13/12)

*3. Honduras: One Journalist Murdered, One Kidnapped
The body of Honduran journalist and LGBT rights activist Erick Alex Martínez Avila was found by a highway in the Tegucigalpa metropolitan area on May 7. He had reportedly been strangled, and the murder is believed to have taken place the day before. Martínez Avila was the communications director for Kukulcan, an organization that defends the rights of the LGBT community, and he was a founder of the Movement of Diversity in Resistance (MDR) and a member of the leftist group Los Necios Political Organization (“los necios” means “the obstinate ones”). Martínez Avila was also running in the Nov. 18 primary elections to be a candidate for legislative deputy in 2013 on the line of the Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), a new party formed by the grassroots National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP).

According to the Latin American Federation of Journalists (FELAP), Martínez Avila was the 22nd Honduran journalist to be murdered since June 2009, when President José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales [2006-2009] was overthrown in a military coup. The MDR says the journalist was also the 20th member of the LGBT community to be murdered since President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa took office in January 2010. (InfoBAE (Argentina) 5/8/12 from DPA, AFP; Adital (Brazil) 5/8/12, 5/10/12)

Alfredo Villatoro, a reporter and news coordinator for the HRN radio chain, was kidnapped in Tegucigalpa in the early morning of May 9 while he was on his way to work. The police quickly arrested former police sergeant Gerson Basilio Godoy, who was driving a Toyota pickup that had been seen parked in front of Villatorio's house that morning; the truck had also collided with the reporter's car, as was shown by paint marks from the other vehicle. The Public Prosecutor’s office released Godoy after 10 hours, saying the evidence was insufficient.

Godoy was dismissed from the police force in September 2011 on suspicion of belonging to a band of kidnappers and extortionists [see Update #1104 for more on corruption in the police force]. In March he was questioned about a robbery attempt against an official, but he was not charged. (Honduras Culture and Politics blog 5/9/12; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 5/9/12) As of May 13 Villatorio was still missing, and the Honduran government had brought in police experts from Colombia and the US to help in the investigation. (El Heraldo (Tegucigalpa) 5/13/12)

*4. Mexico: Demand Grows for Release of Chiapas Schoolteacher
Groups in Argentina, Brazil, France, England, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the US are planning events in the May 15-22 “Week of Global Struggle for the Liberation of Alberto Patishtán Gómez and Francisco Sántiz López,” two indigenous prisoners from the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. The week of actions was initiated by the New York-based Movement for Justice in El Barrio.

Patishtán Gómez, in prison since 2000, is serving a 60-year sentence for his alleged involvement in the June 2000 killing of seven police agents in El Bosque municipality. Local authorities initially suspected drug traffickers, but prosecutors later shifted their attention to supporters of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Most of El Bosque had been part of a pro-EZLN autonomous municipality, San Juan de la Libertad, from 1995 until 1998, when it was dismantled in a violent military operation [see Update #542]. Patishtán Gómez, a local schoolteacher, was the only suspect convicted in the case, and the only witness against him was Rosemberg Gómez, the son of Manuel Gómez Ruiz, then El Bosque’s mayor. Years later Rosemberg Gómez reportedly would tell people when he was drunk that he’d lied on instructions from his father, and that he got a new van as a reward.

Sántiz López, an EZLN supporter, was arrested in December 2011 on charges of leading a confrontation in Tenejapa municipality on Dec. 4 in which one person was killed. Twelve witnesses testify that he wasn’t present during the fight. (Radio Zapatista 4/18/12; Upside Down World 5/11/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/12/12)

*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico

The Failure of the Summit of the Americas VI
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6811

Will Latin America Become the New Middle East?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3621-1-will-latin-america-become-the-new-middle-east

Chomsky: Latin America, Social Movements, Neo-Liberalism, Free Trade Agreements
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3620-chomsky-latin-america-social-movements-neo-liberalism-free-trade-agreements

Unasur Nations Reveal Military Spending, Deepen Cooperation
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6979

The Right to Identity: Argentine Congress Affirms Transgender Rights in Historic Vote
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/argentina-archives-32/3626--the-right-to-identity-argentine-congress-affirms-transgender-rights-in-historic-vote

An Argentine Perspective on Degrowth
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3627-an-argentine-perspective-on-degrowth

Chilean Congress Approves “Zamudio Law” Against Discrimination
http://latindispatch.com/2012/05/11/chilean-congress-approves-zamudio-law-against-discrimination/

Chile: high court blocks Patagonia hydro scheme
http://www.ww4report.com/node/11079

Che: Behind the CIA’s Killing of a Revolutionary (Bolivia)
http://nacla.org/news/2012/5/8/che-behind-cia%E2%80%99s-killing-revolutionary

Nationalization, Bolivian Style: Morales Seizes Electric Grid, Boosts Oil Incentives
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/10/nationalization-bolivian-style-morales-seizes-electric-grid-boosts-oil-incentives

Indigenous Peruvian Community Locked in Dispute with Oil Company
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3624-indigenous-peruvian-community-locked-in-dispute-with-oil-company

Peru: police arrest villagers following anti-mining protest
http://www.ww4report.com/node/11078

Controversy surrounds (supposed) surrender of Colombian kingpin
http://ww4report.com/node/11069

A Rejuvenated Grassroots Movement in Colombia
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/7/rejuvenated-grassroots-movement-colombia

Embedded NYT Reporter Boosts US War in Honduras (and Why We Shouldn’t Listen)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3623-embedded-nyt-reporter-boosts-us-war-in-honduras-and-why-we-shouldnt-listen

Update: The Guatemalan Death Squad Diary and the Right to Truth
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3622-update-the-guatemalan-death-squad-diary-and-the-right-to-truth

Recognizing—and Assisting—the Victims in Mexico
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/8/recognizing%E2%80%94and-assisting%E2%80%94-victims-mexico

Mexico’s Peace Movement and Javier Sicilia: One Year On
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3619-mexicos-peace-movement-and-javier-sicilia-one-year-on

National and International Campaign for the Freedom of Political Prisoners in Chiapas Presses On (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3630-national-and-international-campign-for-the-freedom-of-political-prisoners-in-chiapas-presses-on  

A Stellar Record of Failure: The IMF and Jamaica
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/5/11/stellar-record-failure-imf-and-jamaica

Puerto Rico Governor: Students Should Speak Fluent English by 2022
http://latindispatch.com/2012/05/09/puerto-rico-governor-students-should-speak-fluent-english-by-2022/

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/