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 Nicaragua. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nicaragua. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 November 2012
Friday, 26 October 2012
Bernie McFall, ¡Presente!
We are holding a memorial for Bernie on Friday, November 30, 2012, 6:30 pm at the AJ Muste Memorial Institute, 339 Lafayette Street, buzzer 11, New York, NY, at Bleecker Street. (Take the 6 train to Bleecker Street, or the B,D,F or M to Broadway-Lafayette.) Please join us.
Longtime solidarity activist Bernie McFall died of complications from pneumonia in Elmhurst Hospital in Queens on Oct. 16. He was 76 and had been fighting two forms of cancer.
Bernie was a reliable presence at demonstrations, vigils and picket lines in the New York area for more than two decades, with a special focus on solidarity with the peoples of Central America, Cuba, Haiti and Palestine. During the contra war of the 1980s Bernie worked with the California-based organization TecNica in Nicaragua as a volunteer consultant on IBM mainframes. In the 1990s he traveled to the West Bank to observe conditions there, and he visited Cuba in the early 2000s.
Although he was probably best known for his dedication in handling the routine work of political organizing—photocopying, leafleting, mailing out fliers—Bernie was knowledgeable in many areas, especially Middle Eastern history. He could read an astonishing number of languages, including French, Spanish, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and some Mandarin. He studied Fijian in the 1970s when he was in the Peace Corps, and he learned Arabic in a US military school during the late 1950s, when he was stationed in Eritrea, which was then annexed to Ethiopia. Years later he would smile and say: “They wouldn’t necessarily approve of how I’ve used what they taught me.”
The New York-based Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti was a close friend, and he was staying at Bernie’s apartment in April 2002 when a joint task force of immigration agents and the New York City police arrested him in what quickly became a cause célèbre. Bernie worked steadily in the two-year campaign that finally won Farouk's release; the federal judge who freed Farouk described the Palestinian’s imprisonment as “Kafkaesque.” Bernie himself was threatened and harassed by the police and others during the campaign; filmmaker Konrad Aderer provides more information on Bernie's role at the Life or Liberty website.
Bernie was involved with the Weekly News Update from its first days in 1990, working tirelessly to select and clip articles to be summarized and often arranging for photocopying. We will be joining with others to honor him with a memorial; we’ll announce the plans as soon as we know them.
A few weeks before he died, Bernie asked to make sure his books were made available to people who would make good use of them. Please contact us at weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com if you would like more information on the collection, which includes a number of books in Arabic.
Longtime solidarity activist Bernie McFall died of complications from pneumonia in Elmhurst Hospital in Queens on Oct. 16. He was 76 and had been fighting two forms of cancer.
Bernie was a reliable presence at demonstrations, vigils and picket lines in the New York area for more than two decades, with a special focus on solidarity with the peoples of Central America, Cuba, Haiti and Palestine. During the contra war of the 1980s Bernie worked with the California-based organization TecNica in Nicaragua as a volunteer consultant on IBM mainframes. In the 1990s he traveled to the West Bank to observe conditions there, and he visited Cuba in the early 2000s.
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| Photo: Life or Liberty |
The New York-based Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti was a close friend, and he was staying at Bernie’s apartment in April 2002 when a joint task force of immigration agents and the New York City police arrested him in what quickly became a cause célèbre. Bernie worked steadily in the two-year campaign that finally won Farouk's release; the federal judge who freed Farouk described the Palestinian’s imprisonment as “Kafkaesque.” Bernie himself was threatened and harassed by the police and others during the campaign; filmmaker Konrad Aderer provides more information on Bernie's role at the Life or Liberty website.
Bernie was involved with the Weekly News Update from its first days in 1990, working tirelessly to select and clip articles to be summarized and often arranging for photocopying. We will be joining with others to honor him with a memorial; we’ll announce the plans as soon as we know them.
A few weeks before he died, Bernie asked to make sure his books were made available to people who would make good use of them. Please contact us at weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com if you would like more information on the collection, which includes a number of books in Arabic.
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| Bernie's birthday, February 2012. Photo: Rena Cohen/NYC |
A Tribute From Bernie’s Family
Bernie was much loved by family members too numerous to mention individually--23 surviving nieces and nephews, as well as 41 second- and 14 third-generation nieces and nephews. He attended all the family reunions, weddings, special occasions, celebrations and gatherings he possibly could, and they were numerous. Bernie will be remembered as the fun-loving, playful, favorite uncle who was game for anything and everything that crossed his path.
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| Bernie at an immigrant rights demo |
He had a great love for life. His passions were many, encompassing all types of arts (opera, symphony, ballet, languages, paintings, and sculptures) as well as education, which consequently transferred to many family members and friends. He traveled the world never meeting a stranger and was extremely involved in defending human rights. Bernie gave much support and encouragement, not only monetarily but in any way he could.
He will be greatly missed by so many that he touched and will always have a very special place in all of our hearts.
Bernie in the 1980s. Photos: Rena Cohen/NYC
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
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:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
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:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Friday, 25 May 2012
Paul Baizerman, ¡Presente!
The Update learned recently that longtime solidarity activist Paul Baizerman died last December in New York at the age of 67. A retired public school teacher, Paul dedicated much of his time to the Skilled Trades Task Force, a group he helped found to promote solidarity exchanges between trade unionists in Nicaragua and trade unionists in the US.
Paul’s work in Nicaragua began in the middle 1980s when he volunteered with TecNica, a California-based organization that brought technical assistance to Nicaragua at the height of the US-sponsored contra war against the new revolutionary government there. Paul quickly saw the potential and the need for developing direct solidarity between the labor movements in the two countries. With fluent Spanish and years of experience in the politics of the New York teachers’ union, he formed a close relationship with unionists in Nicaragua and began sending US unionists to Nicaragua and organizing tours of Nicaraguan unionists to the US.
The Skilled Trades Task Force was started as part of TecNica, but it continued to operate after the Sandinistas’ 1990 electoral defeat brought TecNica itself to an end, along with many other solidarity groups. Far from being discouraged, Paul expanded the project to include work with Cuban unionists and labor activists from other Latin American countries.
Paul was typically modest about his work. Generally he only talked about his role in providing material aid, such as the way he would drive tools and spare machine parts to Nicaragua in beat-up old VW bugs, which he donated along with the other equipment to Nicaraguan unions. When conversations got too ideological, he would shrug and say: “I don’t understand any of this crap; I’m from Brooklyn.” But he did understand, much better than most of us did at the time.
Now the idea of cross-border solidarity has won acceptance across a wide range of groups and people, from Occupy Wall Street activists to leaders of the AFL-CIO. But we must never forget that this acceptance is the result of the vision, dedication and hard work of Paul Baizerman and others like him.
For more information, go to:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=paul-baizerman&pid=154952698&fhid=1083 1
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/linder25years/message/15
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/paul-baizerman-presente/
For two articles by Paul, go to:
http://www.yachana.org/reports/nica2001/baizerman.html
http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/2007/12/merit-pay-in-ed-notes-april-2001.html
 |
| Paul leading a delegation in Nicaragua |
The Skilled Trades Task Force was started as part of TecNica, but it continued to operate after the Sandinistas’ 1990 electoral defeat brought TecNica itself to an end, along with many other solidarity groups. Far from being discouraged, Paul expanded the project to include work with Cuban unionists and labor activists from other Latin American countries.
Paul was typically modest about his work. Generally he only talked about his role in providing material aid, such as the way he would drive tools and spare machine parts to Nicaragua in beat-up old VW bugs, which he donated along with the other equipment to Nicaraguan unions. When conversations got too ideological, he would shrug and say: “I don’t understand any of this crap; I’m from Brooklyn.” But he did understand, much better than most of us did at the time.
Now the idea of cross-border solidarity has won acceptance across a wide range of groups and people, from Occupy Wall Street activists to leaders of the AFL-CIO. But we must never forget that this acceptance is the result of the vision, dedication and hard work of Paul Baizerman and others like him.
For more information, go to:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=paul-baizerman&pid=154952698&fhid=1083 1
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/linder25years/message/15
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/paul-baizerman-presente/
For two articles by Paul, go to:
http://www.yachana.org/reports/nica2001/baizerman.html
http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/2007/12/merit-pay-in-ed-notes-april-2001.html
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:
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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, 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/
END
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