Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1132, June 10, 2012
1. Honduras: Aguán Land Dispute Partially Settled
2. Panama: Indigenous Wounaan Finally Get Land Title
3. Mexico: Did Politicians Pay Off the TV Giant Televisa?
4. Latin America: Left Leaders Diss OAS Rights Group
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/immigration
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat.
1. Honduras: Aguán Land Dispute Partially Settled
The government of Honduran president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa signed an agreement on June 5 under which some 4,000 hectares of farmland in the north of the country will be granted to members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), a large campesino collective that has been staging land occupations in the area since December 2009. The government is to buy the land from cooking oil magnate Miguel Facussé Barjum for some $20 million and resell it to MUCA members, who are to pay the government back with a loan from the Banco Hondureño de Producción y Vivienda (Banhprovi), a private bank. They will need to repay the loan in 15 years with a 6% annual interest rate after a three-year grace period.
Talks between MUCA and the government stalled in late January over the financing of the loan. The impasse was apparently broken when a deadline for purchasing the land passed on May 31 and Facussé got a judge to issue an eviction order against campesinos occupying parts of his estates. This pushed the government to move faster to finalize an agreement. (Based on a garbled report from the Associated Press on June 4, US media said the campesinos had “agreed to move out”; in fact, the campesinos will remain on the land under the agreement. The AP report was partly corrected the next day.)
The campesinos signed the agreement “at gunpoint, under threats and pressure,” MUCA spokesperson Vitalino Alvarez told reporters. “The fight continues.” The June 5 agreement falls far short of a deal President Lobo signed in April 2010 granting MUCA members 11,000 hectares [see Update #1029]. For MUCA members the latest accord is only a partial, unsatisfactory settlement to a dispute that has reportedly left at least 47 campesinos dead since 2009, along with 10 security guards and two police agents.
The campesinos deny that Facussé and other large landowners in the area have any right to the disputed land, which they bought illegally, according to the campesinos, since it was dedicated to use in the country’s agrarian reform program. President Lobo himself, a member of the center-right National Party (PN), supports the campesinos’ claim. On June 5 he described the land dispute as “a problem that was generated by an error in other administrations in which men and women of the countryside were allowed to sell their lands, in a period which an agrarian counter-reform took place. An error was committed, which needs to be corrected.”
The campesinos are also concerned about the cost of the bank loan. César Ham, the head of the government’s National Agrarian Institute (INA), said the campesinos will be able to pay the loan off by selling the fruit of African oil palms, a major product of the Lower Aguán Valley, to companies that can process it into palm oil—that is, to companies like Facussé’s Grupo Dinant [see Update #1077]. “In other words,” the Honduras Culture and Politics blog notes, “MUCA is being asked to take on a large debt to a private bank, for funds that are being passed on, via the Honduran government, to the private individual who MUCA argues does not have a defensible claim to the land, and then to spend the next fifteen years at the mercy of the processing plants owned by the same individual (and others).” (Honduras Culture and Politics 6/4/12; AP 6/6/12 via CBS News; Prensa Latina 6/6/12)
[There have been no media references recently to earlier plans for Alba-Petróleos, a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), to pay for a processing plant for the campesinos; see Update #1116.]
2. Panama: Indigenous Wounaan Finally Get Land Title
After a 30-year struggle, on June 4 two indigenous Wounaan collectives in the eastern Panamanian province of Darién received titles from the government to their traditional lands. Puerto Lara and Caña Blanca were the first communities to benefit from Law 72, which was passed in 2008 to recognize indigenous communities that were left out of the process in which Panama created five comarcas, large, semi-autonomous regions for many of the country’s indigenous peoples. Thousands of Wounaan and Emberá are awaiting titles in another 39 communities in eastern Panama. Indigenous people in these communities say the lack of titles has left their territories open to invasions by ranchers and loggers. (Rainforest Foundation 6/1/12, 6/5/12)
Two people were killed and at least three injured in two clashes between Wounaan and loggers on Mar. 30 near the Wounaan community of Platanares. Community members had approached a tractor being used by loggers working for the Maderera company to cut Cocobolo timber, an endangered variety of rosewood. One of the loggers shot Platanares leader Aquilino Opúa, who managed to return to the community but died there soon afterwards; community members then attacked the loggers, and a tractor driver, Ezequiel Batista, was killed. (Rainforest Foundation 3/31/12; Intercontinental Cry 4/4/12)
3. Mexico: Did Politicians Pay Off the TV Giant Televisa?
In an article dated June 7, the British daily The Guardian said it had received documents apparently showing that Mexico’s largest television network, Televisa, was paid in 2005 to have its news and entertainment programs influence voters’ perceptions of various politicians. The documents are in the form of computer files given the paper by someone who formerly worked with Televisa.
One document is a PowerPoint presentation, dated Apr. 4, 2005, whose stated goal is to make sure center-left presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador (“AMLO”) “does not win the 2006 elections.” Other documents show payments to give prominence to Enrique Peña Nieto, who was then starting his 2005-2011 term as governor of México state. There are also documents indicating that while in office former president Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) had Televisa bill the government in ways that would conceal how much the presidency was paying the network, which the British paper calls “the largest media empire in the Spanish-speaking world.”
Two of the politicians in the Guardian’s story are the leading candidates in this year’s July 1 presidential election: former México state governor Peña Nieto is the candidate of the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), while former Mexico City mayor López Obrador is again running as the candidate of a center-left coalition, after narrowly losing the 2006 election in the official count. The Guardian article appeared as Peña Nieto’s lead was slipping in the polls and students had started protesting the favorable coverage he had gotten from the media, principally Televisa and the second largest network, TV Azteca. After a slow start this year, López Obrador has moved into second place [see Update #1131].
Televisa initially wouldn’t comment on the documents; later it dismissed them as forgeries. The Guardian said that it couldn’t authenticate the computer files but “extensive cross checks have shown that the names, dates and situations mentioned largely line up with events.” Several ideas proposed in the documents appeared later on Televisa programs. The paper posted one of the documents on its website on June 8, a budget for promoting Peña Nieto while he was governor. The Mexican magazine Proceso obtained and published a hardcopy version of the same budget in 2005; Peña Nieto and Televisa have always maintained that that it could be a forgery. (The Guardian 6/7/12)
Although Peña Nieto is still well ahead of López Obrador in most opinion polls, Mexico’s political class seems concerned about the possibility of a center-left candidate winning the presidency. On June 3 former president Fox threw his support behind Peña Nieto, deserting Josefina Vázquez Mota, the candidate of his own center-right National Action Party (PAN), who has fallen into third place. (Ironically, Fox’s election to the presidency in 2000 broke the PRI’s 71-year hold on the executive branch.) On June 9 the PRI tried to shift concerns about corruption to López Obrador: the party filed a complaint with the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) charging that the candidate was violating campaign financing laws by raising money through the National Regeneration Movement (Morena), a nonparty association he founded last year. (Milenio (Mexico) 6/4/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 6/10/12)
4. Latin America: Left Leaders Diss OAS Rights Group
The 42nd General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), held June 3-5 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, was dominated by calls from leftist South American leaders for restructuring the group and ending domination by the US. Bolivian president Evo Morales, the host of the meeting, set the tone by declaring that “for the OAS there are two roads: either it dies in the service of imperialism, or it is reborn to serve the peoples of America.” Headquartered in Washington, DC, the OAS includes every country in the hemisphere except Cuba, which was denied representation in 1962 under pressure from the US.
A special target for leaders on the left was the OAS rights organization, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), which is based in Washington, DC, with an affiliated human rights court in San José, Costa Rica. “If it doesn’t want to watch over individual guarantees in the US, it’s better that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights should disappear,” Morales said at the General Assembly. Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, who was criticized by the IACHR in a dispute he had with the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo, described the organization as a “defender of the freedom of the press to extort” that “is totally influenced by hegemonic nations, by the NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and the interests of big capital.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 6/4/12 from AFP, Xinhua, Reuters)
[Peru made similar criticisms of the IACHR in January, when the commission agreed to hear a case concerning accusations that Peruvian security forces carried out summary executions in the 1997 hostage rescue mission at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima; see World War 4 Report 4/13/12.]
Rightwing Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer pointed out on June 9 that the IACHR has in fact frequently criticized the US, along with US allies in Latin America. “Last year,” he wrote, “the commission passed 11 resolutions requesting the United States to take urgent actions to correct human rights abuses. The only country that received more commission requests for urgent corrective actions was Honduras, which was the target of 12 commission resolutions. Colombia ranked third among the countries with the most commission urgent action requests, Mexico fourth, and Argentina and Cuba were tied for fifth place, with three requests each. By comparison, the commission passed only one urgent action request against Venezuela, one against Bolivia and one against Ecuador last year.” Oppenheimer noted that in 2011 the IACHR had criticized the US government’s routine detention of undocumented immigrants, the deportation of Haitians with health problems, and the indefinite detention of Muslim prisoners in the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. (Kansas City Star 6/9/12)
Oppenheimer didn’t note, however, that the US government and media paid little attention to the IACHR’s criticisms of the US in 2011. Probably very few people in the US were aware of the IACHR documents Oppenheimer cited; or of the commission’s statements on the judicial executions of Manuel Valle, Mark Anthony Stroman and Humberto Leal García in the US; or of an IACHR rapporteur’s “concern over the arrests and assaults on journalists and media workers during the coverage of the demonstrations of the Occupy Wall Street groups in Nashville and Oakland” in November 2011.
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Haiti, US/immigration
Argentina's Desaparecidos – the Epilogue
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3671-colombia-and-guatemala-again-ranked-1st-and-2nd-in-murders-of-trade-unionists
Elders in Peruvian Andes Help Interpret Climate Changes
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3666-elders-in-peruvian-andes-help-interpret-climate-changes-
Peru: lawmakers resign from ruling party as mining conflicts escalate
http://ww4report.com/node/11147
Colombia and Guatemala Again Ranked 1st and 2nd in Murders of Trade Unionists
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3671-colombia-and-guatemala-again-ranked-1st-and-2nd-in-murders-of-trade-unionists
Venezuelan Anti-Capitalists March in Solidarity with Global Movements
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7039
Pacific Rim Ruling Threatens El Salvador’s National Sovereignty
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/8/pacific-rim-ruling-threatens-el-salvador%E2%80%99s-national-sovereignty
World Bank tribunal grants PacRim Mining jurisdiction in case against El Salvador
http://ww4report.com/node/11148
Honduras: US claims success in drug war militarization
http://ww4report.com/node/11149
Next for Honduras: "charter city" neocolonialism?
http://ww4report.com/node/11150
Laboratory, Honduras: Dueling truth commissions, ongoing repression, and Canada’s role in the new Honduras
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3673-laboratory-honduras
Protesters in the United States Shape Media Coverage of Porfirio Lobo (Honduras)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/4/protesters-united-states-shape-media-coverage-porfirio-lobo
Media Analysis: 'This American Life' Digs for Truth about the Dos Erres Massacre in Guatemala, but Fails to Unearth the Role of the United States
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3668--media-analysis-this-american-life-digs-for-truth-about-the-dos-erres-massacre-in-guatemala-but-fails-to-unearth-the-role-of-the-united-states
Photo Essay: Third Month of Resistance Against a Radius Gold-owned Mine in Guatemala
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3669-photo-essay-third-month-of-resistance-against-a-radius-gold-owned-mine-in-guatemala
Mexico’s G20 Summit: In the Eye of the Storm
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6923
Man Arrested in 2006 Brad Will Murder–Finally a Step Toward Justice? (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6932
Mexico: Year of the Grasshopper
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june072012/year-grasshopper.php
Typical: The Economist Fails Caribbean History
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/7/typical-economist-fails-caribbean-history
As Caracol Industrial Park Progresses, Scrutiny of Problems Grows
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/as-caracol-industrial-park-progresses-scrutiny-of-problems-grows
Bringing the Battlefield to the Border: The Wild World of Border Security and Boundary Building in Arizona (immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/7/bringing-battlefield-border-wild-world-border-security-and-boundary-building-arizona
Your Local Police Officer in Northern Washington State: A U.S. Border Patrol Agent (immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/6/your-local-police-officer-northern-washington-state-us-border-patrol-agent
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/
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US. Show all posts
Monday, 11 June 2012
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
WNU #1101: Latin American Indignados Join the “Occupy” Protests
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1101, October 16, 2011
1. Latin America: Thousands of Indignados Join the “Occupy” Protests
2. Latin America: Leaders and Writers Assess Occupy Wall Street
3. Trade: US Congress Approves Colombia and Panama FTAs
4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
==> If you’re in the New York metropolitan area this week, don’t forget the final two days of our massive book giveaway, Oct. 19 and Oct. 22. More information at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2011/10/still-more-free-books-from-new-york.html
*1. Latin America: Thousands of Indignados Join the “Occupy” Protests
Joining others in more than 900 cities around the world, Latin American activists protested on Oct. 15 to demonstrate their discontent with the global economic system. The demonstrations got a significant boost from Occupy Wall Street, a US movement that started with an action in New York on Sept. 17, but the Latin American protests also referenced the Real Democracy Now movement that developed in Spain last spring; the Spanish protests were inspired in turn by protests in Tunisia and Egypt at the beginning of the year. In Spanish-speaking countries the movement is widely known as “15-M,” from May 15, the day when protests started in Madrid. Like the Spanish protesters, Latin American participants call themselves los indignados and las indignadas—“the angry ones,” or “the indignant ones.”
Thousands of Chileans marked the global day of action by marching with music and dancing from the University of Chile campus in central Santiago along the Alameda avenue to the O’Higgins Park. They called for reform of the political system and for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution to replace the current document, which was created under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The protesters also backed the demands of student strikers for a free public education system and expressed opposition to the HidroAysén project, a plan to build a complex of five dams that environmentalists say would threaten fjords and valleys in the Patagonia region [see Updates #1081, 1100]. Organizers estimated that 5,000 people participated; the police didn’t give an estimate. Similar protests were scheduled for other cities, including Arica, Iquique, Coquimbo, La Serena and Valparaíso. (Radio Universidad de Chile 10/15/11; Observador Global (Argentina) 10/15/11; Adital (Brazil) 10/14/11)
More than 1,000 Argentines, many wearing masks or costumes, marched on Oct. 15 from the Plaza del Congreso de la Nación in central Buenos Aires to the Plaza de Mayo. The marchers included Juan Marino, the leader of the Revolutionary Piquetero Tendency (TPR), part of a movement of the unemployed that developed in response to the neoliberal policies of former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) and the financial crisis of 2001. “It can’t go on like this,” said another marcher, Bernardo Molina. “The rich created the crisis, and we, the poor, always end up paying.” Argentines also demonstrated in La Plata, Córdoba, Mar del Plata, Rosario, Mendoza, Tucumán, Jujuy and other cities. (People’s Daily (China) 10/16/11)
In Brazil, some 200 people, mostly youths, gathered under a heavy rain at Sao Paulo’s Museo de Arte on Paulista Avenue in the banking and commercial district, while others met in the Largo de Sao Bento, a colonial building in the center of the city. Some participants were from political parties, but one group of youths carried a sign saying they rejected parties. There were also protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities. (ANSA 10/15/11)
About 500 Peruvians marked the global day of action with a gathering at the Plaza San Martín in the center of Lima. Slogans on their signs included: “Wake up,” “Raise your voice, demand change,” and “The earth and the water belong to the people, not to the businesses.” The mobilization was “peaceful, apolitical and nonpartisan,” Luis Álvarez, from the Take the Plaza collective, which had called the protest, told Radio Programas del Perú (RPP). (EFE 10/15/11 via Qué.es (Spain))
In Colombia about 70 indignados and indignadas met at Bogotá’s National Park to call for a regeneration of the democratic and economic system. The group originally planned to march to Plaza de Bolívar, in front of the presidential palace, but participants decided to stay in the park and develop the movement by holding an assembly in which they exchanged opinions on what should be the principles of the “15-O” (Oct. 15) movement. They also made signs expressing themes of the global movement, such as “Real democracy now,” mixed with references to local issues, such as “No to mining.” (EFE 10/15/11 via El Espectador (Bogotá))
Like their Colombian counterparts, the approximately 400 protesters who gathered at the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City on Oct. 15 focused on both local and global issues, from the Mexican government’s “war on drugs” to consumerism and fraudulent banking practices. The group that called for the mobilization, the Permanent Assembly of Mexican Indignados, read a communiqué saying that “the country is hurling itself into the disaster of daily and widespread violence; into unemployment and hunger; into the violation of the most fundamental rights; into the destruction of the social fabric and the loss of human values.” “If those below get moving, those above fall down,” “Less tele and more vision,” and “If they won’t let us dream, we won’t let them sleep” were among the signs, along with “We’ve had it up to here” (Estamos hasta la madre), a slogan which has dominated Mexican demonstrations for much of this year [see Update #1079].
There were protests in 20 other Mexican cities, including a sit-in at the Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada de Jalapa plaza in the eastern state of Veracruz and at the Explanada de los Héroes in the central plaza of Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo León. (Observador Global 10/15/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/16/11, ___ )
*2. Latin America: Leaders and Writers Assess Occupy Wall Street
Latin America’s protests on the Oct. 15 global day of action around the economic system were not especially large--in comparison either to the massive protests in Europe that day or to many Latin American demonstrations around the same issues over recent years. But for leaders, writers and activists in the region the day was an historic event, both because of the participation of people around the globe and because of the unusual leading role of a movement based in the US.
“We agree with some of the expressions that some movements have used around the world [in] demonstrations like the ones we see in the US and other countries,” Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, a member of the center-left Workers Party (PT), said in an official speech in Porto Alegre on Oct. 14. She noted that she herself had taken a slogan from these movements: “No, we’re not going to pay for your crisis.” (ANSA 10/15/11)
Hugo Chávez Frías, the leftist president of Venezuela, warned US rulers that “something’s germinating” in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Rather than “trying to stop the peaceful march of Venezuela,” he said at an Oct. 15 cabinet meeting broadcast by the government’s television network, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), US leaders should “worry instead about the indignados they have there in the heart of Wall Street. Today there were marches in half the world, in all the world. Let them worry about that.” (EFE 10/15/11 via El Nuevo Herald (Miami))
Oct. 15 “is going to be an unforgettable date for the human race,” organizers of the protests in Chile wrote on their website. “This will be the first universal gathering of citizens for a better world.” “I have great joy in my heart because for the first time in the history of the planet all of humanity is raising its voice against a dominant power which has kept us lulled to sleep and which is responsible for the current global crisis,” one of the older protesters in Colombia, Jorge Reyes, told the Spanish wire service EFE. The renowned Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called the 15-M movement a “pure vitamin of hope” which shows that “everything can change” and “we’re not condemned to living in the most dangerous universal dictatorship, that of the masters of finance.” (Adital (Brazil) 10/14/11; EFE 10/15/11 via El Espectador (Bogotá))
An editorial in Mexico’s left-leaning daily La Jornada noted: “[T]he fact that the protests have appeared in scenarios as different from each other as the developed nations of Europe and the peripheral nations of Latin America, Asia and Africa confirms once again the destabilizing and self-destructive character of economic globalization.” The world financial centers have “succeeded in globalizing discontent and indignation.” But the paper warned that “the appearance of these spontaneous expressions of dissent…and the justified unrest of the demonstrators aren’t enough to change [the] status quo…for that it is necessary to have a massive participation of the majority sectors of the world population.” (LJ 10/16/11)
*3. Trade: US Congress Approves Colombia and Panama FTAs
Just as opposition to neoliberal economic policies was generating new protests around the world, on Oct. 12 the US Congress passed long-delayed neoliberal free trade agreements (FTAs, or TLCs in Spanish) with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. The three agreements were negotiated by the administration of former US president George W. Bush (2001-2009); the Colombia FTA was signed in 2006, and the Korea and Panama FTAs were signed in 2007. But approval by Congress was delayed because of partisan maneuvering and the unpopularity of previous agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many Democrats and US labor leaders opposed the Colombia pact because of continuing murders of unionists in the South American country [see Update #1099].
Despite this opposition, the FTAs passed Congress with large majorities. The vote in the House of Representative was 262-167 for the Colombia agreement, 278-151 for Korea and 300-129 for Panama; the Senate voted 66-33 for the Colombia FTA, 83-15 for Korea and 77-22 for Panama. The agreements will eliminate or reduce tariffs restricting imports from the US, improve protection for what US companies consider their intellectual property rights, and give freer access for US investors. The US International Trade Commission (USTR) projects that the three FTAs will boost US national exports by about $13 billion a year, some 0.1% of the US gross domestic product (GDP). (The Jurist 10/13/11)
“More jobs will be created in both countries” through the Colombia-US FTA, Ricardo Tribín, former president of the Colombia Chamber of Commerce, told the Miami radio station WQBA after the pact was approved. “[I]n the case of Florida it was almost necessary to approve it, because of the problem of unemployment,” he said. “Now it just needs to be implemented.” (EFE 10/13/11 via WQBA) US president Barack Obama and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos made similar claims. Obama said the pact would stimulate the stagnant US economy, while Santos promised a permanent 1% increase in Colombia’s growth rate, the creation of 250,000 new jobs and a 6% rise in exports.
But Mauricio Cabrera Galvis, a columnist for the daily Vanguardia in the northern department of Santander, wrote that the Colombian government hadn’t explained how it arrived at such high figures for job growth. The USTR only projected 7,000 new jobs for the US, with exports to Colombia growing by $1.1 billion a year and Colombia’s exports growing by much less--just $487 million. Moreover, some Colombian business people are worried that labor protection clauses in the FTA will raise wages and reduce their competitive edge, Cabrera wrote. (Vanguardia 10/16/11)
Colombian labor leaders didn’t share this concern about increased wages. The unionists, who have repeatedly demonstrated against the FTA [see Update #1075], expect that the FTA “will bring a great loss of jobs and the destruction of the agricultural sector, which isn’t prepared for the competition” with US agribusiness, in the words of Tarcisio Mora, who heads the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Colombia’s main labor federation. (TeleSUR 10/13/11 via Adital (Brazil)) Colombian economist Mario Alejandro Valencia went further. Noting that the US Congress passed the FTA on Oct. 12, when Latin Americans commemorate the beginning of the European invasion and colonization of the region, Valencia charged that the pact “legally decrees the recolonization of Colombia, this time at the hands of the US multinationals, the most powerful that have ever existed.” (Prensa Rural (Colombia) 10/14/11)
Union leaders in Panama had the same concerns. “With this treaty Panamanian agriculture and employment will obviously be affected,” Samuel Rivera, from the National Council of Organized Workers (Conato), told the French wire service AFP. “This is a fight between a heavyweight and a flyweight… [W]ith the [government] subsidies that US products get, there is no human way our country can compete.” (AFP 10/13/11 via Estrategia y Negocios (Honduras))
*4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
The Year in Revolts: A South American Perspective of the Arab Spring
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3257-the-year-in-revolts-a-south-american-perspective-of-the-arab-spring
Argentina to Wall Street: Latin American Social Movements and the Occupation of Everything
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3254-argentina-to-wall-street-latin-american-social-movements-and-the-occupation-of-everything
Argentine connection in Iran assassination plot alleged
http://ww4report.com/node/10433
Chile: Mapuche march on Santiago to mark Columbus invasion
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10417
‘A Poetic Concept of Identity’: An Interview with Mapuche Poet David Aniñir Guilitraro (Chile)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3260-a-poetic-concept-of-identity-an-interview-with-mapuche-poet-david-aninir-guilitraro-
Paraguay: indigenous Aché defend land with bows and arrows
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10423
Bolivia cancels controversial Amazon highway —for now
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10414
Has Bolivia really canceled Amazon highway project?
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10424
Bolivia's TIPNIS Conflict Moves to La Paz
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/14/bolivias-tipnis-conflict-moves-la-paz
Ecuador: Mining in Times of Referendums
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3262-ecuador-mining-in-times-of-referendums-
Colombian workers, students hit streets in nationwide protests
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10413
Colombia: nomadic Amazon tribe caught between paras, guerillas
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10416
Abortion Ban Rejected By Colombian Senate
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/13/abortion-ban-rejected-by-colombian-senate/
Reflections on the U.S.-Colombia FTA Agreement Approved Yesterday by Congress
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/13/reflections-us-colombia-fta-agreement-approved-yesterday-congress
Colombian Senator: Trade Deal "Worst Decision" to Date
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3259-colombian-senator-trade-deal-qworst-decisionq-to-date
Workers in Nationalised Companies in Venezuela Demand More Worker Control
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6554
Conjugal Visits For Gay Couples Legalized In Costa Rica
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/13/conjugal-visits-for-gay-couples-legalized-in-costa-rica/
Guatemala: Former President Mejía Declared Fugitive For Genocide
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/14/guatemala-former-president-mejia-declared-fugitive-for-genocide/
Oaxaca: displaced Triqui struggle for the land (Mexico)
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10415
Gangsters or Paramilitaries: What’s in a Name? (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/11/gangsters-or-paramilitaries-what%E2%80%99s-name
Mexico: 20 dead in Matamoros prison riot
http://ww4report.com/node/10432
The Cockamamie Iran-Mexico Terrorist Plot
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5564
Iran-Contra Remix for the Twenty-First Century (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/14/iran-contra-remix-twenty-first-century
Mexico: Rural Women Organize to Weather Multiple Crises
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3255-mexico-rural-women-organise-to-weather-multiple-crises
Occupy Wall Street Movement Breaks Borders (Mexico)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172011/occupy-new-mexico.php
Cuban 5: Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Other Celebrities Ask Obama To Send René González Home
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/11/cuban-5-susan-sarandon-danny-glover-other-celebrities-ask-obama-to-send-rene-gonzalez-home/
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; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1101, October 16, 2011
1. Latin America: Thousands of Indignados Join the “Occupy” Protests
2. Latin America: Leaders and Writers Assess Occupy Wall Street
3. Trade: US Congress Approves Colombia and Panama FTAs
4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
==> If you’re in the New York metropolitan area this week, don’t forget the final two days of our massive book giveaway, Oct. 19 and Oct. 22. More information at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/2011/10/still-more-free-books-from-new-york.html
*1. Latin America: Thousands of Indignados Join the “Occupy” Protests
Joining others in more than 900 cities around the world, Latin American activists protested on Oct. 15 to demonstrate their discontent with the global economic system. The demonstrations got a significant boost from Occupy Wall Street, a US movement that started with an action in New York on Sept. 17, but the Latin American protests also referenced the Real Democracy Now movement that developed in Spain last spring; the Spanish protests were inspired in turn by protests in Tunisia and Egypt at the beginning of the year. In Spanish-speaking countries the movement is widely known as “15-M,” from May 15, the day when protests started in Madrid. Like the Spanish protesters, Latin American participants call themselves los indignados and las indignadas—“the angry ones,” or “the indignant ones.”
Thousands of Chileans marked the global day of action by marching with music and dancing from the University of Chile campus in central Santiago along the Alameda avenue to the O’Higgins Park. They called for reform of the political system and for a constituent assembly to write a new constitution to replace the current document, which was created under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The protesters also backed the demands of student strikers for a free public education system and expressed opposition to the HidroAysén project, a plan to build a complex of five dams that environmentalists say would threaten fjords and valleys in the Patagonia region [see Updates #1081, 1100]. Organizers estimated that 5,000 people participated; the police didn’t give an estimate. Similar protests were scheduled for other cities, including Arica, Iquique, Coquimbo, La Serena and Valparaíso. (Radio Universidad de Chile 10/15/11; Observador Global (Argentina) 10/15/11; Adital (Brazil) 10/14/11)
More than 1,000 Argentines, many wearing masks or costumes, marched on Oct. 15 from the Plaza del Congreso de la Nación in central Buenos Aires to the Plaza de Mayo. The marchers included Juan Marino, the leader of the Revolutionary Piquetero Tendency (TPR), part of a movement of the unemployed that developed in response to the neoliberal policies of former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) and the financial crisis of 2001. “It can’t go on like this,” said another marcher, Bernardo Molina. “The rich created the crisis, and we, the poor, always end up paying.” Argentines also demonstrated in La Plata, Córdoba, Mar del Plata, Rosario, Mendoza, Tucumán, Jujuy and other cities. (People’s Daily (China) 10/16/11)
In Brazil, some 200 people, mostly youths, gathered under a heavy rain at Sao Paulo’s Museo de Arte on Paulista Avenue in the banking and commercial district, while others met in the Largo de Sao Bento, a colonial building in the center of the city. Some participants were from political parties, but one group of youths carried a sign saying they rejected parties. There were also protests in Rio de Janeiro and other cities. (ANSA 10/15/11)
About 500 Peruvians marked the global day of action with a gathering at the Plaza San Martín in the center of Lima. Slogans on their signs included: “Wake up,” “Raise your voice, demand change,” and “The earth and the water belong to the people, not to the businesses.” The mobilization was “peaceful, apolitical and nonpartisan,” Luis Álvarez, from the Take the Plaza collective, which had called the protest, told Radio Programas del Perú (RPP). (EFE 10/15/11 via Qué.es (Spain))
In Colombia about 70 indignados and indignadas met at Bogotá’s National Park to call for a regeneration of the democratic and economic system. The group originally planned to march to Plaza de Bolívar, in front of the presidential palace, but participants decided to stay in the park and develop the movement by holding an assembly in which they exchanged opinions on what should be the principles of the “15-O” (Oct. 15) movement. They also made signs expressing themes of the global movement, such as “Real democracy now,” mixed with references to local issues, such as “No to mining.” (EFE 10/15/11 via El Espectador (Bogotá))
Like their Colombian counterparts, the approximately 400 protesters who gathered at the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City on Oct. 15 focused on both local and global issues, from the Mexican government’s “war on drugs” to consumerism and fraudulent banking practices. The group that called for the mobilization, the Permanent Assembly of Mexican Indignados, read a communiqué saying that “the country is hurling itself into the disaster of daily and widespread violence; into unemployment and hunger; into the violation of the most fundamental rights; into the destruction of the social fabric and the loss of human values.” “If those below get moving, those above fall down,” “Less tele and more vision,” and “If they won’t let us dream, we won’t let them sleep” were among the signs, along with “We’ve had it up to here” (Estamos hasta la madre), a slogan which has dominated Mexican demonstrations for much of this year [see Update #1079].
There were protests in 20 other Mexican cities, including a sit-in at the Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada de Jalapa plaza in the eastern state of Veracruz and at the Explanada de los Héroes in the central plaza of Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo León. (Observador Global 10/15/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/16/11, ___ )
*2. Latin America: Leaders and Writers Assess Occupy Wall Street
Latin America’s protests on the Oct. 15 global day of action around the economic system were not especially large--in comparison either to the massive protests in Europe that day or to many Latin American demonstrations around the same issues over recent years. But for leaders, writers and activists in the region the day was an historic event, both because of the participation of people around the globe and because of the unusual leading role of a movement based in the US.
“We agree with some of the expressions that some movements have used around the world [in] demonstrations like the ones we see in the US and other countries,” Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, a member of the center-left Workers Party (PT), said in an official speech in Porto Alegre on Oct. 14. She noted that she herself had taken a slogan from these movements: “No, we’re not going to pay for your crisis.” (ANSA 10/15/11)
Hugo Chávez Frías, the leftist president of Venezuela, warned US rulers that “something’s germinating” in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Rather than “trying to stop the peaceful march of Venezuela,” he said at an Oct. 15 cabinet meeting broadcast by the government’s television network, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV), US leaders should “worry instead about the indignados they have there in the heart of Wall Street. Today there were marches in half the world, in all the world. Let them worry about that.” (EFE 10/15/11 via El Nuevo Herald (Miami))
Oct. 15 “is going to be an unforgettable date for the human race,” organizers of the protests in Chile wrote on their website. “This will be the first universal gathering of citizens for a better world.” “I have great joy in my heart because for the first time in the history of the planet all of humanity is raising its voice against a dominant power which has kept us lulled to sleep and which is responsible for the current global crisis,” one of the older protesters in Colombia, Jorge Reyes, told the Spanish wire service EFE. The renowned Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano called the 15-M movement a “pure vitamin of hope” which shows that “everything can change” and “we’re not condemned to living in the most dangerous universal dictatorship, that of the masters of finance.” (Adital (Brazil) 10/14/11; EFE 10/15/11 via El Espectador (Bogotá))
An editorial in Mexico’s left-leaning daily La Jornada noted: “[T]he fact that the protests have appeared in scenarios as different from each other as the developed nations of Europe and the peripheral nations of Latin America, Asia and Africa confirms once again the destabilizing and self-destructive character of economic globalization.” The world financial centers have “succeeded in globalizing discontent and indignation.” But the paper warned that “the appearance of these spontaneous expressions of dissent…and the justified unrest of the demonstrators aren’t enough to change [the] status quo…for that it is necessary to have a massive participation of the majority sectors of the world population.” (LJ 10/16/11)
*3. Trade: US Congress Approves Colombia and Panama FTAs
Just as opposition to neoliberal economic policies was generating new protests around the world, on Oct. 12 the US Congress passed long-delayed neoliberal free trade agreements (FTAs, or TLCs in Spanish) with Colombia, South Korea and Panama. The three agreements were negotiated by the administration of former US president George W. Bush (2001-2009); the Colombia FTA was signed in 2006, and the Korea and Panama FTAs were signed in 2007. But approval by Congress was delayed because of partisan maneuvering and the unpopularity of previous agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Many Democrats and US labor leaders opposed the Colombia pact because of continuing murders of unionists in the South American country [see Update #1099].
Despite this opposition, the FTAs passed Congress with large majorities. The vote in the House of Representative was 262-167 for the Colombia agreement, 278-151 for Korea and 300-129 for Panama; the Senate voted 66-33 for the Colombia FTA, 83-15 for Korea and 77-22 for Panama. The agreements will eliminate or reduce tariffs restricting imports from the US, improve protection for what US companies consider their intellectual property rights, and give freer access for US investors. The US International Trade Commission (USTR) projects that the three FTAs will boost US national exports by about $13 billion a year, some 0.1% of the US gross domestic product (GDP). (The Jurist 10/13/11)
“More jobs will be created in both countries” through the Colombia-US FTA, Ricardo Tribín, former president of the Colombia Chamber of Commerce, told the Miami radio station WQBA after the pact was approved. “[I]n the case of Florida it was almost necessary to approve it, because of the problem of unemployment,” he said. “Now it just needs to be implemented.” (EFE 10/13/11 via WQBA) US president Barack Obama and Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos made similar claims. Obama said the pact would stimulate the stagnant US economy, while Santos promised a permanent 1% increase in Colombia’s growth rate, the creation of 250,000 new jobs and a 6% rise in exports.
But Mauricio Cabrera Galvis, a columnist for the daily Vanguardia in the northern department of Santander, wrote that the Colombian government hadn’t explained how it arrived at such high figures for job growth. The USTR only projected 7,000 new jobs for the US, with exports to Colombia growing by $1.1 billion a year and Colombia’s exports growing by much less--just $487 million. Moreover, some Colombian business people are worried that labor protection clauses in the FTA will raise wages and reduce their competitive edge, Cabrera wrote. (Vanguardia 10/16/11)
Colombian labor leaders didn’t share this concern about increased wages. The unionists, who have repeatedly demonstrated against the FTA [see Update #1075], expect that the FTA “will bring a great loss of jobs and the destruction of the agricultural sector, which isn’t prepared for the competition” with US agribusiness, in the words of Tarcisio Mora, who heads the Unitary Workers Central (CUT), Colombia’s main labor federation. (TeleSUR 10/13/11 via Adital (Brazil)) Colombian economist Mario Alejandro Valencia went further. Noting that the US Congress passed the FTA on Oct. 12, when Latin Americans commemorate the beginning of the European invasion and colonization of the region, Valencia charged that the pact “legally decrees the recolonization of Colombia, this time at the hands of the US multinationals, the most powerful that have ever existed.” (Prensa Rural (Colombia) 10/14/11)
Union leaders in Panama had the same concerns. “With this treaty Panamanian agriculture and employment will obviously be affected,” Samuel Rivera, from the National Council of Organized Workers (Conato), told the French wire service AFP. “This is a fight between a heavyweight and a flyweight… [W]ith the [government] subsidies that US products get, there is no human way our country can compete.” (AFP 10/13/11 via Estrategia y Negocios (Honduras))
*4. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba
The Year in Revolts: A South American Perspective of the Arab Spring
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3257-the-year-in-revolts-a-south-american-perspective-of-the-arab-spring
Argentina to Wall Street: Latin American Social Movements and the Occupation of Everything
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3254-argentina-to-wall-street-latin-american-social-movements-and-the-occupation-of-everything
Argentine connection in Iran assassination plot alleged
http://ww4report.com/node/10433
Chile: Mapuche march on Santiago to mark Columbus invasion
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10417
‘A Poetic Concept of Identity’: An Interview with Mapuche Poet David Aniñir Guilitraro (Chile)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3260-a-poetic-concept-of-identity-an-interview-with-mapuche-poet-david-aninir-guilitraro-
Paraguay: indigenous Aché defend land with bows and arrows
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10423
Bolivia cancels controversial Amazon highway —for now
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10414
Has Bolivia really canceled Amazon highway project?
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10424
Bolivia's TIPNIS Conflict Moves to La Paz
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/14/bolivias-tipnis-conflict-moves-la-paz
Ecuador: Mining in Times of Referendums
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3262-ecuador-mining-in-times-of-referendums-
Colombian workers, students hit streets in nationwide protests
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10413
Colombia: nomadic Amazon tribe caught between paras, guerillas
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10416
Abortion Ban Rejected By Colombian Senate
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/13/abortion-ban-rejected-by-colombian-senate/
Reflections on the U.S.-Colombia FTA Agreement Approved Yesterday by Congress
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/13/reflections-us-colombia-fta-agreement-approved-yesterday-congress
Colombian Senator: Trade Deal "Worst Decision" to Date
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3259-colombian-senator-trade-deal-qworst-decisionq-to-date
Workers in Nationalised Companies in Venezuela Demand More Worker Control
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6554
Conjugal Visits For Gay Couples Legalized In Costa Rica
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/13/conjugal-visits-for-gay-couples-legalized-in-costa-rica/
Guatemala: Former President Mejía Declared Fugitive For Genocide
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/14/guatemala-former-president-mejia-declared-fugitive-for-genocide/
Oaxaca: displaced Triqui struggle for the land (Mexico)
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10415
Gangsters or Paramilitaries: What’s in a Name? (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/11/gangsters-or-paramilitaries-what%E2%80%99s-name
Mexico: 20 dead in Matamoros prison riot
http://ww4report.com/node/10432
The Cockamamie Iran-Mexico Terrorist Plot
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5564
Iran-Contra Remix for the Twenty-First Century (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/10/14/iran-contra-remix-twenty-first-century
Mexico: Rural Women Organize to Weather Multiple Crises
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3255-mexico-rural-women-organise-to-weather-multiple-crises
Occupy Wall Street Movement Breaks Borders (Mexico)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172011/occupy-new-mexico.php
Cuban 5: Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, Other Celebrities Ask Obama To Send René González Home
http://latindispatch.com/2011/10/11/cuban-5-susan-sarandon-danny-glover-other-celebrities-ask-obama-to-send-rene-gonzalez-home/
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; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 17 January 2011
WNU #1063: Honduran Right Offers Constitutional Reforms
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1063, January 16, 2011
1. Honduras: Right Wing Offers Constitutional Reforms
2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Kidnapped, Released
3. Puerto Rico: Student Strike Resumes
4. Haiti: Quake Anniversary Ceremonies Protested
5. Latin America: Four More Countries Recognize Palestine
6. US: SOA Protesters Get the Max, Again
7. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Right Wing Offers Constitutional Reforms
On the evening of Jan. 12 Honduras’ National Congress passed reforms to Articles 5 and 213 of the 1982 Constitution that would open the way to changing key elements of the document--including the ban on presidential reelection--by popular referendum. The changes were proposed by the rightwing National Party (PN) of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa and were backed by other parties, including the Liberal Party (PL) of former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); 103 of the 128 legislative deputies voted for the reforms.
Two different sessions of the National Congress need to approve an amendment, so the changes will not be official unless approved the next session, which begins on Jan. 25.
Commentators were quick to note that the military removed former president Zelaya from office in June 2009 on the pretext that a nonbinding referendum he was promoting could have resulted in similar changes to the Constitution. President Lobo and many of the current legislators supported the 2009 coup as a defense of the Constitution. “So something that was bad when Zelaya tried it is good now?” a reporter asked President Lobo on Jan. 12. “Let’s not mix water with oil,” Lobo answered, claiming that Zelaya had been trying to extend his term.
Grassroots organizations denounced the new reforms as an inadequate response to the popular pressure for more extensive changes to the current Constitution, which was created at the end of nearly two decades of military dictatorship. The National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of many different groups opposing the 2009 coup, said it would continue to push for a constituent assembly with the power to rewrite the Constitution, the object of the June 2009 referendum. The FNRP says it gathered 1,342,876 signatures for such an assembly during a petition campaign in the spring and summer of 2010 [see Update #1051].
Tomás Andino, a former Congress member from the center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, attributed the government’s reforms to international pressure. He said the US was following a policy of supporting “moderate coup supporters” and dissociating itself from the “recalcitrant coup supporters.” According to Andino, Washington pushed the Lobo government in December to return Zelaya to Honduras from exile and to punish the "visible faces of the coup." The government’s failure to follow the US plan lost Honduras $215 million of US aid from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Andino said, and could result in the loss of other aid. (Prensa Latina 1/12/11; La Nación (Costa Rica) 1/13/11, some from ACAN-EFE; Red Morazánica de Información 1/13/11 via FNRP website; Honduras Culture and Politics blog 1/13/11) The US announced the Millennium Challenge suspension on Jan. 6. (AP 1/6/11 via SFGate)
*2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Kidnapped, Released
Honduran campesino leader Juan Ramón Chinchilla was safe and was staying in an undisclosed location on Jan. 11 after two days in captivity, according to the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of labor and grassroots organizations. Chinchilla, a leader in the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), said a group of hooded men seized him on Jan. 8 on a road near La Concepción, Tocoa municipality, in the northern department of Colón. The kidnappers questioned him, beat him and burned his hair, Chinchilla said. Most of the men wore uniforms; some spoke English and one spoke a language Chinchilla couldn’t understand. He escaped while the kidnappers were moving him to another location on the night of Jan. 9.
The FNRP thanked political and social organizations and the international community for mobilizing in Chinchilla’s defense. The kidnappers “were concerned about the national and international pressure,” Chinchilla told an interviewer. “They were monitoring the news on the internet and radio. That is why they decided to move me to another location…. I believe that all of this pressure helped so that something worse did not happen.”
The Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras has been the site of repeated and often violent land struggles between campesino families, grouped together in the MUCA, and large landowners seeking to use the land for growing African oil palms [see Update #1059]. Chinchilla and the FNRP suggested that three of the largest landowners in the country, Miguel Facussé Barjum, Reinaldo Canales and René Morales, were behind Chinchilla’s kidnapping. (Prensa Latina 1/11/11, 1/12/11; FNRP website 1/12/11 from Rel-UITA (Argentina))
*3. Puerto Rico: Student Strike Resumes
Students at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) renewed militant protests around economic issues as the school reopened on Jan. 11 following winter holidays. The actions had started in December in opposition to an $800 tuition surcharge for 2011 [see Update #1060]; protest leaders said the increase would keep as many as 10,000 of the system’s 65,000 students from attending the public university. The students called a 48-hour strike on Dec. 7-8, and an indefinite strike starting on Dec. 14, but the actions were only observed at six of the UPR’s 11 campuses, in contrast to the 10 campuses shut down last spring, when students beat back major budget cutbacks with a two-month strike. (People’s World 1/10/11)
The students’ first action when school reopened was a march on Jan. 11, but acts of vandalism by masked youths during the march put the student movement on the defensive. On Jan. 12 police agents arrested nine students at the Río Piedras campus in San Juan as they distributed fliers; they were released later in the day for lack of evidence to support charges. An assembly of student strikers that evening condemned the arrests as a demonstration that “the university administration and the executive [of the Puerto Rican government] continue to restrict, without right or reason, freedom of expression, reflecting in the process the totalitarian character of [Gov.] Luis Fortuño’s government.” The assembly also condemned vandalism and the “irresponsible use” of masks for “acts…which go against the spirit of struggle of this student movement,” but the students defended the “use of masks as a way to protect the compañeros and compañeras from being arrested or penalized for participating in demonstrations and public activities.” (Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 1/13/11, ___)
On Jan. 13 some 75 strikers attempted to disrupt the first day of registration with a sit-in at the Río Piedras campus’ administrative buildings. The protesters occupied a stairway and hung a giant banner reading: “No fees” in various languages and quoting the German philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Only through education can man be a man; man is no more than what education makes of him.” Police agents eventually used pepper spray and their shields to push the protesters outside, where a larger number of students continued to demonstrate. Seven arrests were reported. (Primera Hora 1/13/11; Puerto Rico Indymedia 1/14/11)
*4. Haiti: Quake Anniversary Ceremonies Protested
Thousands of Haitians turned out for religious ceremonies in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country on Jan. 12 to mark the one-year anniversary of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that leveled much of the capital and the surrounding area. Cardinal Robert Sarah, sent by Pope Benedict XVI, joined the papal nuncio and Haitian bishops and priests in a special mass at the ruins of the city’s Catholic cathedral. Protestants held a service at the Champ-de-Mars park, across from the shattered National Palace, while Vodou followers participated in a ceremony of remembrance at the National Bureau of Ethnology.
The death toll from the earthquake has generally been estimated at 220,000 to 250,000, but on the anniversary Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive announced that the official estimate had risen to 316,000. Some 206,000 victims were reportedly buried just in the mass graves at Saint-Christophe (Titanyen) north of the capital. (Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 1/12/11)
Not all the anniversary ceremonies went smoothly. The government planned an event to mark the start of an ambitious housing project supposed to provide some 3,000-4,000 apartments in the impoverished Fort National neighborhood near the center of Port-au-Prince. The event was called off after a group of unidentified persons threw stones and an apparently unrelated group of about 20 local residents carrying signs occupied the site. Police and members of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), an international police and military operation, intervened, but there were no reports of injuries. The protesters said they didn’t oppose reconstruction but were demanding greater transparency. “We want explanations, we want to know how the state expects to help people who well before Jan. 12 [2010] lived in subhuman conditions,” a protester explained to a MINUSTAH agent, who took notes. “This is unacceptable now in the 21st century.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/12/11)
A memorial at the Applied Linguistics Faculty of the State University of Haiti (UEH) for more than 150 students and faculty lost in the quake was disrupted by dozens of protesters, mostly from the UEH Human Sciences Faculty (FASCH), demanding justice for sociology professor Jean Anil Louis-Juste. A well-known radical, Louis-Juste was shot dead in broad daylight in downtown Port-au-Prince just a few hours before the earthquake [see Update #1026]. The FASCH students were protesting the lack of progress in the murder investigation and what they said was UEH rector Jean Vernet Henry’s failure to honor Louis-Juste on the Jan. 12 anniversary. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 1/12/11)
In other news, on Jan. 13 Organization of American States (OAS) representatives in Haiti sent President René Préval a report by OAS technical experts on the Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections. The report recommended that presidential candidates Myrlande Manigat and Michel Martelly (the popular singer known as “Sweet Mickey”) should be the two candidates in a runoff election originally scheduled for Jan. 16. Martelly would replace Préval’s designated candidate (and future son-in-law), Jude Célestin, who was originally assigned second place. One person was killed on Jan. 14 during street demonstrations against the OAS recommendations, and 14 people were arrested; they were released without explanation the same day. The detainees had been carrying a large amount of money in their vehicles, along with old tires and pamphlets proclaiming Célestin the victor; witnesses said they had been shooting guns and building barricades. (AlterPresse 1/14/11; Radio Kiskeya 1/15/11)
Adding to the tensions, former “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) arrived in Port-au-Prince on an Air France flight at about 5 pm on Jan. 16, apparently without warning, after nearly 25 years of exile in France. Several hundred supporters and opponents gathered at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport as the news spread. The ex-dictator stayed at the airport for about three hours and then was driven away in a vehicle under heavy escort by Haitian police and MINUSTAH agents. (AlterPresse 1/17/11)
*5. Latin America: Four More Countries Recognize Palestine
On Jan. 14 Guyana’s Foreign Ministry announced that his country was recognizing Palestine as an independent nation in the hope that “that the increasing recognition of the state of Palestine will contribute to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of lasting peace and stability in the region.” Guyana is the sixth South American country to recognize Palestine in a little more than a month. (Haaretz (Israel) 1/14/11)
Brazil started the wave of recognitions on Dec. 3, and Argentina followed on Dec. 6 [see Update #1060]. Bolivian president Evo Morales announced his country’s decision to recognize Palestine on Dec. 22; Bolivia had broken relations with Israel in January 2009 in response to an Israeli offensive in Gaza. (Reuters 12/22/10 via Europa Press) On Dec. 24 Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry announced that President Rafael Correa had approved that day “official recognition by the government of Ecuador for the Palestinian State as free and independent, with the borders from 1967.” (EFE 12/24/10 via La Hora (Quito))
The government of rightwing Chilean president Sebastián Piñera announced its recognition of Palestine on Jan. 7. A statement read by Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno stressed that Chile has also “fully supported the right of the state of Israel to exist inside secure and internationally recognized borders.” Like Bolivia, Chile didn’t define the borders of the Palestinian state; Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador all specified the borders from 1967, which would include Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Moreno noted the presence in Chile of large communities of people of Arabic and Jewish descent; there are about 300,000 Arab Chileans and 30,000 Jewish Chileans. Moreno also announced a visit by Piñera to Israel and Palestine and Mar. 4 and 5. (AFP 1/7/11 via El Comercio (Quito))
Venezuela had recognized Palestine earlier, as had three other Latin American countries: Costa Rica, Cuba and Nicaragua. Uruguay indicated that it would make a similar move sometime in 2011 [see Update #1060].
*6. US: SOA Protesters Get the Max, Again
For the second year in a row, a federal court in Columbus, Georgia, has sentenced activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base during protests against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). This is the maximum sentence for the offense, and US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth surprised observers when he imposed the penalty on three activists in January 2010 [see Update #1020].
Four of the activists arrested during the most recent protest—the 20th annual demonstration, held last Nov. 20—have received six-month sentences. Father Louis Vitale and Michael Omondi were sentenced after making a no-contest plea in November, and Nancy H. Smith and Christopher Spicer were sentenced by US Magistrate Stephen Hyles on Jan. 5. This is the third time Father Vitale has served time in jail for participating in the protests against SOA, which trains Latin American soldiers. SOA Watch, which sponsors the protests, says SOA graduates are among the region's most notorious human rights violators.
Information on sending letters of support to the jailed activists is available at http://www.soaw.org/about-us/pocs . (SOA Watch 1/5/11; Bryan County (GA) News 1/6/11 from AP)
Correction: In Update #1058 we reported that the 2010 SOA Watch demonstration was about the same size as in 2009, based on police and media reports indicating that about 5,000 people participated in both. An experienced activist who was present for both protests reports that the 2009 demonstration was larger, with significantly more than 5,000 participants.
*7. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Decade that Transformed a Continent
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3841
Once Upon a Time in Argentina: Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s Latest Fairy Tale
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2857-once-upon-a-time-in-argentina-mary-anastasia-ogradys-latest-fairy-tale-
Argentina: "national hero" recast as mass murderer of indigenous people
http://ww4report.com/node/9342
Chile: Flood of Indigenous Demands a Challenge for Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2856-chile-flood-of-indigenous-demands-a-challenge-for-government
Easter Island: Chilean forces suppress indigenous protests
http://ww4report.com/node/9341
Protests paralyze southern Chile
http://ww4report.com/node/9346
The Rio de Janeiro War: Farce and the Geopolitics of Crime
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3863
Flash Flooding In Brazil Claims More Than 470 Lives And Shines Spotlight On Brazilian Housing Policy
http://latindispatch.com/2011/01/14/flash-flooding-in-brazil-claims-more-than-470-lives-and-shines-spotlight-on-brazilian-housing-policy/
Inter-American rights commission to rule on Bazilian Amazon land claim
http://ww4report.com/node/9345
Bolivia: New Pension Law Lowers Retirement Age, Raises Expectations
https://nacla.org/node/6858
Open Letter to Evo Morales and Álvaro García Against the Gasolinazo
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2854-open-letter-to-evo-morales-and-alvaro-garcia-against-the-gasolinazo
WikiLeaks Peru: cable alleges military ties to narco-traffic
http://ww4report.com/node/9340
Peru: army rewrites history of "dirty war"
http://ww4report.com/node/9343
Peru: evidence mounts of "uncontacted peoples" in Amazon oil zones
http://ww4report.com/node/9344
The Battle Next Door: An Insider’s Experience with Colombian Military Discourse
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3889
Two, Three, Many Colombias
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2862-two-three-many-colombias
Colombia: new charges in "false positives" scandal
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9349
Venezuelan link seen in supposed FARC-ETA connection
http://ww4report.com/node/9347
Hugo Chávez: "I am not a dictator"
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9348
New U.S. Ship Deployment to Costa Rica Heightens Tensions
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3852
US: Wrong on Honduras
http://www.thenation.com/article/157725/us-wrong-honduras
Guatemala declares emergency as Zetas threaten state
http://ww4report.com/node/9350
Mexico: Zapatistas deny link to Fernández de Cevallos kidnapping
http://ww4report.com/node/9351
Mexico: leader of "Santa Muerte" cult detained on kidnapping charges
http://ww4report.com/node/9352
Mexico: 2010 narco-violence again breaks record
http://ww4report.com/node/9353
Mexico: Guerrero campesinos reinstate blockade against Parota hydro-dam
http://ww4report.com/node/9354
The Other Arizona Shooting (Mexico)
http://vivirlatino.com/2011/01/11/the-other-arizona-shooting.php
Where the People Order and the Law Obeys: The Policía Comunitaria in Guerrero, Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2855-where-the-people-order-and-the-law-obeys-the-policia-comunitaria-in-guerrero-mexico
Mexican Army attacks human rights defenders in Oaxaca
http://elenemigocomun.net/2011/01/mexican-army-attacks-human-rights-defenders/
Former CIA Asset Luis Posada Goes to Trial (Cuba)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5929
Haiti One Year Later: Light at the End of the Tunnel or Oncoming Train?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-schuller/haiti-one-year-later-ligh_b_807756.html
Haiti: January 12, 2011 - Frustration, Anger, Exclusion
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/1/13/january-12-2011.html
Beyond the Blue Helmets: Stability in Haiti Requires New Elections
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3869
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
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You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1063, January 16, 2011
1. Honduras: Right Wing Offers Constitutional Reforms
2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Kidnapped, Released
3. Puerto Rico: Student Strike Resumes
4. Haiti: Quake Anniversary Ceremonies Protested
5. Latin America: Four More Countries Recognize Palestine
6. US: SOA Protesters Get the Max, Again
7. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Honduras: Right Wing Offers Constitutional Reforms
On the evening of Jan. 12 Honduras’ National Congress passed reforms to Articles 5 and 213 of the 1982 Constitution that would open the way to changing key elements of the document--including the ban on presidential reelection--by popular referendum. The changes were proposed by the rightwing National Party (PN) of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa and were backed by other parties, including the Liberal Party (PL) of former president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009); 103 of the 128 legislative deputies voted for the reforms.
Two different sessions of the National Congress need to approve an amendment, so the changes will not be official unless approved the next session, which begins on Jan. 25.
Commentators were quick to note that the military removed former president Zelaya from office in June 2009 on the pretext that a nonbinding referendum he was promoting could have resulted in similar changes to the Constitution. President Lobo and many of the current legislators supported the 2009 coup as a defense of the Constitution. “So something that was bad when Zelaya tried it is good now?” a reporter asked President Lobo on Jan. 12. “Let’s not mix water with oil,” Lobo answered, claiming that Zelaya had been trying to extend his term.
Grassroots organizations denounced the new reforms as an inadequate response to the popular pressure for more extensive changes to the current Constitution, which was created at the end of nearly two decades of military dictatorship. The National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of many different groups opposing the 2009 coup, said it would continue to push for a constituent assembly with the power to rewrite the Constitution, the object of the June 2009 referendum. The FNRP says it gathered 1,342,876 signatures for such an assembly during a petition campaign in the spring and summer of 2010 [see Update #1051].
Tomás Andino, a former Congress member from the center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, attributed the government’s reforms to international pressure. He said the US was following a policy of supporting “moderate coup supporters” and dissociating itself from the “recalcitrant coup supporters.” According to Andino, Washington pushed the Lobo government in December to return Zelaya to Honduras from exile and to punish the "visible faces of the coup." The government’s failure to follow the US plan lost Honduras $215 million of US aid from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, Andino said, and could result in the loss of other aid. (Prensa Latina 1/12/11; La Nación (Costa Rica) 1/13/11, some from ACAN-EFE; Red Morazánica de Información 1/13/11 via FNRP website; Honduras Culture and Politics blog 1/13/11) The US announced the Millennium Challenge suspension on Jan. 6. (AP 1/6/11 via SFGate)
*2. Honduras: Campesino Leader Kidnapped, Released
Honduran campesino leader Juan Ramón Chinchilla was safe and was staying in an undisclosed location on Jan. 11 after two days in captivity, according to the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), a coalition of labor and grassroots organizations. Chinchilla, a leader in the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), said a group of hooded men seized him on Jan. 8 on a road near La Concepción, Tocoa municipality, in the northern department of Colón. The kidnappers questioned him, beat him and burned his hair, Chinchilla said. Most of the men wore uniforms; some spoke English and one spoke a language Chinchilla couldn’t understand. He escaped while the kidnappers were moving him to another location on the night of Jan. 9.
The FNRP thanked political and social organizations and the international community for mobilizing in Chinchilla’s defense. The kidnappers “were concerned about the national and international pressure,” Chinchilla told an interviewer. “They were monitoring the news on the internet and radio. That is why they decided to move me to another location…. I believe that all of this pressure helped so that something worse did not happen.”
The Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras has been the site of repeated and often violent land struggles between campesino families, grouped together in the MUCA, and large landowners seeking to use the land for growing African oil palms [see Update #1059]. Chinchilla and the FNRP suggested that three of the largest landowners in the country, Miguel Facussé Barjum, Reinaldo Canales and René Morales, were behind Chinchilla’s kidnapping. (Prensa Latina 1/11/11, 1/12/11; FNRP website 1/12/11 from Rel-UITA (Argentina))
*3. Puerto Rico: Student Strike Resumes
Students at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) renewed militant protests around economic issues as the school reopened on Jan. 11 following winter holidays. The actions had started in December in opposition to an $800 tuition surcharge for 2011 [see Update #1060]; protest leaders said the increase would keep as many as 10,000 of the system’s 65,000 students from attending the public university. The students called a 48-hour strike on Dec. 7-8, and an indefinite strike starting on Dec. 14, but the actions were only observed at six of the UPR’s 11 campuses, in contrast to the 10 campuses shut down last spring, when students beat back major budget cutbacks with a two-month strike. (People’s World 1/10/11)
The students’ first action when school reopened was a march on Jan. 11, but acts of vandalism by masked youths during the march put the student movement on the defensive. On Jan. 12 police agents arrested nine students at the Río Piedras campus in San Juan as they distributed fliers; they were released later in the day for lack of evidence to support charges. An assembly of student strikers that evening condemned the arrests as a demonstration that “the university administration and the executive [of the Puerto Rican government] continue to restrict, without right or reason, freedom of expression, reflecting in the process the totalitarian character of [Gov.] Luis Fortuño’s government.” The assembly also condemned vandalism and the “irresponsible use” of masks for “acts…which go against the spirit of struggle of this student movement,” but the students defended the “use of masks as a way to protect the compañeros and compañeras from being arrested or penalized for participating in demonstrations and public activities.” (Primera Hora (Guaynabo) 1/13/11, ___)
On Jan. 13 some 75 strikers attempted to disrupt the first day of registration with a sit-in at the Río Piedras campus’ administrative buildings. The protesters occupied a stairway and hung a giant banner reading: “No fees” in various languages and quoting the German philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Only through education can man be a man; man is no more than what education makes of him.” Police agents eventually used pepper spray and their shields to push the protesters outside, where a larger number of students continued to demonstrate. Seven arrests were reported. (Primera Hora 1/13/11; Puerto Rico Indymedia 1/14/11)
*4. Haiti: Quake Anniversary Ceremonies Protested
Thousands of Haitians turned out for religious ceremonies in Port-au-Prince and other parts of the country on Jan. 12 to mark the one-year anniversary of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that leveled much of the capital and the surrounding area. Cardinal Robert Sarah, sent by Pope Benedict XVI, joined the papal nuncio and Haitian bishops and priests in a special mass at the ruins of the city’s Catholic cathedral. Protestants held a service at the Champ-de-Mars park, across from the shattered National Palace, while Vodou followers participated in a ceremony of remembrance at the National Bureau of Ethnology.
The death toll from the earthquake has generally been estimated at 220,000 to 250,000, but on the anniversary Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive announced that the official estimate had risen to 316,000. Some 206,000 victims were reportedly buried just in the mass graves at Saint-Christophe (Titanyen) north of the capital. (Agence Haïtienne de Presse (Haiti) 1/12/11)
Not all the anniversary ceremonies went smoothly. The government planned an event to mark the start of an ambitious housing project supposed to provide some 3,000-4,000 apartments in the impoverished Fort National neighborhood near the center of Port-au-Prince. The event was called off after a group of unidentified persons threw stones and an apparently unrelated group of about 20 local residents carrying signs occupied the site. Police and members of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), an international police and military operation, intervened, but there were no reports of injuries. The protesters said they didn’t oppose reconstruction but were demanding greater transparency. “We want explanations, we want to know how the state expects to help people who well before Jan. 12 [2010] lived in subhuman conditions,” a protester explained to a MINUSTAH agent, who took notes. “This is unacceptable now in the 21st century.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 1/12/11)
A memorial at the Applied Linguistics Faculty of the State University of Haiti (UEH) for more than 150 students and faculty lost in the quake was disrupted by dozens of protesters, mostly from the UEH Human Sciences Faculty (FASCH), demanding justice for sociology professor Jean Anil Louis-Juste. A well-known radical, Louis-Juste was shot dead in broad daylight in downtown Port-au-Prince just a few hours before the earthquake [see Update #1026]. The FASCH students were protesting the lack of progress in the murder investigation and what they said was UEH rector Jean Vernet Henry’s failure to honor Louis-Juste on the Jan. 12 anniversary. (Radio Kiskeya (Haiti) 1/12/11)
In other news, on Jan. 13 Organization of American States (OAS) representatives in Haiti sent President René Préval a report by OAS technical experts on the Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections. The report recommended that presidential candidates Myrlande Manigat and Michel Martelly (the popular singer known as “Sweet Mickey”) should be the two candidates in a runoff election originally scheduled for Jan. 16. Martelly would replace Préval’s designated candidate (and future son-in-law), Jude Célestin, who was originally assigned second place. One person was killed on Jan. 14 during street demonstrations against the OAS recommendations, and 14 people were arrested; they were released without explanation the same day. The detainees had been carrying a large amount of money in their vehicles, along with old tires and pamphlets proclaiming Célestin the victor; witnesses said they had been shooting guns and building barricades. (AlterPresse 1/14/11; Radio Kiskeya 1/15/11)
Adding to the tensions, former “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) arrived in Port-au-Prince on an Air France flight at about 5 pm on Jan. 16, apparently without warning, after nearly 25 years of exile in France. Several hundred supporters and opponents gathered at the Toussaint Louverture International Airport as the news spread. The ex-dictator stayed at the airport for about three hours and then was driven away in a vehicle under heavy escort by Haitian police and MINUSTAH agents. (AlterPresse 1/17/11)
*5. Latin America: Four More Countries Recognize Palestine
On Jan. 14 Guyana’s Foreign Ministry announced that his country was recognizing Palestine as an independent nation in the hope that “that the increasing recognition of the state of Palestine will contribute to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the creation of lasting peace and stability in the region.” Guyana is the sixth South American country to recognize Palestine in a little more than a month. (Haaretz (Israel) 1/14/11)
Brazil started the wave of recognitions on Dec. 3, and Argentina followed on Dec. 6 [see Update #1060]. Bolivian president Evo Morales announced his country’s decision to recognize Palestine on Dec. 22; Bolivia had broken relations with Israel in January 2009 in response to an Israeli offensive in Gaza. (Reuters 12/22/10 via Europa Press) On Dec. 24 Ecuador’s Foreign Ministry announced that President Rafael Correa had approved that day “official recognition by the government of Ecuador for the Palestinian State as free and independent, with the borders from 1967.” (EFE 12/24/10 via La Hora (Quito))
The government of rightwing Chilean president Sebastián Piñera announced its recognition of Palestine on Jan. 7. A statement read by Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno stressed that Chile has also “fully supported the right of the state of Israel to exist inside secure and internationally recognized borders.” Like Bolivia, Chile didn’t define the borders of the Palestinian state; Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador all specified the borders from 1967, which would include Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Moreno noted the presence in Chile of large communities of people of Arabic and Jewish descent; there are about 300,000 Arab Chileans and 30,000 Jewish Chileans. Moreno also announced a visit by Piñera to Israel and Palestine and Mar. 4 and 5. (AFP 1/7/11 via El Comercio (Quito))
Venezuela had recognized Palestine earlier, as had three other Latin American countries: Costa Rica, Cuba and Nicaragua. Uruguay indicated that it would make a similar move sometime in 2011 [see Update #1060].
*6. US: SOA Protesters Get the Max, Again
For the second year in a row, a federal court in Columbus, Georgia, has sentenced activists to six-month prison terms for trespassing on the US Army's Fort Benning base during protests against the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly the US Army School of the Americas (SOA). This is the maximum sentence for the offense, and US federal magistrate G. Mallon Faircloth surprised observers when he imposed the penalty on three activists in January 2010 [see Update #1020].
Four of the activists arrested during the most recent protest—the 20th annual demonstration, held last Nov. 20—have received six-month sentences. Father Louis Vitale and Michael Omondi were sentenced after making a no-contest plea in November, and Nancy H. Smith and Christopher Spicer were sentenced by US Magistrate Stephen Hyles on Jan. 5. This is the third time Father Vitale has served time in jail for participating in the protests against SOA, which trains Latin American soldiers. SOA Watch, which sponsors the protests, says SOA graduates are among the region's most notorious human rights violators.
Information on sending letters of support to the jailed activists is available at http://www.soaw.org/about-us/pocs . (SOA Watch 1/5/11; Bryan County (GA) News 1/6/11 from AP)
Correction: In Update #1058 we reported that the 2010 SOA Watch demonstration was about the same size as in 2009, based on police and media reports indicating that about 5,000 people participated in both. An experienced activist who was present for both protests reports that the 2009 demonstration was larger, with significantly more than 5,000 participants.
*7. Links to alternative sources on: South America, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
The Decade that Transformed a Continent
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3841
Once Upon a Time in Argentina: Mary Anastasia O’Grady’s Latest Fairy Tale
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2857-once-upon-a-time-in-argentina-mary-anastasia-ogradys-latest-fairy-tale-
Argentina: "national hero" recast as mass murderer of indigenous people
http://ww4report.com/node/9342
Chile: Flood of Indigenous Demands a Challenge for Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2856-chile-flood-of-indigenous-demands-a-challenge-for-government
Easter Island: Chilean forces suppress indigenous protests
http://ww4report.com/node/9341
Protests paralyze southern Chile
http://ww4report.com/node/9346
The Rio de Janeiro War: Farce and the Geopolitics of Crime
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3863
Flash Flooding In Brazil Claims More Than 470 Lives And Shines Spotlight On Brazilian Housing Policy
http://latindispatch.com/2011/01/14/flash-flooding-in-brazil-claims-more-than-470-lives-and-shines-spotlight-on-brazilian-housing-policy/
Inter-American rights commission to rule on Bazilian Amazon land claim
http://ww4report.com/node/9345
Bolivia: New Pension Law Lowers Retirement Age, Raises Expectations
https://nacla.org/node/6858
Open Letter to Evo Morales and Álvaro García Against the Gasolinazo
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2854-open-letter-to-evo-morales-and-alvaro-garcia-against-the-gasolinazo
WikiLeaks Peru: cable alleges military ties to narco-traffic
http://ww4report.com/node/9340
Peru: army rewrites history of "dirty war"
http://ww4report.com/node/9343
Peru: evidence mounts of "uncontacted peoples" in Amazon oil zones
http://ww4report.com/node/9344
The Battle Next Door: An Insider’s Experience with Colombian Military Discourse
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3889
Two, Three, Many Colombias
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2862-two-three-many-colombias
Colombia: new charges in "false positives" scandal
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9349
Venezuelan link seen in supposed FARC-ETA connection
http://ww4report.com/node/9347
Hugo Chávez: "I am not a dictator"
http://www.ww4report.com/node/9348
New U.S. Ship Deployment to Costa Rica Heightens Tensions
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3852
US: Wrong on Honduras
http://www.thenation.com/article/157725/us-wrong-honduras
Guatemala declares emergency as Zetas threaten state
http://ww4report.com/node/9350
Mexico: Zapatistas deny link to Fernández de Cevallos kidnapping
http://ww4report.com/node/9351
Mexico: leader of "Santa Muerte" cult detained on kidnapping charges
http://ww4report.com/node/9352
Mexico: 2010 narco-violence again breaks record
http://ww4report.com/node/9353
Mexico: Guerrero campesinos reinstate blockade against Parota hydro-dam
http://ww4report.com/node/9354
The Other Arizona Shooting (Mexico)
http://vivirlatino.com/2011/01/11/the-other-arizona-shooting.php
Where the People Order and the Law Obeys: The Policía Comunitaria in Guerrero, Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2855-where-the-people-order-and-the-law-obeys-the-policia-comunitaria-in-guerrero-mexico
Mexican Army attacks human rights defenders in Oaxaca
http://elenemigocomun.net/2011/01/mexican-army-attacks-human-rights-defenders/
Former CIA Asset Luis Posada Goes to Trial (Cuba)
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5929
Haiti One Year Later: Light at the End of the Tunnel or Oncoming Train?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-schuller/haiti-one-year-later-ligh_b_807756.html
Haiti: January 12, 2011 - Frustration, Anger, Exclusion
http://www.ayitikaleje.org/haiti-grassroots-watch-engli/2011/1/13/january-12-2011.html
Beyond the Blue Helmets: Stability in Haiti Requires New Elections
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3869
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Monday, 6 December 2010
WNU #1059: US Leaks Hit Mexican Military, “Drug War”
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1059, December 5, 2010
1. Mexico: US Leaks Hit Military, “Drug War”
2. Mexico: Calderón Tries to “Isolate” Venezuela
3. Mexico: Violence Against Women and Activists Continues
4. Honduras: Campesinos March for Land Rights
5. Guatemala: Canadian Mine Sued in Activist’s Death
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Mexico: US Leaks Hit Military, “Drug War”
The US government hopes to develop a closer relationship with the Mexican military as a result of Mexico’s “war on drugs” and international humanitarian operations, according to US diplomatic cables obtained by the WikiLeaks group and posted on Dec. 2 by the Spanish daily El País. The cables also show that US and Mexican officials know the “drug war” itself is going badly, despite their public expressions of optimism.
The Mexican military has traditionally been suspicious of the US, which invaded Mexico on several occasions and seized one half of its territory in the 1840s, but Mexican attitudes are changing, according to a secret Jan. 29, 2010 assessment by the US embassy. Mexico and the US are now collaborating closely in the fight against drug trafficking, with the US funding Mexican military operations through the Mérida Initiative [see Update #952]. The Mexican navy has been receiving special operations forces (SOF) training from the US military, according to the cable, and by January the army too was asking for training. The Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti also provided an opportunity for closer collaboration: there were “[i]ncipient steps towards logistical interoperability with US forces…ongoing related to Haiti relief,” the embassy wrote. “We need to capitalize on these cracks in the door.”
The cable recommended “[e]ncouraging the Mexican military to participate more actively in the international arena, such as through greater security cooperation outreach to Central America and Colombia, and even with limited participation in regional humanitarian ops to possibly peacekeeping.” This will help “the military transition from a mentality of ‘Protecting the Revolution’”—the 1910 Mexican Revolution—“to a more active, dynamic, and flexible force.”
But the “drug war” has also created problems. More than 30,000 Mexicans have been killed since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa stepped up the militarization of drug law enforcement when he took office four years ago, and this has increasing the armed forces’ involvement in human rights violations [see Update #1049]. The military “has taken a serious beating on human rights issues from international and domestic human rights organizations, who argue with considerable basis in fact that the military is ill-equipped for a domestic policing role,” the embassy warned.
Another problem is the perception that the militarization policy isn’t working. A confidential Oct. 5, 2009 cable reported that two officials of the Attorney General’s Office (PRG) advised a visiting delegation from the US Justice Department to explore “focusing our joint efforts on two or three key cities to reverse the current wave of violence and instability and show success in the fight against the DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] in the next 18 months.” They “believe the symbolism of turning several of the most violent cities would be potent, sending a signal to the rest of the country that the fight against organized crime can be won, and combating the current sense of impotence felt by many Mexicans.”
The two officials, Jorge Tello Peón and Gerómino Gutiérrez Fernández, suggested Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua and Tijuana in Baja California Norte as the cities to focus on. (El País (Madrid) 12/2/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/3/10)
US officials continue to promote the Calderón policy publicly. This year on Nov. 24, a little more than a week before the cables were released, US ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual told an academic conference in Mexico City that the escalation of violence over the past four years wasn’t a result of President Calderón’s policies but a matter of “cartels against cartels, gangs against gangs.” At another event earlier that day, Pascual announced that the US was supplying Mexico with training and equipment worth $600 million by the end of 2011 under the Mérida Initative. (LJ 11/25/10)
Meanwhile, Mexican students have continued their protests against the militarization policy [see Update #1057]. On Nov. 20, the holiday marking the anniversary of the start of the 1910 Revolution, students marched in Ciudad Juárez to demand the removal of the army and the federal police from the area, where 2,800 people have been killed this year. The protesters were mostly from the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) and the Autonomous University of Chihuahua; a group of Catholic youths held a separate march for peace at the same time.
In Mexico City about 80 youths did street theater and passed out information to bystanders as army troops marched in the traditional Nov. 20 parade. Riot police broke up a student march later in the day and beat some protesters; the Federal District’s center-left government apologized to students for the incident, blaming it on lack of coordination. About 20 youths held a peace rally in Tlaxcala, capital of the central state of Tlaxcala. (LJ 11/21/10)
*2. Mexico: Calderón Tries to “Isolate” Venezuela
Mexican president Felipe Calderón has been advising the US on how to fight the influence of leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, according to a secret Oct. 23, 2009 US embassy cable that was made public by WikiLeaks on Dec. 2, 2010. During a meeting on Oct. 19, 2009 with US national intelligence director Dennis Blair, Calderón “emphasized that…Hugo Chávez is active everywhere, including Mexico,” the embassy reported. “Calderon also commented that he is particularly concerned about Venezuela's relations with Iran, and that the Iranian embassy in Mexico is very active.”
“The region needs a visible US presence, [Calderón] noted.” The most important thing was for the US to be “ready to engage the next Brazilian president,” who takes office in 2011. According to Calderón, Brazil “is key to restraining Chávez, but he lamented that President [Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva] has been reluctant to do so. The US needs to engage Brazil more and influence its outlook.” Calderón has been trying to do his part in countering Chávez: according to the cable, he “said that Mexico is trying to isolate Venezuela through the Rio Group,” an organization of 23 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
Calderón said he believed Chávez funded the 2006 presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-center candidate who narrowly missed beating Calderón according to the official results, which many Mexicans consider fraudulent. (El País (Madrid) 12/2/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/3/10) Shortly after the cable was made public on Dec. 2, López Obrador wrote in his Twitter account: “I demand that this compulsive liar Calderón demonstrate that Chávez financed our 2006 campaign.” (El Universal (Mexico City) 12/2/10)
*3. Mexico: Violence Against Women and Activists Continues
Mexico has the highest rate of violent deaths for women among countries not at war, the regional director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Ana Güezmes, said in Mexico City on Nov. 23, citing a study of 135 countries by the Queen Sofia Center in Spain. A Mexican organization, the Origin Foundation, announced on the same day that between the ages of 15 and 44 Mexican women are in greater danger of rape or abuse at home than of cancer or accidents. “Every day six women die violently: four by homicide and two by suicide,” the group said, “and 30-50% of abuse victims are under 15 years of age; 20% are under 10.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/24/10)
On Nov. 24 Javier Hernández Valencia, Mexican representative of the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), said the number of attacks on human rights defenders in Mexico had increased since last year. In 2009 the office reported 128 attacks, while for the one-year period from October 2009 through September 2010 the number of attacks has risen to 165. According to Hernández Valencia’s statistics, 51% of the attacks are by unidentified aggressors; 22% by private individuals; 14% by people in the justice system; 8% by municipal authorities; and 5% by the military. Chihuahua, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero were the states with the highest number of complaints. (LJ 11/25/10)
On Nov. 30 Disability Rights International (DRI) and the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) released a report charging that thousands of Mexican children and adults with mental or physical disabilities are locked away in treatment centers where they experience inhuman conditions and are subjected to dangerous medical practices, including lobotomies and incorrect drug prescriptions. After a similar report 10 years ago, the Mexican government promised to improve the situation in six months; it also promoted an international convention on rights of people with disabilities, which was ratified in 2006. But according to the new report, Abandoned & Disappeared: Mexico’s Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities, nothing has changed. (LJ 12/1/10)
*4. Honduras: Campesinos March for Land Rights
Hundreds of campesinos marched in Tegucigalpa on Dec. 2 to demand that the Honduran government resolve longstanding land conflicts in the Lower Aguán River Valley in the north of the country. The march, from the National Pedagogic University to the National Congress, was organized by various campesino groups and by the local section of Vía Campesina, an international federation of campesino organizations.
The majority of the Aguán Valley land disputes were supposed to be resolved by a pact that President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa signed with the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) on Apr. 18 to distribute a total of 8,000 hectares of farmland to campesino families if they ended their occupations of estates claimed by wealthy landowners [see Update #1029]. It is not clear how well the planned distribution has been progressing. The situation heated up again after Nov. 15, when five campesinos were killed by private guards in a separate dispute with landowner and industrialist Miguel Facussé Barjum [see Update #1058].
Campesino groups responded to the Nov. 15 killings by occupying some nine estates in the Aguán region. Meanwhile, the government deployed hundreds of troops into the area, claiming they were searching for 1,000 AK-47 and M-16 rifles allegedly hidden in the valley by groups being trained to attack the government. On Dec. 1 Security Minister Oscar Alvarez told a press conference that the army had “evidence of the entry of military weapons like AK-47s, M-16s and possibly other, more powerful arms which could be being used by groups that want to destabilize democracy in our country.” “We’ve been informed that they entered through Nicaragua,” he said.
The main military activity in the region seemed to be aimed at ending the land occupations, not at finding rebels and weapons. As of Dec. 3, the military and police had removed some 100 campesinos from the Bolero 1 and 2 estates, with plans to end the occupations at the others. The military was leaving the estates in the control of heavily armed guards contracted by the landowners. Asked why the guards were allowed to carry military weapons, Commissioner Alfredo Villatoro, who headed up the government’s operation, and Commissar Alex Madrid answered simply that the guards’ weapons were registered. According to Rigoberto Rodríguez, one of the leaders of the guards, each estate will now have a private security force of 25 men.
On Dec. 4 President Lobo acknowledged that "[t]here is no evidence of any participation [of] “the government of Nicaragua” in training rebels to destabilize the Honduran government. (EFE 12/2/10 via Terra.com; Prensa Latina 12/3/10, ___ ; AFP 12/4/10 via MSN)
*5. Guatemala: Canadian Mine Sued in Activist’s Death
On Dec. 1 indigenous Guatemalan Angelica Choc and her lawyers, Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, announced a lawsuit in Ontario, Canada, against the Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals Inc. for the murder of Choc’s husband, Adolfo Ich Chamán, in the community of El Estor in the eastern department of Izabal on Sept. 27, 2009. Choc charges that security guards working for HudBay, HMI Nickel Inc., and their Guatemalan subsidiary, Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel, murdered Ich, a leader in the local Q'eqchi' community, because of his opposition to violations by the mining companies.
The lawsuit seeks $2 million in general damages and $10 million in punitive damages. Choc is taking the case to Canadian civil courts because of the high level of impunity in criminal cases in Guatemala. The Canadian organization Rights Action has expressed hope that the suit will set a precedent for such actions. According to HudBay official John Vincic, the company’s own investigation found that none of its employees were involved in the killing. He called the suit "misconceived" and "without merit." (Rights Action 12/2/10; CBC News (Canada) 12/2/10; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 12/3/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
Wikileaks Reveals Cables Criticizing Fernández de Kirchner; Chávez Calls For Clinton’s Resignation
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/30/wikileaks-reveals-cables-criticizing-fernandez-de-kirchner-chavez-calls-for-clintons-resignation/
Doubt Cast on Chile's Commitment to Human Rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2807-doubt-cast-on-chiles-commitment-to-human-rights
WikiLeaks: Paraguay voices concerns on US spying
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2804-wikileaks-paraguay-voices-concerns-on-us-spying-
The Ambassador Has No Clothes: WikiLeaks Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2806-the-embassy-has-no-clothes-wikileaks-cable-clarifies-washingtons-stance-toward-bolivia
BP Sued in Ecuador for Violating the Rights of Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2805-bp-sued-in-ecuador-for-violating-the-rights-of-nature
What's next for the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement?
https://nacla.org/node/6835
Wikileaks Cables: US Embassy Helping Cubans Get to Miami from Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5831
Chavez Supporters March in Caracas for "Radicalization" of the Revolution and Against “Imperialism and Bureaucratism”
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5820
WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2802-wikileaks-honduras-state-department-busted-on-support-of-coup
A State of Siege in Northern Honduras: Land, Palm Oil and Media
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2800-a-state-of-siege-in-northern-honduras-land-palm-oil-and-media
Dispatch From Cancún: Developing Paradise in the Suicide Capital
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/dispatch_from_cancun_suicide_capital_mexico.html
WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Authorities’ Uncertainty In Mexican Drug War
http://latindispatch.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-cables-reveal-authorities-uncertainty-in-mexican-drug-war/
Calderon’s Drug War Wreaks Havoc on Mexican Workers, Unions
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=180#1211
The Historic End to the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Rule in Oaxaca
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2809-the-historic-end-to-the-institutional-revolutionary-partys-rule-in-oaxaca
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Suggests U.S. Invasion of Mexico
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=180#1214
Haiti election a 'massive fraud'--CBC News witnesses blatant ballot-box stuffing
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/11/28/haiti-election-candidates457.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3qgB55-n-E
U.N. Asks Haiti To Ignore Unofficial Elections Results; Cholera Death Toll Tops 1,800
http://latindispatch.com/2010/12/02/u-n-asks-haiti-to-ignore-unofficial-elections-results-cholera-death-toll-tops-1800/
Wikileaks and Latin America: Same Old Imperious U.S. Diplomats
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2801-wikileaks-and-latin-america-same-old-imperious-us-diplomats
The G20 Summit: IMF Reform and the End of the Washington Consensus
https://nacla.org/node/6830
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication; for news, information and announcements in support of action for immigrant rights in the United States, subscribe to Immigrant Action at:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction
You can also visit the Immigrant Action blog at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1059, December 5, 2010
1. Mexico: US Leaks Hit Military, “Drug War”
2. Mexico: Calderón Tries to “Isolate” Venezuela
3. Mexico: Violence Against Women and Activists Continues
4. Honduras: Campesinos March for Land Rights
5. Guatemala: Canadian Mine Sued in Activist’s Death
6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com . It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Mexico: US Leaks Hit Military, “Drug War”
The US government hopes to develop a closer relationship with the Mexican military as a result of Mexico’s “war on drugs” and international humanitarian operations, according to US diplomatic cables obtained by the WikiLeaks group and posted on Dec. 2 by the Spanish daily El País. The cables also show that US and Mexican officials know the “drug war” itself is going badly, despite their public expressions of optimism.
The Mexican military has traditionally been suspicious of the US, which invaded Mexico on several occasions and seized one half of its territory in the 1840s, but Mexican attitudes are changing, according to a secret Jan. 29, 2010 assessment by the US embassy. Mexico and the US are now collaborating closely in the fight against drug trafficking, with the US funding Mexican military operations through the Mérida Initiative [see Update #952]. The Mexican navy has been receiving special operations forces (SOF) training from the US military, according to the cable, and by January the army too was asking for training. The Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti also provided an opportunity for closer collaboration: there were “[i]ncipient steps towards logistical interoperability with US forces…ongoing related to Haiti relief,” the embassy wrote. “We need to capitalize on these cracks in the door.”
The cable recommended “[e]ncouraging the Mexican military to participate more actively in the international arena, such as through greater security cooperation outreach to Central America and Colombia, and even with limited participation in regional humanitarian ops to possibly peacekeeping.” This will help “the military transition from a mentality of ‘Protecting the Revolution’”—the 1910 Mexican Revolution—“to a more active, dynamic, and flexible force.”
But the “drug war” has also created problems. More than 30,000 Mexicans have been killed since President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa stepped up the militarization of drug law enforcement when he took office four years ago, and this has increasing the armed forces’ involvement in human rights violations [see Update #1049]. The military “has taken a serious beating on human rights issues from international and domestic human rights organizations, who argue with considerable basis in fact that the military is ill-equipped for a domestic policing role,” the embassy warned.
Another problem is the perception that the militarization policy isn’t working. A confidential Oct. 5, 2009 cable reported that two officials of the Attorney General’s Office (PRG) advised a visiting delegation from the US Justice Department to explore “focusing our joint efforts on two or three key cities to reverse the current wave of violence and instability and show success in the fight against the DTOs [drug trafficking organizations] in the next 18 months.” They “believe the symbolism of turning several of the most violent cities would be potent, sending a signal to the rest of the country that the fight against organized crime can be won, and combating the current sense of impotence felt by many Mexicans.”
The two officials, Jorge Tello Peón and Gerómino Gutiérrez Fernández, suggested Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua and Tijuana in Baja California Norte as the cities to focus on. (El País (Madrid) 12/2/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/3/10)
US officials continue to promote the Calderón policy publicly. This year on Nov. 24, a little more than a week before the cables were released, US ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual told an academic conference in Mexico City that the escalation of violence over the past four years wasn’t a result of President Calderón’s policies but a matter of “cartels against cartels, gangs against gangs.” At another event earlier that day, Pascual announced that the US was supplying Mexico with training and equipment worth $600 million by the end of 2011 under the Mérida Initative. (LJ 11/25/10)
Meanwhile, Mexican students have continued their protests against the militarization policy [see Update #1057]. On Nov. 20, the holiday marking the anniversary of the start of the 1910 Revolution, students marched in Ciudad Juárez to demand the removal of the army and the federal police from the area, where 2,800 people have been killed this year. The protesters were mostly from the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez (UACJ) and the Autonomous University of Chihuahua; a group of Catholic youths held a separate march for peace at the same time.
In Mexico City about 80 youths did street theater and passed out information to bystanders as army troops marched in the traditional Nov. 20 parade. Riot police broke up a student march later in the day and beat some protesters; the Federal District’s center-left government apologized to students for the incident, blaming it on lack of coordination. About 20 youths held a peace rally in Tlaxcala, capital of the central state of Tlaxcala. (LJ 11/21/10)
*2. Mexico: Calderón Tries to “Isolate” Venezuela
Mexican president Felipe Calderón has been advising the US on how to fight the influence of leftist Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, according to a secret Oct. 23, 2009 US embassy cable that was made public by WikiLeaks on Dec. 2, 2010. During a meeting on Oct. 19, 2009 with US national intelligence director Dennis Blair, Calderón “emphasized that…Hugo Chávez is active everywhere, including Mexico,” the embassy reported. “Calderon also commented that he is particularly concerned about Venezuela's relations with Iran, and that the Iranian embassy in Mexico is very active.”
“The region needs a visible US presence, [Calderón] noted.” The most important thing was for the US to be “ready to engage the next Brazilian president,” who takes office in 2011. According to Calderón, Brazil “is key to restraining Chávez, but he lamented that President [Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva] has been reluctant to do so. The US needs to engage Brazil more and influence its outlook.” Calderón has been trying to do his part in countering Chávez: according to the cable, he “said that Mexico is trying to isolate Venezuela through the Rio Group,” an organization of 23 Latin American and Caribbean nations.
Calderón said he believed Chávez funded the 2006 presidential campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left-center candidate who narrowly missed beating Calderón according to the official results, which many Mexicans consider fraudulent. (El País (Madrid) 12/2/10; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/3/10) Shortly after the cable was made public on Dec. 2, López Obrador wrote in his Twitter account: “I demand that this compulsive liar Calderón demonstrate that Chávez financed our 2006 campaign.” (El Universal (Mexico City) 12/2/10)
*3. Mexico: Violence Against Women and Activists Continues
Mexico has the highest rate of violent deaths for women among countries not at war, the regional director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Ana Güezmes, said in Mexico City on Nov. 23, citing a study of 135 countries by the Queen Sofia Center in Spain. A Mexican organization, the Origin Foundation, announced on the same day that between the ages of 15 and 44 Mexican women are in greater danger of rape or abuse at home than of cancer or accidents. “Every day six women die violently: four by homicide and two by suicide,” the group said, “and 30-50% of abuse victims are under 15 years of age; 20% are under 10.” (La Jornada (Mexico) 11/24/10)
On Nov. 24 Javier Hernández Valencia, Mexican representative of the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), said the number of attacks on human rights defenders in Mexico had increased since last year. In 2009 the office reported 128 attacks, while for the one-year period from October 2009 through September 2010 the number of attacks has risen to 165. According to Hernández Valencia’s statistics, 51% of the attacks are by unidentified aggressors; 22% by private individuals; 14% by people in the justice system; 8% by municipal authorities; and 5% by the military. Chihuahua, Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero were the states with the highest number of complaints. (LJ 11/25/10)
On Nov. 30 Disability Rights International (DRI) and the Mexican Commission for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights (CMDPDH) released a report charging that thousands of Mexican children and adults with mental or physical disabilities are locked away in treatment centers where they experience inhuman conditions and are subjected to dangerous medical practices, including lobotomies and incorrect drug prescriptions. After a similar report 10 years ago, the Mexican government promised to improve the situation in six months; it also promoted an international convention on rights of people with disabilities, which was ratified in 2006. But according to the new report, Abandoned & Disappeared: Mexico’s Segregation and Abuse of Children and Adults with Disabilities, nothing has changed. (LJ 12/1/10)
*4. Honduras: Campesinos March for Land Rights
Hundreds of campesinos marched in Tegucigalpa on Dec. 2 to demand that the Honduran government resolve longstanding land conflicts in the Lower Aguán River Valley in the north of the country. The march, from the National Pedagogic University to the National Congress, was organized by various campesino groups and by the local section of Vía Campesina, an international federation of campesino organizations.
The majority of the Aguán Valley land disputes were supposed to be resolved by a pact that President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa signed with the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA) on Apr. 18 to distribute a total of 8,000 hectares of farmland to campesino families if they ended their occupations of estates claimed by wealthy landowners [see Update #1029]. It is not clear how well the planned distribution has been progressing. The situation heated up again after Nov. 15, when five campesinos were killed by private guards in a separate dispute with landowner and industrialist Miguel Facussé Barjum [see Update #1058].
Campesino groups responded to the Nov. 15 killings by occupying some nine estates in the Aguán region. Meanwhile, the government deployed hundreds of troops into the area, claiming they were searching for 1,000 AK-47 and M-16 rifles allegedly hidden in the valley by groups being trained to attack the government. On Dec. 1 Security Minister Oscar Alvarez told a press conference that the army had “evidence of the entry of military weapons like AK-47s, M-16s and possibly other, more powerful arms which could be being used by groups that want to destabilize democracy in our country.” “We’ve been informed that they entered through Nicaragua,” he said.
The main military activity in the region seemed to be aimed at ending the land occupations, not at finding rebels and weapons. As of Dec. 3, the military and police had removed some 100 campesinos from the Bolero 1 and 2 estates, with plans to end the occupations at the others. The military was leaving the estates in the control of heavily armed guards contracted by the landowners. Asked why the guards were allowed to carry military weapons, Commissioner Alfredo Villatoro, who headed up the government’s operation, and Commissar Alex Madrid answered simply that the guards’ weapons were registered. According to Rigoberto Rodríguez, one of the leaders of the guards, each estate will now have a private security force of 25 men.
On Dec. 4 President Lobo acknowledged that "[t]here is no evidence of any participation [of] “the government of Nicaragua” in training rebels to destabilize the Honduran government. (EFE 12/2/10 via Terra.com; Prensa Latina 12/3/10, ___ ; AFP 12/4/10 via MSN)
*5. Guatemala: Canadian Mine Sued in Activist’s Death
On Dec. 1 indigenous Guatemalan Angelica Choc and her lawyers, Klippensteins Barristers & Solicitors, announced a lawsuit in Ontario, Canada, against the Canadian mining company HudBay Minerals Inc. for the murder of Choc’s husband, Adolfo Ich Chamán, in the community of El Estor in the eastern department of Izabal on Sept. 27, 2009. Choc charges that security guards working for HudBay, HMI Nickel Inc., and their Guatemalan subsidiary, Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel, murdered Ich, a leader in the local Q'eqchi' community, because of his opposition to violations by the mining companies.
The lawsuit seeks $2 million in general damages and $10 million in punitive damages. Choc is taking the case to Canadian civil courts because of the high level of impunity in criminal cases in Guatemala. The Canadian organization Rights Action has expressed hope that the suit will set a precedent for such actions. According to HudBay official John Vincic, the company’s own investigation found that none of its employees were involved in the killing. He called the suit "misconceived" and "without merit." (Rights Action 12/2/10; CBC News (Canada) 12/2/10; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 12/3/10)
*6. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti, US
Wikileaks Reveals Cables Criticizing Fernández de Kirchner; Chávez Calls For Clinton’s Resignation
http://latindispatch.com/2010/11/30/wikileaks-reveals-cables-criticizing-fernandez-de-kirchner-chavez-calls-for-clintons-resignation/
Doubt Cast on Chile's Commitment to Human Rights
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2807-doubt-cast-on-chiles-commitment-to-human-rights
WikiLeaks: Paraguay voices concerns on US spying
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2804-wikileaks-paraguay-voices-concerns-on-us-spying-
The Ambassador Has No Clothes: WikiLeaks Cable Lays Bare Washington’s Stance Toward Bolivia
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/2806-the-embassy-has-no-clothes-wikileaks-cable-clarifies-washingtons-stance-toward-bolivia
BP Sued in Ecuador for Violating the Rights of Nature
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/2805-bp-sued-in-ecuador-for-violating-the-rights-of-nature
What's next for the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement?
https://nacla.org/node/6835
Wikileaks Cables: US Embassy Helping Cubans Get to Miami from Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5831
Chavez Supporters March in Caracas for "Radicalization" of the Revolution and Against “Imperialism and Bureaucratism”
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5820
WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2802-wikileaks-honduras-state-department-busted-on-support-of-coup
A State of Siege in Northern Honduras: Land, Palm Oil and Media
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/2800-a-state-of-siege-in-northern-honduras-land-palm-oil-and-media
Dispatch From Cancún: Developing Paradise in the Suicide Capital
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/dispatch_from_cancun_suicide_capital_mexico.html
WikiLeaks Cables Reveal Authorities’ Uncertainty In Mexican Drug War
http://latindispatch.com/2010/12/03/wikileaks-cables-reveal-authorities-uncertainty-in-mexican-drug-war/
Calderon’s Drug War Wreaks Havoc on Mexican Workers, Unions
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=180#1211
The Historic End to the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Rule in Oaxaca
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/2809-the-historic-end-to-the-institutional-revolutionary-partys-rule-in-oaxaca
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Suggests U.S. Invasion of Mexico
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=180#1214
Haiti election a 'massive fraud'--CBC News witnesses blatant ballot-box stuffing
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/11/28/haiti-election-candidates457.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3qgB55-n-E
U.N. Asks Haiti To Ignore Unofficial Elections Results; Cholera Death Toll Tops 1,800
http://latindispatch.com/2010/12/02/u-n-asks-haiti-to-ignore-unofficial-elections-results-cholera-death-toll-tops-1800/
Wikileaks and Latin America: Same Old Imperious U.S. Diplomats
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/2801-wikileaks-and-latin-america-same-old-imperious-us-diplomats
The G20 Summit: IMF Reform and the End of the Washington Consensus
https://nacla.org/node/6830
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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