Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1138, July 29, 2012
1. Chile: Carabineros Attack Mapuche Children
2. Argentina: Gold Mine Problems Spook Barrick Investors
3. Haiti: Four Killed in Police Raid at National Park
4. Haiti: Workers in New FTZ Complain About Wages
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Cuba, 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. Chile: Carabineros Attack Mapuche Children
Some 200 carabineros militarized police violently removed about 60 Mapuche on July 23 from land the indigenous people had occupied hours earlier near their homes in the Temucuicui community in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía. The carabineros threw tear gas grenades and fired pellets from shotguns to disperse the occupiers, including children and old people. A number of Mapuche were injured, and 12 were arrested--five men, four women and three girls. The women and girls were taken in a police bus to the nearby city of Collipulli; they reported being humiliated and sexually harassed by at least two police agents.
The carabineros attacked members of the Temucuicui community again later in the day when a group of Mapuche gathered at the Collipulli hospital to wait for injured friends and relatives being treated there. The agents reportedly fired pellets at the group from close range, wounding Fernanda Marillán, 12; Fabián Llanca, 16; and one adult.
Community members claim the land they occupied—officially the property of the Seinz, Valenzuela and Urban families and Martin Ruff and the Bosques Arauco S.A. company—was ancestral territory taken illegally from the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group. Land disputes are the main source of conflict in the Mapuche regions and have led to police violence against the Temucuicui community in the past [see Update #1127]. (Adital (Brazil) 7/24/12; Prensa Latina 7/25/12)
Photographs of Fernanda Marillán and Fabián Llanca’s wounds provoked outrage and protests after they began circulating on the internet. Some 30 members of the Mapuche Territorial Alliance protested outside the Santiago offices of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on July 26 while five others held a sit-in inside. The protesters were calling for the organization to sponsor a press conference to denounce the suffering of the underage victims. (Radio Bío Bío (Chile) 7/26/12)
The government’s response was inconsistent. “[W]e’re not going to allow police action to go outside the framework of the law,” rightwing president Sebastián Piñera promised on July 25, “and we’re investigating this matter and we’re not going to allow it.” (PL 7/25/12) On July 27 Lorena Fries, the director of the government’s National Human Rights Institute (INDH), announced that the agency was seeking an injunction on behalf of a total of four Mapuche minors that she said had been injured. (La Tercera (Chile) 7/27/12) But in Araucanía itself Regional Ministerial Secretary Mauricio Ojeda tried to shift the blame to the Mapuche, who he claimed were using minors as “human shields.” “First we have to analyze what the parents are doing with these children before we criticize the government,” he said on July 25. “We’re not the ones who bring the children to this type of situation, to expose them [to danger].” (Cooperativa (Chile) 7/25/12)
The government had already planned a “Security Summit” on the situation in Araucanía, in response to a request from big landowners who want a state of siege declared in the region. The meeting--held on July 24 in La Moneda, the presidential palace in Santiago, with police officials, regional authorities and Attorney General Sabas Chahuán—concluded with a decision to send more police agents. (Adital 7/24/12; PL 7/25/12)
The carabineros carried out a new operation against the Temucuicui community on the afternoon of July 25 according to Radio Bío Bío. “Alert to the world,” indigenous spokespeople wrote in a message posted on Facebook. “Violent raid is taking place inside the ancestral Temucuicui community, hundreds of police have entered the community and houses of community members. The violence is unusual and criminal against women and children who remain inside their houses.” There appeared to be no reports of injuries or detentions, however. (PL 7/25/12)
*2. Argentina: Gold Mine Problems Spook Barrick Investors
Jamie Sokalsky, CEO of the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation, announced on July 26 that major problems were delaying the opening of the company’s controversial Pascua Lama gold and silver mine, located in the Andes on both sides of the border between Argentina and Chile. The project will cost as much as $8 billion, he said, 60% more than previously projected, and gold won't be produced until mid-2014, a year later than expected. Barrick’s stocks dropped quickly, although they recovered somewhat, ending the day down by about 4.32%. The mining giant’s shares have fallen by almost 33% since the beginning of the year.
“As the CEO I accept full responsibility for this,” Sokalsky said in a conference call with investors. He attributed problems at the mine, one of the world’s largest, to the project’s complexity, the difficulties of working at high altitudes, a shortage of skilled engineers and “bi-national external factors as well.”
Sokalsky suggested that the “external factors” were labor issues and Argentina’s inflation rate, but he was obviously also referring to opposition by residents and environmentalists in Argentina and Chile and to a July 3 ruling by the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice leaving in effect a law to protect glaciers [see Update #1137]. “There's no way Pascua Lama can operate under this law,” Gonzalo Strano, who leads Greenpeace-Argentina's glaciers protection campaign, told the Associated Press, “because it’s clearly occupying a peri-glacial area, in the presence of glaciers.”
One source of environmental damage from the mine, according to Strano, would be the disposal of toxic wastes in a containment pond covering about 400 hectares on the Argentine side of the border. The mine would also strain the region’s water resources, he said: the gold and silver production method would require the use of 82 gallons (311 liters) of clean water per second for the next 25 years. While Barrick claims that Pascua Lama will be one of the world’s cheapest gold mines, Strano said the main cost savings would come from huge tax breaks and the fact that the company will essentially get the water for free. “If they really had to pay for the water like any other resident of the province, they wouldn't do this project.” (Miami Herald 7/26/12 from AP; Clarín (Buenos Aires) 7/27/12)
*3. Haiti: Four Killed in Police Raid at National Park
At least four people died in an unsuccessful effort by the Haitian National Police (PNH) on July 23 to remove some 140 families from the La Visite National Park, south of Port-au-Prince in the Southeast department. The police operation--which included 36 riot police from the Order Maintenance Departmental Unit (UDMO), departmental police director Ovilma Sagesse, six police vehicles and one ambulance—was ordered by the national government’s Environment and Public Security ministries.
Residents resisted an order to vacate and threw rocks at the agents, who fired on the protesters. Witnesses said eight people were killed, but only four bodies had been found as of July 27; the victims were identified as Désir Enoz, Nicolas David, Robinson Volcin and Désir Aleis. Four children were reported missing, and three houses were burned down. The police reported five injured agents. “In the face of the aggressiveness of these individuals [the residents], we had to suspend the operation to avoid having victims,” police director Sagesse said on July 24. With the agreement of the local population, a four-member committee was set up under the supervision of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) to investigate the incident.
Small farmers have reportedly been living illegally in La Visite since 1942. By clearing forest areas for farmland, the residents have lowered the water table in the park, which is a source of water for the Southeast and West departments, including Jacmel and the capital. Successive national governments have tried negotiations to get the residents out of the park, with no success.
The government of current president Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) has taken a hard line on squatter communities that it says endanger the environment [see Update #1135]. So far the only inducement it has offered the farmers is a package of 50,000 gourdes (about US$1,189), half in advance and half after they have left. The residents say this isn’t enough to buy land to replace what they would lose. A July 28 statement from MINUSTAH backed up the residents, saying forced expulsion without an alternative for adequate housing is contrary to international regulations on human rights. (Haïti Libre 7/27/12, 7/28/12)
*4. Haiti: Workers in New FTZ Complain About Wages
The first plant in a giant “free trade zone” (FTZ) being built with international aid near Caracol in Haiti’s Northeast department went into operation at the beginning of July, with about 400 workers assembling apparel for a company identified only as “S & H Global S.A.” The Parc Industriel de Caracol (Caracol Industrial Park, PIC, previously called the Parc Industriel du Nord) is expected to employ 1,200 workers by the end of the year, and its promoters project that 50,000 Haitians will eventually find jobs there. The main producer at the FTZ will be South Korea’s leading apparel manufacturer, Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd.
Some of the first 400 workers have already started to complain about the pay rate at the new FTZ--150 gourdes (about US$3.57) a day. The employees include women who formerly worked for another FTZ, the Compagnie de Développement Industriel S.A. (Codevi), 45 km southeast of Caracol in Ouanaminthe on the Dominican border.
During a visit to the Caracol FTZ on July 17, Haitian president Michel Martelly--accompanied by Cheryl Mills, the chief of staff to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and Haitian commerce and industry minister Wilson Laleau--asked the workers to be patient. Laleau assured them that as a signatory to the “Better Work” agreement, the Haitian government would demand improved conditions at the plant. “We’ve already signed an agreement with the [South] Korean government for the construction of a professional school inside the park,” he added. “Other facilities are envisioned for transportation and food services for the park’s employees.” Martelly noted that the FTZ had signed on its first Haitian firm, the paint manufacturer Peintures Caraïbes, S.A. (Radio Métropole (Haiti) 7/19/12; AlterPresse (Haiti) 7/25/12)
The FTZ’s promoters have also had to deal with a front-page article in the July 6 New York Times, which detailed criticisms of the project at length. Although many of the criticisms had already appeared in Haitian media [see Update #1087], much of the material was new. Reporter Deborah Sontag revealed that In December 2010 the AFL-CIO, the largest US labor federation, produced a five-page memo on what it called Sae-A’s “worst labor and criminal law violations” at its maquiladoras (duty-exempt assembly plants) in Guatemala. The memo “accused Sae-A of using bribes, death threats and imprisonment to prevent and break up unions,” Sontag wrote, “and said a local union suspected company officials of involvement in a union leader’s rape never investigated by Guatemalan authorities.”
Although Sae-A was finally pressured into allowing a union to form, it began moving its operations to Nicaragua. Now it’s making plans to move that production to Haiti once US trade preferences for Nicaragua expire in 2014. Although Caracol’s promoters claim the FTZ will “create jobs,” a Guatemalan newspaper described the process more accurately; when Sae-A shut down its main Guatemalan factory in the fall of 2011, the paper wrote: “A Maquila Closes and Goes to Haiti.”
Production is also likely to be shifted from Codevi, the only unionized garment assembly operation in Haiti, according to Yannick Etienne of Batay Ouvriye, the workers’ organization that led the struggle to form the union there. Fernando Capellán, Codevi’s owner, agreed. “They’re going to destroy my jobs to create cheaper jobs in Caracol,” he told the Times. (NYT 7/6/12)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Caribbean, Cuba, US/immigration
Hemispheric Resistance to Canadian Mining
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3784-hemispheric-resistance-to-canadian-mining
Paraguay’s Bitter Harvest: Multinational Corporations Reap Benefits from Coup Government
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/paraguay-archives-44/3774-paraguays-bitter-harvest-multinational-corporations-reap-benefits-from-coup-government
Amidst Broken Promises, Indigenous Authorities Detain Belo Monte Dam Engineers (Brazil)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3779-amidst-broken-promises-indigenous-authorities-detain-belo-monte-dam-engineers
Peru: Court Reduces Grupo Colina Death Squad Sentences
http://latindispatch.com/2012/07/24/peru-court-reduces-grupo-colina-death-squad-sentences/
Operation Injustice: Indigenous and Afro-Colombian Human Rights Defenders and Community Leaders Face Mass Arrests and Arbitrary Detention
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3772-operation-injustice-indigenous-and-afro-colombian-human-rights-defenders-and-community-leaders-face-mass-arrests-and-arbitrary-detention-
Assault on Colombian Trade Unions Continues Unabated
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3775-assault-on-colombian-trade-unions-continues-unabated
Chavez Announces “Immediate” Withdrawal from Inter-American Court of Human Rights
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7131
Right-wing participation in civil society mobilization reveals political motivations behind the “conflict of powers” in El Salvador
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/el-salvador-archives-74/3773-right-wing-participation-in-civil-society-mobilization-reveals-political-motivations-behind-the-conflict-of-powers-in-el-salvador-
Guatemala Photo Essay: "In San Rafael Las Flores and my House, the Mine does not Pass"
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/guatemala-archives-33/3780-guatemala-photo-essay-qin-san-rafael-las-flores-and-my-house-the-mine-does-not-passq
Canadian Mining Goliaths Devastate Mexican Indigenous Communities and Environment
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10501-canadian-mining-goliaths-devast
Resisting the Silence: Voices of Survival in Mexico
http://nacla.org/news/2012/7/25/resisting-silence-voices-survival-mexico
#YoSoy132 Statement on Today's Symbolic Occupation of Televisa (Mexico)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3783-yosoy132-statement-on-todays-symbolic-occupation-of-televisa-
Mexican Official: CIA ‘Manages’ Drug Trade
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3776-mexican-official-cia-manages-drug-trade
Is the War on Drugs in the Caribbean Going Up in Smoke?
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/7/26/war-drugs-caribbean-going-smoke
Cuban Dissident Oswaldo Paya Killed In Car Crash
http://latindispatch.com/2012/07/23/cuban-dissident-oswaldo-paya-killed-in-car-crash/
Post-9/11 Sodus: The U.S.-Canadian Border on Display (US/immigration)
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/7/25/post-911-sodus-us-canadian-border-display
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
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Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
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Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trade. Show all posts
Monday, 30 July 2012
Monday, 9 April 2012
WNU #1124: Did a Dominican Contractor Pay Haiti’s President?
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1124, April 8, 2012
1. Haiti: Did a Dominican Contractor Give Millions to Martelly?
2. Chile: Carabinero Shot After Raid on Mapuche Village
3. Argentina: Menem to Be Tried for AMIA Bombing Coverup
4. Mexico: Study Blames NAFTA in Obesity Epidemic
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat
*1. Haiti: Did a Dominican Contractor Give Millions to Martelly?
Several construction companies controlled by Dominican senator Félix Bautista have paid a total of more than $2.5 million to Haitian president Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) since 2010, according to a Mar. 31 television report by Dominican investigative reporter Nuria Piera. At least two of the companies were awarded major contracts by the Haitian government for rebuilding in Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake: Hadom S.A., which won a $33 million contract to construct a new building for the Parliament, and Roffy S.A., which is getting $174 million for a housing project in the capital’s Fort National section. [The ceremony to mark the start of the Fort National project last year was called off because of protests by area residents who demanded greater transparency; see Update #1063.]
On Apr. 2 Bautista denied that he had ever given money to President Martelly; he charged that the bank transactions detailed in Piera’s report came from “anonymous documents with altered and distorted information.” Martelly’s office called the report a “media lynching” and said it was “part of a process that seeks to impede the change in Haitian politics and the modernization of the country that the president is carrying out.”
Martelly isn’t the only politician who could face problems if Piera’s corruption accusations turn out to be true. According to Piera, Bautista’s companies also contributed $250,000 to Mirlande Manigat, Martelly’s opponent in the March 2011 presidential runoff. The Haitian rebuilding contracts were awarded to Bautista’s companies in 2010, during the administration of former president René Préval (1996-2001 and 2006-2011), so Préval and his prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, could come under scrutiny. Dominican president Leonel Fernández is said to be close to Bautista, who represents San Juan de la Maguana province in the Senate for Fernández’s Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). On Apr. 4 Piera charged that Dominican intelligence services were persecuting people they suspected of being her sources for the report. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/2/12, 4/5/12; Miami Herald 4/2/12 from correspondents; Listín Diario (Santo Domingo) 4/3/12)
On Apr. 4, five days after the scandal broke, Martelly flew to Florida for surgery on his shoulder. According to his press office, he will return on Apr. 12, in time to meet Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who will be making his first visit to Haiti. The operation will be the second Martelly has had for his shoulder; he was in the US for a similar operation from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 last year, also during a political crisis—in that case, the crisis caused by the arrest of Parliament member Arnel Bélizaire [see Update #1103]. (AlterPresse 4/5/12)
In other news, the number of cholera cases rose in the Artibonite, Northwest and West departments when rainfall increased in late March. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, or OPS in French and Creole) expects an additional 200,000 cases this year. As of Mar. 18, 7,056 people had died in the epidemic, which struck Haiti in October 2010, and 286,343 had been hospitalized, according to the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), which reports a total of 531,683 known cases. (AlterPresse 4/5/12)
*2. Chile: Carabinero Shot After Raid on Mapuche Village
A sergeant in Chile’s carabineros militarized police force, Hugo Albornoz, died in a hospital in Temuco, the capital of the southern region of Araucanía, the evening of Apr. 2; he had been shot in the neck by unknown attackers earlier in the day. Sgt. Albornoz was part of a large group of police agents from the carabineros Special Operations Group (GOPE) that had searched through homes of indigenous Mapuche that morning in the village of Wente Winkul Mapu in Ercilla commune, Araucanía, for evidence about an October 2011 attack on the Centenario estate, the property of Juan de Dios Fuentes.
According to Luis Chamorro, a local prosecutor who led the search, the operation resulted in three arrests and the seizure of weapons and ski masks, but there was no confrontation with the inhabitants or any use of tear gas. After the agents left the village, they were fired on by about 15 men in the woods around the road, the authorities said. In addition to Albornoz, two other carabineros were hit, but their injuries were not life-threatening. (Radio Biobío (Chile) 4/2/12; AFP 4/2/12 via Univision; La Tercera (Chile) 4/3/12)
On Apr. 3 a spokesperson for Wente Winkul Mapu, Daniel Melinao, denied that village residents were involved in the shooting. “We don’t know where this bullet came from, but we are peaceful as a community, although we are also worried by the situation,” he said. (Radio Cooperativa (Chile) 4/4/12 via Mapu Express)
The Araucanía and Biobío regions in southern Chile have been in turmoil for years because of disputes between timber companies and Mapuche activists who say the companies are invading Mapuche ancestral lands [see Update #1113]. With about one million members, the Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group; according to José Aylwin, co-director of the Temuco office of the Citizens’ Monitoring Center, one third of the country’s Mapuche population lives in Araucanía. “The state has, regrettably, generated violence for a long time” in the region by siding with the timber companies, he told Radio Cooperativa. Two companies, Arauco S.A. and Forestal Mininco, made $1.5 billion in profits in 2010 alone, Aylwin said. Sgt. Albornoz was the fourth person to die in the conflict in the last decade, Aylwin noted; the other three were Mapuche killed by carabineros. (Radio Cooperativa 4/3/12)
Luis García Huidobro, a Jesuit who said he witnessed the Apr. 2 raid, called it “a totally useless operation” involving “some 10 police vehicles, a small tank, a zorrillo [vehicle for dispensing tear gas], an armored bus for transporting carabineros, and various vans.” “They shouldn’t send carabineros,” he wrote in an open letter; “but should send someone from the government to open up a dialogue and return those lands so that there will be peace.” (Prensa Latina 4/3/12)
In other news, on Apr. 4 the House of Deputies voted 58-56 to approve an anti-discrimination law which had been languishing in Congress for seven years. The Senate passed the bill last September. The deputies’ action followed calls both in Chile and abroad for laws against hate crimes like the brutal assault that resulted in the death of a gay young man, Daniel Zamudio, on Mar. 27 [see Update #1123]. Some provisions of the bill still need to be finalized before it can become a law. (The Jurist 4/5/12)
*3. Argentina: Menem to Be Tried for AMIA Bombing Coverup
Unidentified Argentine judicial sources reported on Mar. 30 that federal judge Ariel Lijo has ordered former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) to stand trial on charges that during his presidency he impeded the initial investigation into a July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires [see Update #978], The judge in charge of the original investigation, Juan José Galeano, is also to stand trial, along with former intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar, and two commanders of the federal police.
The bombing, generally considered the worst anti-Semitic violence since World War 2, killed at least 85 people and injured 300; Argentine prosecutors accuse the Iranian government of planning the attack and the Lebanese organization Hezbollah of carrying it out. Many Argentines suspected that Menem, a strong proponent of neoliberal economic measures and a favorite of the US government at the time, had interfered in the investigation to protect family friends, the late Syrian-Argentine business owner Alberto Kanoore Edul and his son, Alberto Jacinto Kanoore Edul. Alberto Jacinto is said to be linked to Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché to Iran’s embassy in Buenos Aires who is suspected of masterminding the AMIA bombing.
Menem is now a senator for La Rioja province, and even if convicted he won’t face a prison sentence unless he is impeached by the Senate. (InfoBAE (Argentina) 3/30/12; Página 12 (Argentina) 3/31/12; BBC News 4/2/12) [Last September he was acquitted in a corruption trial stemming from the illegal sale of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador when he was president; there were suspicions of political interference in that trial--see Update #1097].
*4. Mexico: Study Blames NAFTA in Obesity Epidemic
A study published in the March issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may be partly responsible for the sharp increase in obesity among Mexicans since the accord took effect in January 1994. Entitled “Exporting obesity: US farm and trade policy and the transformation of the Mexican consumer food environment,” the study indicates that by opening Mexico up to investment and food imports from the US, NAFTA altered Mexicans’ eating habits in a way that has affected their health.
Between 1988 and 1999 the average energy Mexicans obtained daily from fats rose from 23.5% to 30.3%--a 28.9% increase--while the consumption of refined carbohydrates rose by 6.3% and the consumption of soft drinks by 37.2%, according to the study. These changes coincided with increased imports of food products—including processed food and snacks—from the US, and with an increased US presence in food outlets. McDonalds, which opened its first Mexican restaurant in 1985, now has some 500 shops in 57 Mexican cities. The number of Wal-Mart stores jumped from 114 in 1993 to 561 in 2001; by 2005 Wal-Mart controlled 20% of the retail food sector in Mexico.
Weight problems increased in Mexico as these changes were taking place; from 2000 to 2006, for example, obesity and excess weight rose by 12%. The effects were especially severe among children. Alejandro Calvillo, director of the nonprofit group Consumer Power, says national surveys show obesity and excess weight increasing by 40% from 1999 to 2006 among children between the ages of five and 11.
According to David Wallinga, a co-author of the study and a science adviser at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis, “As Mexico’s food environment has come to resemble that of the US, with more ubiquitous sodas, processed meats and other processed snacks high in added fats and sweeteners, it’s no wonder that Mexico’s struggle with obesity and its related life-threatening problems—diabetes, stroke, heart disease—has become ‘Americanized’ as well.” (Common Dreams 4/5/12; Prensa Latina 4/5/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 4/6/12 from correspondent)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti
Metrics of U.S. Militarization in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3552-metrics-of-us-militarization-in-latin-america
The Southern Command Opens a Base in the Argentine Chaco: Humanitarianism or U.S. Control Center?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3560-the-southern-command-opens-a-base-in-the-argentine-chaco-humanitarianism-or-us-control-center
Chile: high court rejects challenge to hydroelectric dam project
http://ww4report.com/node/10966
Shifting Alliances in Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/6/shifting-alliances-bolivia%E2%80%99s-tipnis-conflict
Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s Brother Complains of Prison Beating
http://latindispatch.com/2012/04/04/peruvian-president-ollanta-humalas-brother-complains-of-prison-beating/
Regional Peruvian Government Fights Conga Gold Mining: An Interview with Dr. César Aliaga Díaz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3554-regional-peruvian-government-fights-conga-gold-mining-an-interview-with-dr-cesar-aliaga-diaz
Peru: Cajamarca militarized on eve of regional strike
http://ww4report.com/node/10967
Peru Passes Monumental Ten Year Ban on Genetically Engineered Foods
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3556-peru-passes-monumental-ten-year-ban-on-genetically-engineered-foods
Peru: oil industry blamed in mass dolphin die-off
http://ww4report.com/node/10968
Colombia: another indigenous leader assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/10938#comment-341274
The Capital of Colombia Says, “Farewell to Arms”
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6677
Colombia’s FARC Release Hostages Held for 12 Years
http://latindispatch.com/2012/04/03/colombias-farc-release-hostages-held-for-12-years/
FARC denies being weakened, rejects "terrorist" label
http://ww4report.com/node/10969
The Increasing ‘Americanization’ of the Colombian Conflict
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/3/increasing-%E2%80%98americanization%E2%80%99-colombian-conflict
Venezuela Rejects U.S. Democrat’s Calls for “Robust” Mission to Monitor Election
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6900
U.S. Narcotics Chief Defends Drug War During Central American Tour
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/4/us-narcotics-chief-defends-drug-war-during-central-american-tour
US-Latin America: HR3783 and the Mega-Embassy That Never Was (Nicaragua)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3555-us-latin-america-hr3783-and-the-mega-embassy-that-never-was
Dying in Defense of Land in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3563-dying-in-defense-of-land-in-mexico
Mexico’s Corn Festivals – a Haven from Transgenic Crops
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3557-mexicos-corn-festivals--a-haven-from-transgenic-crops
Fear, Loathing and Electoral Love in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6689
Juárez drug cartel leader gets life in US consulate killings
http://ww4report.com/node/10965
The People vs. The Pirates: Controversy Abounds in Haitian Reconstruction Investigations
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/5/people-vs-pirates-controversy-abounds-haitian-reconstruction-investigations
For more Latin America news stories from mainstream and alternative sources:
http://www.cipamericas.org/
http://latindispatch.com/
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/967/blastContent.jsp
http://www.ueinternational.org/Mexico_info/mlna.php
http://nacla.org/
http://upsidedownworld.org/
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
http://ww4report.com/node/
For immigration updates and events:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/
END
Your support is appreciated. Back issues and source materials are available on request. Our weekly Immigration News Briefs has ended publication.
Order The Politics of Immigration: Questions & Answers, from Monthly Review Press, by Update editors Jane Guskin and David Wilson:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.com/
Issue #1124, April 8, 2012
1. Haiti: Did a Dominican Contractor Give Millions to Martelly?
2. Chile: Carabinero Shot After Raid on Mapuche Village
3. Argentina: Menem to Be Tried for AMIA Bombing Coverup
4. Mexico: Study Blames NAFTA in Obesity Epidemic
5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WeeklyNewsUpdat
*1. Haiti: Did a Dominican Contractor Give Millions to Martelly?
Several construction companies controlled by Dominican senator Félix Bautista have paid a total of more than $2.5 million to Haitian president Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) since 2010, according to a Mar. 31 television report by Dominican investigative reporter Nuria Piera. At least two of the companies were awarded major contracts by the Haitian government for rebuilding in Haiti following the January 2010 earthquake: Hadom S.A., which won a $33 million contract to construct a new building for the Parliament, and Roffy S.A., which is getting $174 million for a housing project in the capital’s Fort National section. [The ceremony to mark the start of the Fort National project last year was called off because of protests by area residents who demanded greater transparency; see Update #1063.]
On Apr. 2 Bautista denied that he had ever given money to President Martelly; he charged that the bank transactions detailed in Piera’s report came from “anonymous documents with altered and distorted information.” Martelly’s office called the report a “media lynching” and said it was “part of a process that seeks to impede the change in Haitian politics and the modernization of the country that the president is carrying out.”
Martelly isn’t the only politician who could face problems if Piera’s corruption accusations turn out to be true. According to Piera, Bautista’s companies also contributed $250,000 to Mirlande Manigat, Martelly’s opponent in the March 2011 presidential runoff. The Haitian rebuilding contracts were awarded to Bautista’s companies in 2010, during the administration of former president René Préval (1996-2001 and 2006-2011), so Préval and his prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, could come under scrutiny. Dominican president Leonel Fernández is said to be close to Bautista, who represents San Juan de la Maguana province in the Senate for Fernández’s Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). On Apr. 4 Piera charged that Dominican intelligence services were persecuting people they suspected of being her sources for the report. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 4/2/12, 4/5/12; Miami Herald 4/2/12 from correspondents; Listín Diario (Santo Domingo) 4/3/12)
On Apr. 4, five days after the scandal broke, Martelly flew to Florida for surgery on his shoulder. According to his press office, he will return on Apr. 12, in time to meet Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who will be making his first visit to Haiti. The operation will be the second Martelly has had for his shoulder; he was in the US for a similar operation from Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 last year, also during a political crisis—in that case, the crisis caused by the arrest of Parliament member Arnel Bélizaire [see Update #1103]. (AlterPresse 4/5/12)
In other news, the number of cholera cases rose in the Artibonite, Northwest and West departments when rainfall increased in late March. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO, or OPS in French and Creole) expects an additional 200,000 cases this year. As of Mar. 18, 7,056 people had died in the epidemic, which struck Haiti in October 2010, and 286,343 had been hospitalized, according to the Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP), which reports a total of 531,683 known cases. (AlterPresse 4/5/12)
*2. Chile: Carabinero Shot After Raid on Mapuche Village
A sergeant in Chile’s carabineros militarized police force, Hugo Albornoz, died in a hospital in Temuco, the capital of the southern region of Araucanía, the evening of Apr. 2; he had been shot in the neck by unknown attackers earlier in the day. Sgt. Albornoz was part of a large group of police agents from the carabineros Special Operations Group (GOPE) that had searched through homes of indigenous Mapuche that morning in the village of Wente Winkul Mapu in Ercilla commune, Araucanía, for evidence about an October 2011 attack on the Centenario estate, the property of Juan de Dios Fuentes.
According to Luis Chamorro, a local prosecutor who led the search, the operation resulted in three arrests and the seizure of weapons and ski masks, but there was no confrontation with the inhabitants or any use of tear gas. After the agents left the village, they were fired on by about 15 men in the woods around the road, the authorities said. In addition to Albornoz, two other carabineros were hit, but their injuries were not life-threatening. (Radio Biobío (Chile) 4/2/12; AFP 4/2/12 via Univision; La Tercera (Chile) 4/3/12)
On Apr. 3 a spokesperson for Wente Winkul Mapu, Daniel Melinao, denied that village residents were involved in the shooting. “We don’t know where this bullet came from, but we are peaceful as a community, although we are also worried by the situation,” he said. (Radio Cooperativa (Chile) 4/4/12 via Mapu Express)
The Araucanía and Biobío regions in southern Chile have been in turmoil for years because of disputes between timber companies and Mapuche activists who say the companies are invading Mapuche ancestral lands [see Update #1113]. With about one million members, the Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous group; according to José Aylwin, co-director of the Temuco office of the Citizens’ Monitoring Center, one third of the country’s Mapuche population lives in Araucanía. “The state has, regrettably, generated violence for a long time” in the region by siding with the timber companies, he told Radio Cooperativa. Two companies, Arauco S.A. and Forestal Mininco, made $1.5 billion in profits in 2010 alone, Aylwin said. Sgt. Albornoz was the fourth person to die in the conflict in the last decade, Aylwin noted; the other three were Mapuche killed by carabineros. (Radio Cooperativa 4/3/12)
Luis García Huidobro, a Jesuit who said he witnessed the Apr. 2 raid, called it “a totally useless operation” involving “some 10 police vehicles, a small tank, a zorrillo [vehicle for dispensing tear gas], an armored bus for transporting carabineros, and various vans.” “They shouldn’t send carabineros,” he wrote in an open letter; “but should send someone from the government to open up a dialogue and return those lands so that there will be peace.” (Prensa Latina 4/3/12)
In other news, on Apr. 4 the House of Deputies voted 58-56 to approve an anti-discrimination law which had been languishing in Congress for seven years. The Senate passed the bill last September. The deputies’ action followed calls both in Chile and abroad for laws against hate crimes like the brutal assault that resulted in the death of a gay young man, Daniel Zamudio, on Mar. 27 [see Update #1123]. Some provisions of the bill still need to be finalized before it can become a law. (The Jurist 4/5/12)
*3. Argentina: Menem to Be Tried for AMIA Bombing Coverup
Unidentified Argentine judicial sources reported on Mar. 30 that federal judge Ariel Lijo has ordered former president Carlos Saúl Menem (1989-1999) to stand trial on charges that during his presidency he impeded the initial investigation into a July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires [see Update #978], The judge in charge of the original investigation, Juan José Galeano, is also to stand trial, along with former intelligence service directors Hugo Anzorreguy and Juan Carlos Anchezar, and two commanders of the federal police.
The bombing, generally considered the worst anti-Semitic violence since World War 2, killed at least 85 people and injured 300; Argentine prosecutors accuse the Iranian government of planning the attack and the Lebanese organization Hezbollah of carrying it out. Many Argentines suspected that Menem, a strong proponent of neoliberal economic measures and a favorite of the US government at the time, had interfered in the investigation to protect family friends, the late Syrian-Argentine business owner Alberto Kanoore Edul and his son, Alberto Jacinto Kanoore Edul. Alberto Jacinto is said to be linked to Mohsen Rabbani, a former cultural attaché to Iran’s embassy in Buenos Aires who is suspected of masterminding the AMIA bombing.
Menem is now a senator for La Rioja province, and even if convicted he won’t face a prison sentence unless he is impeached by the Senate. (InfoBAE (Argentina) 3/30/12; Página 12 (Argentina) 3/31/12; BBC News 4/2/12) [Last September he was acquitted in a corruption trial stemming from the illegal sale of weapons to Croatia and Ecuador when he was president; there were suspicions of political interference in that trial--see Update #1097].
*4. Mexico: Study Blames NAFTA in Obesity Epidemic
A study published in the March issue of the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may be partly responsible for the sharp increase in obesity among Mexicans since the accord took effect in January 1994. Entitled “Exporting obesity: US farm and trade policy and the transformation of the Mexican consumer food environment,” the study indicates that by opening Mexico up to investment and food imports from the US, NAFTA altered Mexicans’ eating habits in a way that has affected their health.
Between 1988 and 1999 the average energy Mexicans obtained daily from fats rose from 23.5% to 30.3%--a 28.9% increase--while the consumption of refined carbohydrates rose by 6.3% and the consumption of soft drinks by 37.2%, according to the study. These changes coincided with increased imports of food products—including processed food and snacks—from the US, and with an increased US presence in food outlets. McDonalds, which opened its first Mexican restaurant in 1985, now has some 500 shops in 57 Mexican cities. The number of Wal-Mart stores jumped from 114 in 1993 to 561 in 2001; by 2005 Wal-Mart controlled 20% of the retail food sector in Mexico.
Weight problems increased in Mexico as these changes were taking place; from 2000 to 2006, for example, obesity and excess weight rose by 12%. The effects were especially severe among children. Alejandro Calvillo, director of the nonprofit group Consumer Power, says national surveys show obesity and excess weight increasing by 40% from 1999 to 2006 among children between the ages of five and 11.
According to David Wallinga, a co-author of the study and a science adviser at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis, “As Mexico’s food environment has come to resemble that of the US, with more ubiquitous sodas, processed meats and other processed snacks high in added fats and sweeteners, it’s no wonder that Mexico’s struggle with obesity and its related life-threatening problems—diabetes, stroke, heart disease—has become ‘Americanized’ as well.” (Common Dreams 4/5/12; Prensa Latina 4/5/12; La Jornada (Mexico) 4/6/12 from correspondent)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti
Metrics of U.S. Militarization in Latin America
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3552-metrics-of-us-militarization-in-latin-america
The Southern Command Opens a Base in the Argentine Chaco: Humanitarianism or U.S. Control Center?
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3560-the-southern-command-opens-a-base-in-the-argentine-chaco-humanitarianism-or-us-control-center
Chile: high court rejects challenge to hydroelectric dam project
http://ww4report.com/node/10966
Shifting Alliances in Bolivia’s TIPNIS Conflict
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/6/shifting-alliances-bolivia%E2%80%99s-tipnis-conflict
Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s Brother Complains of Prison Beating
http://latindispatch.com/2012/04/04/peruvian-president-ollanta-humalas-brother-complains-of-prison-beating/
Regional Peruvian Government Fights Conga Gold Mining: An Interview with Dr. César Aliaga Díaz
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/peru-archives-76/3554-regional-peruvian-government-fights-conga-gold-mining-an-interview-with-dr-cesar-aliaga-diaz
Peru: Cajamarca militarized on eve of regional strike
http://ww4report.com/node/10967
Peru Passes Monumental Ten Year Ban on Genetically Engineered Foods
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3556-peru-passes-monumental-ten-year-ban-on-genetically-engineered-foods
Peru: oil industry blamed in mass dolphin die-off
http://ww4report.com/node/10968
Colombia: another indigenous leader assassinated
http://ww4report.com/node/10938#comment-341274
The Capital of Colombia Says, “Farewell to Arms”
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6677
Colombia’s FARC Release Hostages Held for 12 Years
http://latindispatch.com/2012/04/03/colombias-farc-release-hostages-held-for-12-years/
FARC denies being weakened, rejects "terrorist" label
http://ww4report.com/node/10969
The Increasing ‘Americanization’ of the Colombian Conflict
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/3/increasing-%E2%80%98americanization%E2%80%99-colombian-conflict
Venezuela Rejects U.S. Democrat’s Calls for “Robust” Mission to Monitor Election
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6900
U.S. Narcotics Chief Defends Drug War During Central American Tour
http://nacla.org/news/2012/4/4/us-narcotics-chief-defends-drug-war-during-central-american-tour
US-Latin America: HR3783 and the Mega-Embassy That Never Was (Nicaragua)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3555-us-latin-america-hr3783-and-the-mega-embassy-that-never-was
Dying in Defense of Land in Mexico
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/mexico-archives-79/3563-dying-in-defense-of-land-in-mexico
Mexico’s Corn Festivals – a Haven from Transgenic Crops
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3557-mexicos-corn-festivals--a-haven-from-transgenic-crops
Fear, Loathing and Electoral Love in Mexico
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/6689
Juárez drug cartel leader gets life in US consulate killings
http://ww4report.com/node/10965
The People vs. The Pirates: Controversy Abounds in Haitian Reconstruction Investigations
http://nacla.org/blog/2012/4/5/people-vs-pirates-controversy-abounds-haitian-reconstruction-investigations
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/
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/
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
WNU #1099: Haitian Garment Bosses Fight Unionization Drive
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1099, October 2, 2011
1. Haiti: Garment Bosses Fight New Unionization Drive
2. Haiti: Martelly Backs Clinton Aide, Army Restoration
3. Honduras: Police Find Shipment of Arms From US
4. Trade: US Unions Fight Colombia and Panama FTAs
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: Garment Bosses Fight New Unionization Drive
The management of two Port-au-Prince apparel factories owned by wealthy and powerful Haitians--Gerald Apaid and former presidential candidate Charles Henri Baker--fired a total of five officers of a new garment workers union between Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, a little more than a week after the union announced its formation.
Johny Deshommes, a spokesperson for the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), lost his job at Apaid’s Genesis S.A. factory on Sept. 23 when he asked to be allowed to go home because of a fever. Three other members of SOTA’s executive committee, Brevil Claude, Wilner Eliacint and Cénatus Vilaire, were fired on Sept. 25 when they tried to meet with the human resources director to discuss Deshommes’ firing; Genesis management brought in two police agents to intimidate and threaten the unionists before they were allowed to leave. SOTA’s secretary, Mitial Rubin, was fired from Baker’s One World Apparel after he had leafleted workers outside the factory.
A third apparel company in the capital, Richard Coles’ Multiwear SA, fired union member Hilaire Jean-François on Sept. 30, and there are reports of harassment of other unionists.
The factories, located in the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi) facility near the Port-au-Prince airport, are tax-exempt assembly plants producing largely for export (known in Spanish as maquiladoras). None of the Sonapi factories are unionized, and unions have been kept out of most Haitian assembly plants, although the leftist group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”) succeeded in organizing a union in 2004 at the assembly plants in Ouanaminthe at the Dominican border in the Northeast department [see Update #829].
SOTA’s formation was announced on Sept. 15 at a press conference in Port-au-Prince with representatives of Batay Ouvriye. Representatives of Haitian and international organizations also attended, including Camille Charlmers, executive secretary of the Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), and Víctor Báez Mosqueira, secretary general of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (CSA-TUCA). The union has registered with Haiti’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MAST).
The firings have received some international attention: the General Union of Guadeloupe Workers (UGTG), which led a 44-day general strike in the French Caribbean colony of Guadaloupe in 2008 [see Update #988], denounced the companies’ actions and declared its solidarity with SOTA. Batay Ouvriye has announced plans to file complaints with the Haitian authorities about the situation, and the group is asking solidarity activists to email the factory owners and the Association des Industries d’Haïti (ADIH, a factory owners’ group) demanding the reinstatement of the unionists and full collective bargaining rights for assembly plant workers. The emails can be sent to Mr. Gerard Apaid/Genesis at gapaid33166@yahoo.com; Mr. Charles Henry Baker/One World Apparel at chbaker@pbapparel.com; Mr. Richard Coles/Multiwear at rcoles@multitex.com; and ADIH at administration@adih.ht, with copies to Batay Ouvriye at batay@batayouvriye.org. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/16/11, 9/29/11, 9/30/11; Batay Ouvriye press release 9/27/11 via anarkismo.net 9/28/11, press release 10/1/11 via email)
In other labor news, the Association of Elementary School Teachers of Port-au-Prince Municipal Schools (ASIEMP) threatened to start an open-ended strike in the capital on Oct. 4, the day after schools open for the fall, to demand five months’ back pay the union says is owed to a group of 800 teachers. The week before, on Sept. 28, some 30 members and supporters of the National Union of Haitian Teachers (UNNOH) marched in Port-au-Prince to demand that President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) promulgate a law regulating school fees. Parliament passed the law in 2009, but it has never gone into effect. The marchers also demanded reinstatement of laid-off teachers and restoration of a bonus; they expressed doubts that the president really intends to carry out a plan he has announced for free public education. (AlterPresse 9/29/11, ___; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 9/30/11)
*2. Haiti: Martelly Backs Clinton Aide, Army Restoration
The Haitian Senate was scheduled to start discussions on President Michel Martelly’s latest nominee for prime minister, Garry Conille, on Oct. 3. The Chamber of Deputies voted 89-0 on Sept. 16 in favor of the nomination after Parliament rejected Martelly’s two previous choices. The government has been administered by acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration, ever since Martelly took office in May.
Garry Conille is the resident coordinator for the United Nations Development Program in Niger and has been an assistant to former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), the United Nations’ special envoy for Haiti and the co-president of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC, or CIRH in French and Spanish). The choice of Conille has been controversial because of his long association with Clinton, who was already being referred to in political circles as the de facto “governor of Haiti” [see Update #1096]. According to the Miami Herald, Conille insists “that he’s not the international community’s candidate.” (MH 9/17/11 from correspondent; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 10/1/11)
In another controversial move, Martelly is apparently planning to reinstitute the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd’H), which was abolished on Jan. 6, 1995 by then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). A document entitled “Haiti Security: All the Details on the Project for the New National Force,” not yet released officially, describes a plan for an initial force with 3,500 members; recruitment would begin in October or November.
Grassroots movements strongly oppose the plan. Osnel Jean-Baptiste, spokesperson for Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants Unity"), said that if the army returns, it “will only work for one part” of the population and that the wounds from the old military’s acts of repression have not yet healed. Yanick Étienne, a spokesperson for the leftist group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), called the proposed army “one more force against the people. This won’t be an army that will defend the nation’s interests.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/29/11)
*3. Honduras: Police Find Shipment of Arms From US
Honduran police spokesperson Julián Hernández announced on Sept. 30 that agents had discovered an illegal shipment of arms from the US in Puerto Cortés, the country’s main port, in the northern department of Cortés. The arms, hidden in several boxes containing garments, included five rifles, an Uzi submachine gun, a pistol and a supply of ammunition. It was sent via Guatemala from a “Héctor Figueroa” in the US to a “Concepción Duarte,” who reportedly lives in San Francisco de la Paz in eastern Honduras.
The authorities reported discovering another shipment of arms from the US on Sept. 8; this one was sent to a man identified as “Pablo Flores,” who was said to have died in a confrontation with the police in northern Honduras. (EFE 9/30/11 via Terra (Spain))
Northern Honduras, especially the Lower Aguán Valley area, has been the site of violent struggles over land over the past two years and has also seen increased activity by drug smugglers and other criminals [see Updates #1094, 1096]. The government has responded to growing violence by militarizing the region, but local grassroots organizations say that while the military presence has done little to end killings and other criminal activity, it has increased the repression of campesino groups. On Sept. 30, the same day the latest arms discovery was announced, Honduran and international organizations opened a four-day conference in Tocoa, Colón department, entitled “Gathering Against Militarization, Occupation and Repression in Honduras: Militant Solidarity With the Lower Aguán.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 9/30/11; Adital (Brazil) 9/30/11)
*4. Trade: US Unions Fight Colombia and Panama FTAs
Richard Trumka, president of the US’s AFL-CIO labor federation, sent a letter to US president Barack Obama on Sept. 26 opposing any immediate action on a proposed free trade agreement (FTA, TLC in Spanish) with Colombia. Obama is expected to send the Colombia-US FTA for approval to Congress in the next few weeks. Trumka, whose federation is the largest union group in the US, said a labor action plan that Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos agreed to in April has proven ineffective. According to the AFL-CIO, Colombian workers are still forced to sign pactos colectivos--salary and benefit agreements imposed by employers--or to join cooperatives that act as company unions. So far this year, 22 unionists have been murdered in Colombia, including 15 since the labor action plan went into effect, Trumka wrote. (AFL-CIO Now blog 9/26/11)
The AFL-CIO has initiated a “call-in day” on Oct. 4 against the Colombia-US FTA and against similar deals with South Korea and Panama. The federation says that the Korea FTA, “is the biggest trade deal since NAFTA” (the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993) and “would displace an estimated 159,000 net US jobs, mostly in manufacturing.” The AFL-CIO described Panama as a “tax haven for money launderers and tax dodgers” with “a history of failing to protect workers’ rights.” Activists can call US representatives at 800-718-1008 to oppose the agreements. (Alliance for Global Justice 9/28/11)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Long Live the Students! (Chile)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5516
Photo Essay - A Clash of Classes: Chilean Students Fight for a Better Education System
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3235-photo-essay-a-clash-of-classes-chilean-students-fight-for-a-better-education-system
Chile: police attack Mapuche community after clash at timber camp
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10386
Brazil: Judge Suspends Belo Monte Dam Construction In Amazon
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/30/brazil-judge-suspends-belo-monte-dam-construction-in-amazon/
Bolivia: interior minister next to resign over Amazon repression
http://ww4report.com/node/10372
Bolivia: defense minister resigns over Amazon repression
http://ww4report.com/node/10360
Bolivia: General Strike Protests Crackdown on Native March
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3241-bolivia-general-strike-protests-crackdown-on-native-march
Bolivia: Amazon protest march resumes in tense atmosphere
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10385
An Open Letter to Our Friends About the Current Situation in Bolivia
http://democracyctr.org/blog/archives/1636
'We Are All TIPNIS' (Bolivia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/30/we-are-all-tipnis
Peru: government to mediate in dispute over Tacna copper mine
http://ww4report.com/node/10371
Painkillers and Pens Used to Placate Peru’s Indians as Gas Giants Move In
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3232-painkillers-and-pens-used-to-placate-perus-indians-as-gas-giants-move-in
Ecuador: Criminalization of the Social Protest in Times of the ‘Citizen Revolution’
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3234-ecuador-criminalization-of-the-social-protest-in-times-of-the-citizen-revolution
Latest UNDP Report on Colombia: 'It's the Rural Economy, Stupid.'
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/26/latest-undp-report-colombia-its-rural-economy-stupid
U.S. President Obama Nominates Chavez Critic for Top Latin America Post
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6526
Book Review - Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/cuba-archives-43/3231-book-review-revolutionary-doctors-how-venezuela-and-cuba-are-changing-the-worlds-conception-of-health-care-
Nicaragua: journalist flees country after death threats over "re-contra" reportage
http://www.ww4report.com/node/1038
Drug War Meets Dirty War In Guerrero (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5482
Mexico: severed heads left as grisly message to striking teachers in Acapulco
http://ww4report.com/node/10370
Why Such Extreme Violence? (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5486
Paramilitary Justice (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/27/paramilitary-justice-2
Wife Of Mexican Drug Lord “El Chapo” Guzmán Gives Birth In U.S.
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/27/wife-of-mexican-drug-lord-el-chapo-guzman-gives-birth-in-u-s/
Haiti Urged to Bring Jean-Claude Duvalier to Justice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3236-haiti-urged-to-bring-jean-claude-duvalier-to-justice
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 #1099, October 2, 2011
1. Haiti: Garment Bosses Fight New Unionization Drive
2. Haiti: Martelly Backs Clinton Aide, Army Restoration
3. Honduras: Police Find Shipment of Arms From US
4. Trade: US Unions Fight Colombia and Panama FTAs
5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com
*1. Haiti: Garment Bosses Fight New Unionization Drive
The management of two Port-au-Prince apparel factories owned by wealthy and powerful Haitians--Gerald Apaid and former presidential candidate Charles Henri Baker--fired a total of five officers of a new garment workers union between Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, a little more than a week after the union announced its formation.
Johny Deshommes, a spokesperson for the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), lost his job at Apaid’s Genesis S.A. factory on Sept. 23 when he asked to be allowed to go home because of a fever. Three other members of SOTA’s executive committee, Brevil Claude, Wilner Eliacint and Cénatus Vilaire, were fired on Sept. 25 when they tried to meet with the human resources director to discuss Deshommes’ firing; Genesis management brought in two police agents to intimidate and threaten the unionists before they were allowed to leave. SOTA’s secretary, Mitial Rubin, was fired from Baker’s One World Apparel after he had leafleted workers outside the factory.
A third apparel company in the capital, Richard Coles’ Multiwear SA, fired union member Hilaire Jean-François on Sept. 30, and there are reports of harassment of other unionists.
The factories, located in the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi) facility near the Port-au-Prince airport, are tax-exempt assembly plants producing largely for export (known in Spanish as maquiladoras). None of the Sonapi factories are unionized, and unions have been kept out of most Haitian assembly plants, although the leftist group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”) succeeded in organizing a union in 2004 at the assembly plants in Ouanaminthe at the Dominican border in the Northeast department [see Update #829].
SOTA’s formation was announced on Sept. 15 at a press conference in Port-au-Prince with representatives of Batay Ouvriye. Representatives of Haitian and international organizations also attended, including Camille Charlmers, executive secretary of the Haitian Platform Advocating an Alternative Development (PAPDA), and Víctor Báez Mosqueira, secretary general of the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (CSA-TUCA). The union has registered with Haiti’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (MAST).
The firings have received some international attention: the General Union of Guadeloupe Workers (UGTG), which led a 44-day general strike in the French Caribbean colony of Guadaloupe in 2008 [see Update #988], denounced the companies’ actions and declared its solidarity with SOTA. Batay Ouvriye has announced plans to file complaints with the Haitian authorities about the situation, and the group is asking solidarity activists to email the factory owners and the Association des Industries d’Haïti (ADIH, a factory owners’ group) demanding the reinstatement of the unionists and full collective bargaining rights for assembly plant workers. The emails can be sent to Mr. Gerard Apaid/Genesis at gapaid33166@yahoo.com; Mr. Charles Henry Baker/One World Apparel at chbaker@pbapparel.com; Mr. Richard Coles/Multiwear at rcoles@multitex.com; and ADIH at administration@adih.ht, with copies to Batay Ouvriye at batay@batayouvriye.org. (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/16/11, 9/29/11, 9/30/11; Batay Ouvriye press release 9/27/11 via anarkismo.net 9/28/11, press release 10/1/11 via email)
In other labor news, the Association of Elementary School Teachers of Port-au-Prince Municipal Schools (ASIEMP) threatened to start an open-ended strike in the capital on Oct. 4, the day after schools open for the fall, to demand five months’ back pay the union says is owed to a group of 800 teachers. The week before, on Sept. 28, some 30 members and supporters of the National Union of Haitian Teachers (UNNOH) marched in Port-au-Prince to demand that President Michel Martelly (“Sweet Micky”) promulgate a law regulating school fees. Parliament passed the law in 2009, but it has never gone into effect. The marchers also demanded reinstatement of laid-off teachers and restoration of a bonus; they expressed doubts that the president really intends to carry out a plan he has announced for free public education. (AlterPresse 9/29/11, ___; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 9/30/11)
*2. Haiti: Martelly Backs Clinton Aide, Army Restoration
The Haitian Senate was scheduled to start discussions on President Michel Martelly’s latest nominee for prime minister, Garry Conille, on Oct. 3. The Chamber of Deputies voted 89-0 on Sept. 16 in favor of the nomination after Parliament rejected Martelly’s two previous choices. The government has been administered by acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration, ever since Martelly took office in May.
Garry Conille is the resident coordinator for the United Nations Development Program in Niger and has been an assistant to former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001), the United Nations’ special envoy for Haiti and the co-president of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC, or CIRH in French and Spanish). The choice of Conille has been controversial because of his long association with Clinton, who was already being referred to in political circles as the de facto “governor of Haiti” [see Update #1096]. According to the Miami Herald, Conille insists “that he’s not the international community’s candidate.” (MH 9/17/11 from correspondent; Haïti Libre (Haiti) 10/1/11)
In another controversial move, Martelly is apparently planning to reinstitute the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd’H), which was abolished on Jan. 6, 1995 by then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004). A document entitled “Haiti Security: All the Details on the Project for the New National Force,” not yet released officially, describes a plan for an initial force with 3,500 members; recruitment would begin in October or November.
Grassroots movements strongly oppose the plan. Osnel Jean-Baptiste, spokesperson for Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen ("Small Haitian Peasants Unity"), said that if the army returns, it “will only work for one part” of the population and that the wounds from the old military’s acts of repression have not yet healed. Yanick Étienne, a spokesperson for the leftist group Batay Ouvriye (“Workers’ Struggle”), called the proposed army “one more force against the people. This won’t be an army that will defend the nation’s interests.” (AlterPresse (Haiti) 9/29/11)
*3. Honduras: Police Find Shipment of Arms From US
Honduran police spokesperson Julián Hernández announced on Sept. 30 that agents had discovered an illegal shipment of arms from the US in Puerto Cortés, the country’s main port, in the northern department of Cortés. The arms, hidden in several boxes containing garments, included five rifles, an Uzi submachine gun, a pistol and a supply of ammunition. It was sent via Guatemala from a “Héctor Figueroa” in the US to a “Concepción Duarte,” who reportedly lives in San Francisco de la Paz in eastern Honduras.
The authorities reported discovering another shipment of arms from the US on Sept. 8; this one was sent to a man identified as “Pablo Flores,” who was said to have died in a confrontation with the police in northern Honduras. (EFE 9/30/11 via Terra (Spain))
Northern Honduras, especially the Lower Aguán Valley area, has been the site of violent struggles over land over the past two years and has also seen increased activity by drug smugglers and other criminals [see Updates #1094, 1096]. The government has responded to growing violence by militarizing the region, but local grassroots organizations say that while the military presence has done little to end killings and other criminal activity, it has increased the repression of campesino groups. On Sept. 30, the same day the latest arms discovery was announced, Honduran and international organizations opened a four-day conference in Tocoa, Colón department, entitled “Gathering Against Militarization, Occupation and Repression in Honduras: Militant Solidarity With the Lower Aguán.” (Vos el Soberano (Honduras) 9/30/11; Adital (Brazil) 9/30/11)
*4. Trade: US Unions Fight Colombia and Panama FTAs
Richard Trumka, president of the US’s AFL-CIO labor federation, sent a letter to US president Barack Obama on Sept. 26 opposing any immediate action on a proposed free trade agreement (FTA, TLC in Spanish) with Colombia. Obama is expected to send the Colombia-US FTA for approval to Congress in the next few weeks. Trumka, whose federation is the largest union group in the US, said a labor action plan that Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos agreed to in April has proven ineffective. According to the AFL-CIO, Colombian workers are still forced to sign pactos colectivos--salary and benefit agreements imposed by employers--or to join cooperatives that act as company unions. So far this year, 22 unionists have been murdered in Colombia, including 15 since the labor action plan went into effect, Trumka wrote. (AFL-CIO Now blog 9/26/11)
The AFL-CIO has initiated a “call-in day” on Oct. 4 against the Colombia-US FTA and against similar deals with South Korea and Panama. The federation says that the Korea FTA, “is the biggest trade deal since NAFTA” (the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1993) and “would displace an estimated 159,000 net US jobs, mostly in manufacturing.” The AFL-CIO described Panama as a “tax haven for money launderers and tax dodgers” with “a history of failing to protect workers’ rights.” Activists can call US representatives at 800-718-1008 to oppose the agreements. (Alliance for Global Justice 9/28/11)
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti
Long Live the Students! (Chile)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5516
Photo Essay - A Clash of Classes: Chilean Students Fight for a Better Education System
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/chile-archives-34/3235-photo-essay-a-clash-of-classes-chilean-students-fight-for-a-better-education-system
Chile: police attack Mapuche community after clash at timber camp
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10386
Brazil: Judge Suspends Belo Monte Dam Construction In Amazon
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/30/brazil-judge-suspends-belo-monte-dam-construction-in-amazon/
Bolivia: interior minister next to resign over Amazon repression
http://ww4report.com/node/10372
Bolivia: defense minister resigns over Amazon repression
http://ww4report.com/node/10360
Bolivia: General Strike Protests Crackdown on Native March
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/bolivia-archives-31/3241-bolivia-general-strike-protests-crackdown-on-native-march
Bolivia: Amazon protest march resumes in tense atmosphere
http://www.ww4report.com/node/10385
An Open Letter to Our Friends About the Current Situation in Bolivia
http://democracyctr.org/blog/archives/1636
'We Are All TIPNIS' (Bolivia)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/30/we-are-all-tipnis
Peru: government to mediate in dispute over Tacna copper mine
http://ww4report.com/node/10371
Painkillers and Pens Used to Placate Peru’s Indians as Gas Giants Move In
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3232-painkillers-and-pens-used-to-placate-perus-indians-as-gas-giants-move-in
Ecuador: Criminalization of the Social Protest in Times of the ‘Citizen Revolution’
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/ecuador-archives-49/3234-ecuador-criminalization-of-the-social-protest-in-times-of-the-citizen-revolution
Latest UNDP Report on Colombia: 'It's the Rural Economy, Stupid.'
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/26/latest-undp-report-colombia-its-rural-economy-stupid
U.S. President Obama Nominates Chavez Critic for Top Latin America Post
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6526
Book Review - Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba Are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/cuba-archives-43/3231-book-review-revolutionary-doctors-how-venezuela-and-cuba-are-changing-the-worlds-conception-of-health-care-
Nicaragua: journalist flees country after death threats over "re-contra" reportage
http://www.ww4report.com/node/1038
Drug War Meets Dirty War In Guerrero (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5482
Mexico: severed heads left as grisly message to striking teachers in Acapulco
http://ww4report.com/node/10370
Why Such Extreme Violence? (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5486
Paramilitary Justice (Mexico)
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/9/27/paramilitary-justice-2
Wife Of Mexican Drug Lord “El Chapo” Guzmán Gives Birth In U.S.
http://latindispatch.com/2011/09/27/wife-of-mexican-drug-lord-el-chapo-guzman-gives-birth-in-u-s/
Haiti Urged to Bring Jean-Claude Duvalier to Justice
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3236-haiti-urged-to-bring-jean-claude-duvalier-to-justice
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/
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
WNU #1093: Latin America Reacts to New Economic Crisis
Weekly News Update on the Americas
Issue #1093, August 21, 2011
1. Latin America: Markets, Leaders React to New Economic Crisis
2. Honduras: Students Occupy Schools in “Chilean” Protests
3. Honduras: What’s Behind the Latest Aguán Valley Violence?
4. Guatemala: Private Guards Attack Evicted Polochic Campesinos
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Markets, Leaders React to New Economic Crisis
Fears of a renewed global recession, coupled with concerns about public debt in Europe, forced down Latin American markets on Aug. 18. The most important market in the region, Brazil’s BM&FBOVESPA (Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias & Futuros de São Paulo), fell 3.52 % for the day, while in Argentina the MERVAL index plunged 4.11%. In Mexico City the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) was down 2.36%; the IGBC index in Colombia fell by 3.15% and Chile’s IPSA by 1.89%.
There were reports of “pessimism” among regional leaders. Latin American economies have generally performed better than the European and US economies after the financial crisis of 2008, but there is concern about the region’s transnational companies, the “traslatinas.” “These companies are the ones that depend the most on the global economy, because of the importance of exports,” economist Alexandre Póvoa wrote in the Brazilian economic review Exame.
While in Chile on Aug. 18 as part of a visit that also included Argentina, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos proposed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (CEPAL) that the group should organize a summit meeting of regional finance ministers and central bank presidents. “How can we Latin Americans, sitting here with more than $700 billion in reserves, act so as not be passive spectators, as if indifferent [to the crisis]?” he asked. On Aug. 20, after his return to Colombia, Santos emphasized the importance of regional integration. “All this requires us as a region to strengthen our relations, so that whatever happens we can be better protected.” (DPA 8/19/11 via Vanguardia (Coahuila, Mexico); EFE 8/20/11 via Que.es (Spain))
Colombia is the US’s closest ally in South America, and Santos’ rightwing government has been pushing hard for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US [see Update #1084]. Until now the leftist or left-leaning governments in South America have been the ones promoting regional integration, while Colombia and Mexico, the other major US ally, have been more focused on trade with the US.
“Mexico would be one of the countries most directly affected” by a renewed recession in the US, due its high level of economic integration with the larger country, the US-based rating agency Moody's Investors Service reported on Aug. 18. The group had predicted a 4% growth rate for Mexico this year and 3.9% for 2012. Although it didn’t expect major changes for the rest of 2011, Moody’s revised its prediction for Mexico next year down to 2.5%. Business leaders confirmed that they were “interested in” although not yet “worried about” the growth rate. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/19/11, 8/20/11) The Mexican economy experienced a 6.1% contraction in 2009 during the earlier world economic crisis [see Update #1088].
*2. Honduras: Students Occupy Schools in “Chilean” Protests
About a thousand Honduran secondary students, along with parents and teachers, protested in and around Tegucigalpa on Aug. 15 against a proposed law that they said would lead to the privatization of much of the school system. In the village of Germania, south of the capital, the protesters blocked cars trying to use a major highway leading to El Salvador and Nicaragua. There was a confrontation with the police at another site, the Avenida de las Fuerzas Armada in the east of the city; agents hurled tear gas grenades and arrested some 20 students, although the students were apparently released later. Police blocked a protest near the presidential palace, where President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa was meeting with teachers’ representatives about the proposed law.
National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández announced during the day that the bill, the General Law of Education, would be withdrawn and replaced with a new proposal, which he said would be arrived at by consensus. Meanwhile, the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), the main alliance of Honduran social movements, called on its members to join the student demonstrations and denounced the “savage repression” of the movement by the police.
Students have occupied some 150 public schools throughout the country over the past three weeks, and people are starting to compare the protests to the student movement in Chile, which has paralyzed the educational system there for nearly three months [see Update #1092]. According to the students, the new Honduran legislation, intended to replace a 1966 law, would end government support for education after the ninth year or when the student turns 15, forcing students to pay to finish their secondary education. Teachers unions have also opposed the government’s education reform proposals; they went on strike for much of March and April [see Update #1076], although they are apparently now negotiating with President Lobo.
The protests continued on Aug. 19 with a demonstration outside the National Congress. (Adital (Brazil) 8/16/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 8/16/11 from AFP, DPA; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 8/19/11)
*3. Honduras: What’s Behind the Latest Aguán Valley Violence?
Campesino leader Secundino Ruiz was shot dead as he was leaving a bank in Tocoa in the northern Honduran department of Colón on Aug. 20. Ruiz was president of the San Isidro Cooperative, part of the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), and he had just withdrawn 195,000 lempiras (about $10,260) to pay MARCA workers; because of the money, police attributed the killing to common criminals. Eliseo Pavón, the treasurer of the cooperative, was wounded, according to Julio Espinal, the commander of a police contingent sent to the area earlier in the week. (FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) 8/20/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); Prensa Latina 8/21/11)
MARCA is one of several campesino groups claiming land in the Lower Aguán Valley, the scene of numerous and sometimes violent conflicts over land ownership. Three members of the organization were killed on June 5 [see Update #1083].
Ruiz’s murder followed an exceptionally bloody week in which 11 other people were killed in the valley. Six died on Aug. 14 at the Paso del Aguán estate (also described as the Panama estate) of Grupo Dinant, a major Honduran food product and cooking oil corporation headed by one of the country’s largest landowners, Miguel Facussé Barjum. Four of the victims were Dinant security personnel, and the other two have been described as campesinos, according to most accounts; one report said five guards were killed and one campesino.
Five more people were killed on Aug. 15, shot with automatic weapons as they rode in a Pepsi distribution company’s pickup truck on the highway between Sinaloa and the city of Sabá. The victims were four of the distributor’s contract employees--Bonifacio Dubón, Elvin Ortiz and Eleuterio Lara, and their supervisor, Karla Vanesa Cacho—and Migdalia Sarmiento, who had gotten a ride with them. Sarmiento ran a refreshment stand near the regional office of the government’s National Agrarian Institute (INA), where she worked as a cleaning person years before. The authorities found no evidence that the victims had been robbed.
Later on Aug. 15 Security Minister Oscar Alvarez announced that the government would respond to the violence by sending 600 soldiers and police agents to the area in an operation codenamed Xatruch II. The new deployment, which Alvarez said would search for the culprits and for illegal weapons, joins some 400 soldiers already in stationed in the region.
There are widely different accounts of what happened in the Aug. 14-15 incidents. Some sources say the Aug. 14 violence started with a peaceful land occupation by campesinos from the Rigores community, which was destroyed by police agents and private guards on June 24. Dinant guards, who are accused in a number of campesino deaths, tried to repel the invaders at Paso de Aguán, according to this account, and soldiers backing up the security group mistakenly shot at the guards. But Agrarian Reform Minister César Ham, leader of the center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, denied that the Aug. 14 incident involved a land dispute. Other officials suggested guerrillas were involved, without giving any evidence, or pointed to narco-traffickers, who have been active in parts of Central America [see Update #1067]. There was also talk of gangs that have reportedly been robbing produce in the Aguán. Similar confusion surrounds the Aug. 15 attack on the Pepsi distributor’s truck; there have been suggestions that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Aguán campesino groups and other social movements have also given different interpretations of the events, although all seem agreed that the campesinos are not using violence. “Our movement is peaceful, but it’s about the struggle for the recovery of the earth in order to produce, and this is exactly what the Honduran campesinos are doing,” the Honduran branch of Vía Campesina, an international campesino organization, wrote on Aug. 15. (Comunicaciones la Vía Campesina Honduras 8/15/11 via Honduras Laboral; Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP)-Colón 8/15/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 8/16/11; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 8/16/11; Adital (Brazil) 8/17/11; Honduras Weekly 8/17/11; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH) 8/17/11 via Vos el Soberano; Upside Down World 8/19/11)
*4. Guatemala: Private Guards Attack Evicted Polochic Campesinos
A group of men armed with guns wounded seven indigenous campesinos during an hour-long attack Aug. 10 on an encampment in the Polochic Valley in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Three campesinos were seriously hurt: Martín Pec Taycon, who was shot in the abdomen; Carlos Ical, with a leg wound; and nine-year-old Elena Tec, with a bullet in her foot. The men also set fire to the campesinos’ homes and possessions. The campesinos identified the attackers as members of the security group of the Ingenio Chabil Utzaj S.A., an agribusiness owned by the Widmann family.
Some 22 campesino families, members of the Q’eqchi’ Maya group, had been living on the edge of Chabil Utzaj’s Paraná estate after they were forcibly expelled in March, along with nearly 600 other families, from land claimed by Chabil Utzaj in Panzós municipality. Some 2,000 police, soldiers and security guards had burned their homes and crops in a violent operation over several days during which one community member, Antonio Beb Ac, was killed. On June 20 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), gave the government of Alvaro Colom' 15 days to guarantee the life and physical integrity of the displaced campesinos, to ensure that they had food and shelter, and to report on investigations into the violence that accompanied the March evictions. As of July 5 the government had done nothing to comply with the order [see Update #1087].
The only response by President Colom’s office to the Aug. 10 attack was a statement condemning the violence and demanding that prosecutors carry out “an in-depth investigation to determine who is responsible…and to prevent armed groups from acting outside the law.” Journalist Marielos Monzón asked in a column for the Guatemalan newpaper Prensa Libre what part of the IACHR order wasn’t clear to the government. Noting that 75% of the country’s best land remain concentrated in the hands of just 1% of the population, Monzón quoted 20th-century Guatemalan historian Severo Martínez Peláez: “The primordial problem of Guatemalan society is the bad distribution of its primary wealth, the earth, which is concentrated in just a few hands.” (EFE 8/10/11 via Terra (Peru); EFE 8/12/11 via Latin American Herald Tribune; Prensa Libre 8/16/11)
Note: the Update will skip next week; the next issue will be dated Sept. 4.
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Argentina: Fernández de Kirchner Wins First-Ever Open Primary
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/15/argentina-fernandez-de-kirchner-wins-first-ever-open-primary/
Bolivia: A Week At the Barricades
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/19/bolivia-week-barricades
Amazon Pipeline Gets Go-Ahead Amid Reports of ‘Cover-up’ (Peru)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3171-amazon-pipeline-gets-go-ahead-amid-reports-of-cover-up
Peru suspends coca eradication —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/10241
Colombia: Piedad Córdoba Leaves Country Due To Threats
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/19/colombia-piedad-cordoba-leaves-country-due-to-threats/
Colombia Holds National 'Peace Congress' To Find Solution To Conflict
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3170-colombia-holds-national-peace-congress-to-find-solution-to-conflict-
Venezuela Holds FARC Extradition After Asylum Request
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/16/venezuela-holds-farc-extradition-after-asylum-request/
Venezuela “Bringing Home” Gold Reserves, Plans to Nationalize All Gold Mining
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6433
Salvadoran ex-high commanders arrested in 1989 Jesuit massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/10231
Honduras: Campesinos Murdered as Honduran-Canadian Trade Agreement Moves Forward
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3173-honduras-campesinos-murdered-as-honduran-canadian-trade-agreement-signed
March Against Drug War Rejects “National Security Law”, Calls for “Citizen Security” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5253
Asymmetric Warfare in Mexico?
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/16/asymmetric-warfare-mexico-0
Electrical Workers Occupy Zócalo as Leaders Are Charged (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=190#1325
Solidarity Alliance Between the United Steelworkers and the Mexican Mine and Metalworkers Unions (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=190#1327
Brazilian Defense Minister Amorim Supports Withdrawal of Troops from Haiti – But When?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/defense-minister-amorim-supports-withdrawal-of-troops-from-haiti-but-when
Not Doing Enough: Unnecessary Sickness and Death from Cholera in Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/not-doing-enough-unnecessary-sickness-and-death-from-cholera-in-haiti
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 #1093, August 21, 2011
1. Latin America: Markets, Leaders React to New Economic Crisis
2. Honduras: Students Occupy Schools in “Chilean” Protests
3. Honduras: What’s Behind the Latest Aguán Valley Violence?
4. Guatemala: Private Guards Attack Evicted Polochic Campesinos
5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. It is archived at http://weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com/
*1. Latin America: Markets, Leaders React to New Economic Crisis
Fears of a renewed global recession, coupled with concerns about public debt in Europe, forced down Latin American markets on Aug. 18. The most important market in the region, Brazil’s BM&FBOVESPA (Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias & Futuros de São Paulo), fell 3.52 % for the day, while in Argentina the MERVAL index plunged 4.11%. In Mexico City the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) was down 2.36%; the IGBC index in Colombia fell by 3.15% and Chile’s IPSA by 1.89%.
There were reports of “pessimism” among regional leaders. Latin American economies have generally performed better than the European and US economies after the financial crisis of 2008, but there is concern about the region’s transnational companies, the “traslatinas.” “These companies are the ones that depend the most on the global economy, because of the importance of exports,” economist Alexandre Póvoa wrote in the Brazilian economic review Exame.
While in Chile on Aug. 18 as part of a visit that also included Argentina, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos proposed to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (CEPAL) that the group should organize a summit meeting of regional finance ministers and central bank presidents. “How can we Latin Americans, sitting here with more than $700 billion in reserves, act so as not be passive spectators, as if indifferent [to the crisis]?” he asked. On Aug. 20, after his return to Colombia, Santos emphasized the importance of regional integration. “All this requires us as a region to strengthen our relations, so that whatever happens we can be better protected.” (DPA 8/19/11 via Vanguardia (Coahuila, Mexico); EFE 8/20/11 via Que.es (Spain))
Colombia is the US’s closest ally in South America, and Santos’ rightwing government has been pushing hard for a free trade agreement (FTA) with the US [see Update #1084]. Until now the leftist or left-leaning governments in South America have been the ones promoting regional integration, while Colombia and Mexico, the other major US ally, have been more focused on trade with the US.
“Mexico would be one of the countries most directly affected” by a renewed recession in the US, due its high level of economic integration with the larger country, the US-based rating agency Moody's Investors Service reported on Aug. 18. The group had predicted a 4% growth rate for Mexico this year and 3.9% for 2012. Although it didn’t expect major changes for the rest of 2011, Moody’s revised its prediction for Mexico next year down to 2.5%. Business leaders confirmed that they were “interested in” although not yet “worried about” the growth rate. (La Jornada (Mexico) 8/19/11, 8/20/11) The Mexican economy experienced a 6.1% contraction in 2009 during the earlier world economic crisis [see Update #1088].
*2. Honduras: Students Occupy Schools in “Chilean” Protests
About a thousand Honduran secondary students, along with parents and teachers, protested in and around Tegucigalpa on Aug. 15 against a proposed law that they said would lead to the privatization of much of the school system. In the village of Germania, south of the capital, the protesters blocked cars trying to use a major highway leading to El Salvador and Nicaragua. There was a confrontation with the police at another site, the Avenida de las Fuerzas Armada in the east of the city; agents hurled tear gas grenades and arrested some 20 students, although the students were apparently released later. Police blocked a protest near the presidential palace, where President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa was meeting with teachers’ representatives about the proposed law.
National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández announced during the day that the bill, the General Law of Education, would be withdrawn and replaced with a new proposal, which he said would be arrived at by consensus. Meanwhile, the National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP), the main alliance of Honduran social movements, called on its members to join the student demonstrations and denounced the “savage repression” of the movement by the police.
Students have occupied some 150 public schools throughout the country over the past three weeks, and people are starting to compare the protests to the student movement in Chile, which has paralyzed the educational system there for nearly three months [see Update #1092]. According to the students, the new Honduran legislation, intended to replace a 1966 law, would end government support for education after the ninth year or when the student turns 15, forcing students to pay to finish their secondary education. Teachers unions have also opposed the government’s education reform proposals; they went on strike for much of March and April [see Update #1076], although they are apparently now negotiating with President Lobo.
The protests continued on Aug. 19 with a demonstration outside the National Congress. (Adital (Brazil) 8/16/11; La Jornada (Mexico) 8/16/11 from AFP, DPA; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 8/19/11)
*3. Honduras: What’s Behind the Latest Aguán Valley Violence?
Campesino leader Secundino Ruiz was shot dead as he was leaving a bank in Tocoa in the northern Honduran department of Colón on Aug. 20. Ruiz was president of the San Isidro Cooperative, part of the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), and he had just withdrawn 195,000 lempiras (about $10,260) to pay MARCA workers; because of the money, police attributed the killing to common criminals. Eliseo Pavón, the treasurer of the cooperative, was wounded, according to Julio Espinal, the commander of a police contingent sent to the area earlier in the week. (FoodFirst Information and Action Network (FIAN) 8/20/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); Prensa Latina 8/21/11)
MARCA is one of several campesino groups claiming land in the Lower Aguán Valley, the scene of numerous and sometimes violent conflicts over land ownership. Three members of the organization were killed on June 5 [see Update #1083].
Ruiz’s murder followed an exceptionally bloody week in which 11 other people were killed in the valley. Six died on Aug. 14 at the Paso del Aguán estate (also described as the Panama estate) of Grupo Dinant, a major Honduran food product and cooking oil corporation headed by one of the country’s largest landowners, Miguel Facussé Barjum. Four of the victims were Dinant security personnel, and the other two have been described as campesinos, according to most accounts; one report said five guards were killed and one campesino.
Five more people were killed on Aug. 15, shot with automatic weapons as they rode in a Pepsi distribution company’s pickup truck on the highway between Sinaloa and the city of Sabá. The victims were four of the distributor’s contract employees--Bonifacio Dubón, Elvin Ortiz and Eleuterio Lara, and their supervisor, Karla Vanesa Cacho—and Migdalia Sarmiento, who had gotten a ride with them. Sarmiento ran a refreshment stand near the regional office of the government’s National Agrarian Institute (INA), where she worked as a cleaning person years before. The authorities found no evidence that the victims had been robbed.
Later on Aug. 15 Security Minister Oscar Alvarez announced that the government would respond to the violence by sending 600 soldiers and police agents to the area in an operation codenamed Xatruch II. The new deployment, which Alvarez said would search for the culprits and for illegal weapons, joins some 400 soldiers already in stationed in the region.
There are widely different accounts of what happened in the Aug. 14-15 incidents. Some sources say the Aug. 14 violence started with a peaceful land occupation by campesinos from the Rigores community, which was destroyed by police agents and private guards on June 24. Dinant guards, who are accused in a number of campesino deaths, tried to repel the invaders at Paso de Aguán, according to this account, and soldiers backing up the security group mistakenly shot at the guards. But Agrarian Reform Minister César Ham, leader of the center-left Democratic Unification (UD) party, denied that the Aug. 14 incident involved a land dispute. Other officials suggested guerrillas were involved, without giving any evidence, or pointed to narco-traffickers, who have been active in parts of Central America [see Update #1067]. There was also talk of gangs that have reportedly been robbing produce in the Aguán. Similar confusion surrounds the Aug. 15 attack on the Pepsi distributor’s truck; there have been suggestions that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Aguán campesino groups and other social movements have also given different interpretations of the events, although all seem agreed that the campesinos are not using violence. “Our movement is peaceful, but it’s about the struggle for the recovery of the earth in order to produce, and this is exactly what the Honduran campesinos are doing,” the Honduran branch of Vía Campesina, an international campesino organization, wrote on Aug. 15. (Comunicaciones la Vía Campesina Honduras 8/15/11 via Honduras Laboral; Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP)-Colón 8/15/11 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 8/16/11; La Tribuna (Tegucigalpa) 8/16/11; Adital (Brazil) 8/17/11; Honduras Weekly 8/17/11; Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña (OFRANEH) 8/17/11 via Vos el Soberano; Upside Down World 8/19/11)
*4. Guatemala: Private Guards Attack Evicted Polochic Campesinos
A group of men armed with guns wounded seven indigenous campesinos during an hour-long attack Aug. 10 on an encampment in the Polochic Valley in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz. Three campesinos were seriously hurt: Martín Pec Taycon, who was shot in the abdomen; Carlos Ical, with a leg wound; and nine-year-old Elena Tec, with a bullet in her foot. The men also set fire to the campesinos’ homes and possessions. The campesinos identified the attackers as members of the security group of the Ingenio Chabil Utzaj S.A., an agribusiness owned by the Widmann family.
Some 22 campesino families, members of the Q’eqchi’ Maya group, had been living on the edge of Chabil Utzaj’s Paraná estate after they were forcibly expelled in March, along with nearly 600 other families, from land claimed by Chabil Utzaj in Panzós municipality. Some 2,000 police, soldiers and security guards had burned their homes and crops in a violent operation over several days during which one community member, Antonio Beb Ac, was killed. On June 20 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR, or CIDH in Spanish), the human rights arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), gave the government of Alvaro Colom' 15 days to guarantee the life and physical integrity of the displaced campesinos, to ensure that they had food and shelter, and to report on investigations into the violence that accompanied the March evictions. As of July 5 the government had done nothing to comply with the order [see Update #1087].
The only response by President Colom’s office to the Aug. 10 attack was a statement condemning the violence and demanding that prosecutors carry out “an in-depth investigation to determine who is responsible…and to prevent armed groups from acting outside the law.” Journalist Marielos Monzón asked in a column for the Guatemalan newpaper Prensa Libre what part of the IACHR order wasn’t clear to the government. Noting that 75% of the country’s best land remain concentrated in the hands of just 1% of the population, Monzón quoted 20th-century Guatemalan historian Severo Martínez Peláez: “The primordial problem of Guatemalan society is the bad distribution of its primary wealth, the earth, which is concentrated in just a few hands.” (EFE 8/10/11 via Terra (Peru); EFE 8/12/11 via Latin American Herald Tribune; Prensa Libre 8/16/11)
Note: the Update will skip next week; the next issue will be dated Sept. 4.
*5. Links to alternative sources on: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Haiti
Argentina: Fernández de Kirchner Wins First-Ever Open Primary
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/15/argentina-fernandez-de-kirchner-wins-first-ever-open-primary/
Bolivia: A Week At the Barricades
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/19/bolivia-week-barricades
Amazon Pipeline Gets Go-Ahead Amid Reports of ‘Cover-up’ (Peru)
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/news-briefs-archives-68/3171-amazon-pipeline-gets-go-ahead-amid-reports-of-cover-up
Peru suspends coca eradication —for now
http://ww4report.com/node/10241
Colombia: Piedad Córdoba Leaves Country Due To Threats
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/19/colombia-piedad-cordoba-leaves-country-due-to-threats/
Colombia Holds National 'Peace Congress' To Find Solution To Conflict
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/3170-colombia-holds-national-peace-congress-to-find-solution-to-conflict-
Venezuela Holds FARC Extradition After Asylum Request
http://latindispatch.com/2011/08/16/venezuela-holds-farc-extradition-after-asylum-request/
Venezuela “Bringing Home” Gold Reserves, Plans to Nationalize All Gold Mining
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6433
Salvadoran ex-high commanders arrested in 1989 Jesuit massacre
http://ww4report.com/node/10231
Honduras: Campesinos Murdered as Honduran-Canadian Trade Agreement Moves Forward
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/honduras-archives-46/3173-honduras-campesinos-murdered-as-honduran-canadian-trade-agreement-signed
March Against Drug War Rejects “National Security Law”, Calls for “Citizen Security” (Mexico)
http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5253
Asymmetric Warfare in Mexico?
https://nacla.org/blog/2011/8/16/asymmetric-warfare-mexico-0
Electrical Workers Occupy Zócalo as Leaders Are Charged (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=190#1325
Solidarity Alliance Between the United Steelworkers and the Mexican Mine and Metalworkers Unions (Mexico)
http://www.ueinternational.org/MLNA/mlna_articles.php?id=190#1327
Brazilian Defense Minister Amorim Supports Withdrawal of Troops from Haiti – But When?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/defense-minister-amorim-supports-withdrawal-of-troops-from-haiti-but-when
Not Doing Enough: Unnecessary Sickness and Death from Cholera in Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/not-doing-enough-unnecessary-sickness-and-death-from-cholera-in-haiti
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/
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