/* Written 10:52 PM May 5, 1992 by cerisea in igc:reg.guatemala */ /* ---------- "Cerigua Weekly Briefs" ---------- */ CERIGUA WEEKLY BRIEFS, APRIL 26 - MAY 2, 1992 Student Protest Violently Repressed Hunapu security forces sprayed tear gas and arrested students and teachers during a demonstration by the National Central Institute for Boys in Guatemala City. Demonstrators demanded that the Ministry of Education fulfill its promises made earlier this year to provide professors for their school. Professors demanded the firing of the Education Minister Maria Beltranena, saying her incompetence and negligence in failing to fill vacant posts led to student discontent. The Institute's Parents Association president Julio Melgar said that demands for professors had fallen on deaf ears since the beginning of the year and that students were fed up with the minister's dishonesty. Students denied charges by the National Police that they had burned buses and said that the accusations were mere pretexts to justify actions against the demonstrators. Teachers also denied students had provoked police attacks saying agents raided the institute smashing windows and doors. Students hung a banner over the entrance of the school saying "Nobody Surrenders Here." Parents of nine students said Hunapu forces had beaten their children and two were hospitalized for injuries. Fourteen year old Eduardo Amado Lopez Hernandez underwent surgery after being forced to drink chlorine while in detention. Doctors reportedly replaced his esophagus with a plastic one. Juvenile court judge Antonio Calderon told parents of over 80 minors arrested that they were the ones responsible for the behavior of their children and it would benefit the students to stay in a correctional center for 45 days. The kids will be evaluated for physical, psychological and social problems in order to steer them down the right path, said the judge. Students from the Schools of Commerce in Guatemala City and the province of Santa Rosa also called for more professors in a protest in front of the National Palace. More than 200 students from the Rafael Aqueche Institute obstructed traffic in solidarity with the Boys' Institute. Several thousand students from at least five different schools joined together in the center of town to call for the release of those arrested and for the hiring of those professors promised by the Minister of Education. President Serrano said any delay in filling the posts was because the hiring process for the 5,000 teachers nation-wide took time. The Education Minister says the Institute director will be disciplined and students expelled for the rest of the year. Vice President Gustavo Espina condemned the protests saying the minors should go to jail no matter how old they are. US Ambassador Thomas Stroock likewise condemned the students saying such actions in a repressivesociety were understandable, but that was not the case in Guatemala. More Student Protests Over 70 persons from the Boys' Normal School were arrested when students took to the streets in solidarity with the National Central Boys' Institute. (See above story) Anti- riot squads raided the school smashing doors in pursuit of students hiding in the bathrooms and classrooms. One mother asked where the human rights ombudsman was while the students were being arrested. "Does he think it's fair to arrest 11- and 12-year-old kids?" she asked. Defense Minister Announces Offensive Against Rebels Defense Minister Jose Garcia says up to 2,000 civil patrollers will be organized on the southern coast and equipped with modern weaponry to stave off increasing guerrilla attacks. The army will launch an offensive against the rebels to give them some of their "own medicine," he said. The offensive does not break with the peace talks, said Garcia, but the army will respond to guerrilla attacks with a "dialog of bullets." Massive May Day Demonstration in the Capital Some 50,000 protesters, a third of them indigenous, commemorated International Workers' Day on May 1 in a massive call for peace and an end to Hunapu security forces. Demonstrators gathered in front of the National Palace to protest the activities of the joint police and military forces. In recent weeks these forces have murdered students and violently evicted squatter families and indigenous campesinos reclaiming ancestral lands. The march was held amid a climate of terror after rescue squads received at least 1,024 phone calls between 8am and 2pm on April 30 warning of bombs placed in public buildings and embassies. Throughout the march, groups of three to five police agents were posted at street corners throughout the city. Labor leader Rigoberto Duenas said the terrorism is part of a government plan to control social upheaval amid widespread discontent. The State has its terrorist plan for the people and the paramilitary groups have theirs, he said. CUC Marches for Land, Work and Peace The Committee for Campesino Unity (CUC) marched along the Interamerican highway from Huehuetenango to Guatemala City April 24 - May 1 calling for land, work and peace. The demonstration started with some 500 Mam indigenous marchers and grew to over 15,000 as ladinos and indigenous people from villages along the way joined in. Organizers saidtownspeople greeted the marchers with a massive show of solidarity offering them food and money. CUC rejected the defense minister's accusation that it is an outlaw organization created as a political, ethnic and armed wing of the insurgency. The organization said three persons arrested for carrying firearms, who allegedly had anti- government flyers on CUC letterhead, were not CUC members. It expressed concern over the presence of soldiers along the march route and asked both the army and the insurgency to abstain from disrupting the demonstration. Families Evicted from BANVI Properties About 700 police and military agents from the Hunapu task force evicted 1,500 families who had been occupying Housing Bank (BANVI) properties in Guatemala City since March. Families pleaded with government security forces to not destroy their homes because they had spent a lot of money constructing them and had nowhere else to go. The Human Rights Ombudsman supported the eviction saying that invasion of private property is a criminal act. Hundreds of people opted to go before the National Palace and ask President Serrano to intervene. In the company of visiting Honduran president Rafael Callejas, Serrano told the crowd to remain calm and that 60 million quetzales ($12 million) were being allocated to partially solve the housing deficit. Bombs Explode in Bank and Shopping Mall Twenty-three persons were injured in a bombing at the National Housing Bank (BANVI). BANVI security officials said they were warned that a bomb was in the building but paid no heed as they had a false alarm the previous day. Rescue workers evacuated personnel from other government and university buildings after bomb threats were received, however, the warnings proved to be false. President Serrano blamed the URNG for the bombings but the Mexican daily Uno Mas Uno said his remarks were premature adding that the bombings could be an attempt by the ultra- right to "create a situation that justifies a definitive breaking-off of the peace talks" with the rebels. The URNG General Command roundly denied the charges saying the government was setting the stage to declare a state of emergency aimed at unleashing widespread repression. Another bomb exploded in the Galerias Reforma shopping mall in Guatemala City where the Costa Rican embassy is located. Reports indicate it resembled the BANVI explosion in that both bombs were time-activated and made of a half pound ofTNT. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras Form Trade Block Honduran president Rafael Callejas visited President Jorge Serrano in Guatemala where he signed a Free Trade Agreement and finalized the formation of a trading block between the two countries and El Salvador. Serrano, who earlier signed a similar accord with Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani, said the new trade policy seals the alliance between old friends thus enabling the three countries to fend off "an avalanche from the common market to the North." Next month, the three presidents will meet to form the Central American Economic Community. Following the signing of the agreement, Serrano said despite the "unjust and poorly understood conflict my country has suffered" for over 30 thirty years, his government will resolve Guatemala's social and economic ills. Serrano expects the accord to generate better salaries, benefits and living conditions. The Honduras-Guatemala accord on free trade, economic investment and integration will go into effect in January of 1993. It includes the adoption of a new regional tariff, the formation of a securities exchange and studies on how to make both countries' macroeconomic policies more uniform. Reshuffling in Serrano's Cabinet President Serrano named replacements for four government ministers fired from posts in health, development, energy and culture. Presidential Chief Aide Manuel Conde will leave his post to become president of the Peace Commission to consist of a team of advisors and support persons to work on the peace negotiations with the rebels. Former development minister Manolo Bendfelt will become an advisor to the president. Upset with his firing, outgoing health minister Miguel Montepeque said the president lives isolated in a house of cards listening only to his high school friends positioned around him. He dislikes criticism even from his closest collaborators and hears only those who praise him. He has no interest in knowing the needs of the people or resolving their problems, he said. US Embassy Denies DEA Filmed Soldiers Unloading Drug Shipment Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre reported on April 26 that US Drug Enforcement Agency personnel observed and filmed men they believed were members of the Guatemalan army unloading a cocaine shipment. A Salvadoran-registered helicopter landed just inside the Guatemalan border and its cargo was unloaded onto two trucks by crews commanded by an army captain,according to the report. Prensa Libre printed two pictures taken by DEA agents who reportedly did not take action since they did not have a court order and the smugglers were well-armed. The following day the US embassy denied that DEA agents participated in such an operation and said it had no knowledge of the event. Prensa Libre says the agent who provided the information identified himself as a DEA agent and is the same man who has passed them confidential information for months. A US embassy official told the paper that the man does not work for the DEA and is under investigation. According to Prensa Libre, the pictures seem authentic and look like they were taken in the type of surveillance operation only US drug agents carry out in Guatemala. The paper says it was caught in the middle of the controversy and suggests the incident could be an attempt to pressure the Guatemalan government to turn over cocaine smugglers for extradition to the United States. More Evidence of Cocaine Trafficking A twin-motor jet believed to be carrying cocaine was found burned on the San Carlos plantation in the Escuintla province on April 26. According to a witness, the plane made a normal landing and was then unloaded by 18 persons traveling in brand new vehicles. The smugglers apparently burned the plane after difficulty in taking off. Two months ago a burned plane was found in similar circumstances on the same plantation. At that time, authorities confiscated 400 kilos of cocaine. In another incident Drug Enforcement Agency authorities in Miami found 22 tons of cocaine hidden in a broccoli shipment from Guatemala. The DEA says it will investigate all Guatemalan broccoli exporters. Four Policemen Re-Sentenced for Murder of Street Child The four policemen accused of kicking 13-year-old Nahaman Carmona to death over two years ago were finally re-sentenced this week. The first ruling against the policemen was annulled last August due to procedural errors. On April 28 a Guatemalan judge condemned three policemen to 12 years and the other to 18 years in prison. The March 4, 1990 attack on Nahaman prompted the children's shelter Casa Alianza to begin documenting violence by government security forces against Guatemala City's homeless children. To date Casa Alianza has initiated 78 criminal proceedings against more than 50 National Police, more than 30 Military Mobile Police, several Treasury Police and sixcivilians. Cholera Update A resurgence of cholera has brought a death toll of nine persons in the Suchitepequez province, with 200 other cases reported there. A state of emergency was declared in the Milagro neighborhood on Guatemala City's outskirts after 50 cases were discovered. Radio Patrullaje Informativo said the outbreak in Milagro could have been caused by a ruptured sewage drainage pipe. Three hundred cases were reported in the southern coast region, including nearly 100 cases in Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa, Escuintla. An Escuintla legislator attributed the reappearance of cholera to contaminated rivers and an inadequate prevention campaign. ***************** In the U.S. and Canada subscribe to Weekly Briefs by sending check or money order to: ANI PO Box 28481 Seattle, WA 98118 Subscription fees in the U.S. and Canada: $18 for 6 months, $36 for one year. Elsewhere, contact: CERIGUA Apartado Postal 74206 CP 09080 Delegacion Itzapalapa Mexico, D.F. Telephone: 5102320 - FAX 5109061 - Telex (17) 64525 Also please send us your comments and suggestions to the Seattle address or by email to cerisea on PeaceNet.