WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #256, DECEMBER 25, 1994 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Mexican Rebels Launch New Offensive 2. Autonomous Zones and Blocked Oil Wells in Southern Mexico 3. NAFTA Melts Down as Mexican Peso Collapses 4. Haiti: Pressure Builds to End Death Squads 5. Colombian Convicted of Airline Bombing in Second US Trial 6. Anti-Castro Paramilitaries Sentenced in Florida 7. Cuba Announces New Convertible Currency 8. Cuba Wins One, Loses One at UN General Assembly 9. Belgian Priest Murdered in Guatemala 10. Nicaragua: More than One Political Murder a Day in 1994 11. Nicaraguan Assembly Approves 1995 Budget 12. Honduras: Ex-Army Officer To Testify in Disappearances 13. Panamanians Pay Tribute to Invasion Victims 14. Coca Cultivators Launch Protest in Colombian Amazon 15. Massacre Witness Shot in Brazil 16. In Other News: Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia 17. Upcoming Events in the New York City Area ISSN#: 1068-5332. These updates are published weekly. A one-year subscription is $25 by first class mail. Please send check or money order payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network at 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012). Back issues and source materials are available on request. (Many of our source materials are accessed through NY Transfer; back issues are also available on NY Transfer's OnLine Library.) Subscriptions to the Electronic Edition of this Update are delivered directly to your e-mail box. To subscribe to the electronic edition, send your e-mail address with a check or money order for US $25 payable to Blythe Systems. Mail to: NY Transfer News Collective, Attn: Kathleen Kelly, 39 West 14th Street, Room 206, New York, NY 10011. Feel free to reproduce these updates or reprint any information from them, but please credit us, and send us a copy. We welcome your comments and ideas: send them via e-mail to nicanet@blythe.org * 1. MEXICAN REBELS LAUNCH NEW OFFENSIVE In a 2 AM press conference "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" of Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) announced that the rebel movement had extended its control to include 38 of the 110 municipalities in the southern state of Chiapas, the center of Zapatista activity. The EZLN said that between Dec. 11 and Dec. 14 thousands of rebel soldiers from the EZLN's Infantry Divisions 75 and 25, First Entity of the Southeast Army, broke through the 40,000 to 60,000 soldiers of the Mexican National Army (ENM) encircling Zapatista-controlled territory, without being detected and without firing a shot. From Dec. 15 to Dec. 18, according to the EZLN, the units took positions in municipalities in northern Chiapas, the highlands and areas bordering Guatemala. "The entire rural zone of the state is Zapatista," Marcos told reporters. "What remains for the government is the cities, the municipal presidencies (not all of them) and the highways. But the Zapatistas control the main roads--the paths and the sierras." According to Marcos the EZLN wishes to continue peace talks but rejects a proposal from Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon for a mediation commission composed of all four parties represented in the federal Congress. "[T]he government can't be a party to the confrontation and also the mediator," Marcos said. The EZLN backs efforts by the National Mediation Commission (CONAI), headed by Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de las Casas, and also demands "recognition of the social forces which are organized behind Cuauhtemoc Cardenas [the center-left opposition presidential candidate in national elections last August] and the Democratic National Convention [CND] as the peaceful, civic and honest opposition." On Dec. 19 Bishop Ruiz began a hunger strike to encourage a peaceful solution and to protest "the involuntary hunger" of the people of Chiapas. [National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, USA (NCDMUSA) communique 12/20/94; Diario de Juarez (Mexico) 12/20/94 from La Jornada; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/20/94 from AFP, EFE] 2. AUTONOMOUS ZONES AND BLOCKED OIL WELLS IN SOUTHERN MEXICO The Mexican government at first denied that the rebels had taken more territory; the New York Times continues to repeat the government's position. [NYT 12/23/94] But witnesses say that one hundred armed and masked self-proclaimed Zapatistas took control of the town of Simojovel on Dec. 19, destroying municipal records and distributing a Zapatista communique, while unarmed demonstrators--about 500, according to the authorities--used stones and tree trunks to block five highways around San Cristobal, Ocosingo, and the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez. [ED-LP 12/20/94 from AFP and 12/21/94 from AFP] Hundreds of ENM troops and judiciales (officers of the state judicial police) arrived at Simojovel on the night of Dec. 20 with armored vehicles and small tanks; the guerrillas had disappeared. Simojovel's white and mestizo residents cheered the troops, but 90% of the municipality is indigenous, according to the local parish priest, Joel Padron, who warns that the rebels will be back. [ED-LP 12/22/94 from AFP] As the British Financial Times notes, since their first offensive in January, the Zapatistas "have been joined by a plethora of other groups inspired by or reacting against the uprising... [P]olitical institutions in the state are barely functioning." On the right, ranchers have been building up paramilitary groups; some members are reportedly "veterans of nearby Central American wars." On the EZLN's side, there are at least three other armed campesino groups, and journalist Amado Avendano Figueroa has set up a "parallel government" which he says is supported by between 34 and 58 municipalities. Avendano's government is officially recognized by the EZLN and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas' Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). [FT 12/22/94] Simojovel is the center of one of five "autonomous regions" [see Update #254] proclaimed by the Council of Indigenous and Campesino Organizations (CEOIC) on Oct. 12. Residents say that until the Dec. 20 military operation, not a single police officer had been in the town for months. In Jaltenango de la Paz, a municipality of some 22,000, the Francisco Villa Campesino Popular Union (UCPFV) reportedly controls 90% of the territory, including five estates and three access roads. [Jaltenango is where PRD regional leader Roberto Hernandez Paniagua was murdered by unknown parties on Sept. 6. See Update #241.] Land seizures and other conflicts continue in Huixtan, Palenque and many other Chiapaneco communities. [La Jornada (Mexico) 12/18/94; ED-LP 12/22/94 from AFP] The EZLN has also expanded its demands to include a "[s]atisfactory solution" for the conflicts over the November local elections in the nearby states of Veracruz and Tabasco. [NCDMUSA communique 12/20/94] As of Dec. 17 several hundred campesinos were blocking access to installations belonging to Pemex, the national petroleum company, in Tabasco. The protesters were demanding recognition of PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who they say was fraudulently deprived of victory in the Nov. 20 gubernatorial race. Federal police arrested 60 protesters on Dec. 16. "Let's see who gets tired first," the PRD's Octavio Romero Oropeza told the federal Chamber of Deputies the next day, "whether the government gets tired of imprisoning the people or the people of demonstrating." [LJ 12/18/94] 3. NAFTA MELTS DOWN AS MEXICAN PESO COLLAPSES After sinking steadily the week before [see Update #255], Mexico's stock market, the Bolsa de Valores, began what the Wall Street Journal called "market meltdown" on news of the new guerrilla offensive in Chiapas on Dec. 19. [WSJ 12/22/94] The economy's problems intensified on Dec. 20 when in a surprise move Finance Secretary Jaime Serra Puche announced the first major devaluation of the peso since Dec. 15, 1987. Citing the tensions in Chiapas, Serra--one of the architects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)--said that the government would allow the currency to sink by as much as 15% against the dollar, from 3.47 pesos to the dollar down to 4.0016. The stock market had now experienced a 32% decline (measured in dollars) since NAFTA took effect at the beginning of the year. [FT 12/21/94; WSJ 12/21/94] The next morning, the Bolsa de Valores plunged another 11.63%, although it recovered somewhat and ended the day down by 3.1%. The meltdown in Mexico affected other Latin American markets: the Sao Paulo exchange fell 6.3% on Dec. 21, while Brazil's central bank repeatedly intervened to shore up the national currency. The Buenos Aires stock market's blue-chip index fell 5.74% on Dec. 21; the exchange declined a total of 8% in two days. [FT 12/22/94; WSJ 12/22/94] Still worse news came on Dec. 22, when the government announced that it would no longer prop the peso up. Trading freely against the dollar, Mexico's currency plummeted another 20% that day, ending at 4.80 to the dollar. As Serra flew to New York to meet with officials of the US Federal Reserve, hard currency reserves in Mexico's central bank were reported to have sunk to $8 billion, or even $ 6.5 billion, from about $24 billion at the beginning of the year. The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury announced that Mexico could use up to $6 billion in US funds to help support the peso; Canada authorized the use of up to $1 billion (Canadian). [NYT 12/23/94; Washington Post 12/23/94] Although Serra tried to blame the devaluation on the EZLN offensive, independent analysts had warned throughout the fall that a serious trade deficit and very low hard currency reserves were creating pressure for a major devaluation [see Updates #249, 254 and 255]. To add to Mexico's troubles, on Dec. 21 the Popocatepetl volcano, in Puebla state 70 kilometers southeast of Mexico City, erupted in six explosions, depositing up to 2 centimeters of white ash on nearby towns and causing respiratory problems among the residents. Puebla authorities began evacuating up to 75,000 inhabitants the next day as volcanic activity continued. The volcano's last eruption was in 1921. [ED-LP 12/22/94 and 12/23/94 from AFP] "Popo" had been steaming for a year and a half, but Puebla's PRI government had denied that there was a problem [see Update #249]. Correction: Due to a typographical error, Finance Secretary Serra's name was unintentionally given as "Perra" in one sentence in Update #255. 4. HAITI: PRESSURE BUILDS TO END DEATH SQUADS Breaking with a policy of reconciliation with rightwing forces, on Dec. 13 Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide called on Haitians to file criminal charges against abusers of human rights. "We must take away the weapons from the people who did these things," Aristide said, referring to thousands of murders of grassroots activists since the 1991 military coup. Aristide spoke at the funeral of a friend, Marcellus Denis of Port Salut. Denis died on Dec. 6 of injuries he had suffered while being tortured by rightists in early October, several weeks after the US military occupation began. [New York Times 12/14/94] There was only a small decrease in murders by rightists during the first six weeks of the US intervention [see Updates #247 and 249]. The abuses finally seemed to decline in November, but many Haitians feel the rightists are carrying on their killings in incidents that the authorities classify as common crimes. On Dec. 4 an armed group shot into a restaurant in Lalue, killing three customers and the owner. The bodies of two young men were found in Port-au-Prince on Dec. 4 and Dec. 7, and a third was shot dead the night of Dec. 15. Burglars murdered a Mr. Margareth in Port- au-Prince's Cite Soleil on Dec. 5, and a paramilitary group member murdered a woman in Fort-Liberte in northern Haiti on Dec. 10. [Haiti Info Vol. 3, #6 12/17/94; Haiti Progres (New York) 12/14-20/94] A delegation from the New York-based Haiti Commission investigated human rights abuses in Haiti from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2. At a final press conference, Haiti Commission head Ramsey Clark-- who served as US attorney general in the final period of Lyndon Johnson's administration--charged that despite the return of President Aristide, "in the streets, where the people live, the coup continues." Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), who has worked extensively to defend Haitian refugees, asked how he could tell his clients that it was safe to return to Haiti. [HP 12/14-20/94, quotation retranslated from French] In an interview with the Port-au-Prince English-language Haiti Info, Clark supported "a system of community police that serve local communities" in opposition to the US plan for training Haiti's current police in "high tech" methods. [Haiti Info 12/17/94] Clark is also serving as attorney for US Army Captain Lawrence Rockwood (10th Mountain Division), who faces court martial for alleged insubordination in Haiti on Sept. 30. A 15-year veteran with an interest in human rights issues, Rockwood became concerned about the conditions of prisoners in the National Penitentiary. On Sept. 30 he left his place of duty at the international airport and attempted to inspect the prison. He was removed on instructions from the US embassy; Rockwood was then arrested and flown to Fort Drum, NY. Formal charges are expected on Jan. 4. [Press release from Ramsey Clark's office, 12/15/94] 5. COLOMBIAN CONVICTED OF AIRLINE BOMBING IN SECOND US TRIAL On Dec. 19, a jury in a Brooklyn federal court declared Colombian national Dandeny Munoz Mosquera guilty of planting a bomb on flight 203 of the Colombian airline Avianca on Nov. 27, 1989. The explosion killed all 101 passengers and six crew members on board the domestic flight, as well as three people on the ground who were hit by debris when the plane exploded shortly after takeoff from Bogota en route to Cali. The fact that two US citizens were among the passengers killed allowed Munoz Mosquera, known as "La Quica," to be tried for the crime in a US court. Munoz was accused of being a professional hitman for the Medellin drug cartel (the cartel supposedly wanted to bomb the plane because informants were aboard it) and was convicted of all 13 counts, including fraud, narcotics trafficking, destruction of a commercial vehicle, extortion (under the federal RICO statute), and other racketeering and conspiracy charges connected with murders and acts of terrorism to promote international drug trafficking. Prosecutors called Munoz' conviction the first under a 1956 federal law that made it a crime to bomb a civilian aircraft, as well as the first under a 1986 terrorism statue that made it a crime to kill a US citizen abroad. Lack of evidence for these claims in Munoz' first trial this year led to a hung jury, and a mistrial was declared on July 19 [see Update #234]. In the second trial, which began Oct. 17, the prosecution presented a total of 35 witnesses, including many Colombian officials and criminal associates of Munoz. Munoz did not take the stand, and the defense called only one witness, a federal agent who signed an affidavit when Munoz was arrested in 1991. The defense lawyers charged that some of the prosecution witnesses testified in the hopes of receiving lighter sentences for their crimes, and that Munoz was being tried as a scapegoat for Pablo Escobar Gaviria, head of the Medellin cartel, who was originally a co-defendant in the case but was killed by Colombian police on Dec. 2, 1993 [see Update #201]. The jury announced the guilty verdict after deliberating over the weekend of Dec. 17 [jurors presumably did not want to spend their holidays on jury duty]. Judge Sterling Johnson, who presided over both trials, will sentence Munoz on Mar. 3. Munoz faces life imprisonment without parole. [New York Times 12/20/94; El Diario- La Prensa 12/20/94 from AP, 12/21/94 from EFE] Munoz was arrested in the New York City borough of Queens in 1991 and convicted of lying to a federal agent about his identity, for which he is serving a six-year term, currently at the maximum security lockdown prison in Marion, Illinois [see Updates #111, #138, #188, #219]. 6. ANTI-CASTRO PARAMILITARIES SENTENCED IN FLORIDA On Dec. 20, a federal judge in Miami sentenced two anti-Castro Cuban emigre paramilitary leaders for attempting to buy high- powered weapons from an undercover federal agent. The two, Rodolfo Frometa and Fausto Marimon, were arrested on June 2 and convicted in September [see Updates #227, #243]. Leaders of the paramilitary group Commandos F-4, Frometa and Marimon planned to use the explosives, grenades, anti-tank missiles and other weapons for attacks on tourist spots in Cuba. Frometa was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, while Marimon got one year of prison and two of conditional liberty. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/94 from Notimex] On Nov. 2, FBI agents arrested three men from another rightwing terrorist organization in southern Florida as they attempted to firebomb a warehouse full of humanitarian aid collected by Cuban Americans seeking an end to the embargo. [Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) Press Release 11/17/94] The aid was shipped to Cuba with the Pastors for Peace Friendshipment caravan, which crossed the US border into Canada on Nov. 17 with 150 tons of solidarity donations for Cuba after US customs officials confiscated some computers and other items, and forced a van that was to be a gift for the Cuban Labor Confederation (CTC) to return to Buffalo, New York. [Radio Havana Cuba 11/17/94; IFCO Press Release 11/17/94] 7. CUBA ANNOUNCES NEW CONVERTIBLE CURRENCY The Cuban government announced on Dec. 20 that it will gradually circulate pesos that will be convertible against the dollar, but will not replace the national currency. The plan, published in the official daily Granma, is that "the measure will contribute to the ordering of the economic system through a secure and guaranteed means of payment." The measure was approved by the parliament in May as part of a package of financial plans proposed by the government. Initially, the convertible peso will be used to substitute a series of certificates issued by the Central Bank for special types of hard currency payments and incentive bonuses. The new currency will be valued on a par with the dollar, and will be exchangeable for dollars in banks and exchange houses, but will not be exchangeable with the regular peso. [Inter Press Service 12/20/94; El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/94 from AFP] Cuba did not order, as was feared, an obligatory exchange of dollars for the new peso [Financial Times 12/22/94]; the government says the new currency will not replace US dollars or other foreign currency already in circulation, although experts say this could occur gradually. [Inter Press Service 12/20/94; El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/94 from AFP] In August 1993 the government approved decree 140, making it legal for Cubans to possess foreign currency and receive money from family members abroad. This resulted in a large influx of dollars, which have become the currency of choice. Financial experts say such a broad legal use of a foreign currency is unusual, with the exception of a few cases such as Panama. It is considered particularly strange since the currency comes from a country which has imposed an economic embargo on the island for more than three decades. [Inter Press Service 12/20/94; El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/94 from AFP] On Dec. 22, Spain hosted a closed-door meeting between Cuban vice president Carlos Lage and International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Michel Camdessus, according to rightwing Miami Spanish- language daily Diario Las Americas. The Spanish government attempted unsuccessfully to keep the press from finding out about the private meeting, held at Spain's Economy Ministry. At the meeting, Camdessus told Lage the Cuban government's recent economic reforms were insufficient to allow its reincorporation into the IMF. [DLA 12/24/94] [Spain has agreed to sponsor Cuba for IMF membership--see Weekly News Update Cuba Supplement 10/28/94]. During 1994, Cuba's government claims it has managed to shrink the deficit by 72% from 1993 levels by boosting revenues 25% with taxes and higher cigarrette and alcohol prices, and cutting state subsidies by nearly 40%. On Dec. 20, Cuba's National Assembly approved a 1995 budget that would cut the country's deficit even further with a 35% reduction in support for public enterprises, despite slight increases in health and education spending. [Financial Times 12/22/94] 8. CUBA WINS ONE, LOSES ONE AT UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY On Dec. 13, the third commission of the United Nations General Assembly voted for the third consecutive year in favor of a US- sponsored resolution ordering Cuba to "recognize the right of political parties and non-governmental organizations to function legally in the country, allowing freedom of expression, information and assembly," and to allow UN special human rights relateur Carl Johan Groth to enter Cuba to investigate charges of human rights violations. This year only 62 countries voted in favor of the resolution, while 22 voted against and 64 abstained. In 1993, 74 countries voted in favor, 20 voted against and 54 abstained. No Latin American country voted against this year's resolution, although Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Panama and Venezuela all abstained. Latin American countries voting in favor of the US- sponsored resolution were Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua and Paraguay. Russia, which during the cold war impeded the naming of a special relateur for Cuba, also voted in favor. [Inter Press Service 12/13/94] On Dec. 12, a Cuban-sponsored resolution condemning any government policy that hinders or limits the universal freedom to travel was passed by the same UN commission with 78 votes in favor, four against and 65 abstentions. The resolution is targeted at US president Bill Clinton's tightened restrictions on travel to Cuba and a ban on sending money to family members in Cuba, announced last Aug. 20. Washington's UN delegation at the commission reportedly lobbied fiercely against the resolution. The resolution also calls on the United Nations Humans Rights Commission to take up the issue in its next session and to make recommendations to the UN General Assembly. [Radio Havana Cuba 12/13/94] 9. BELGIAN PRIEST MURDERED IN GUATEMALA Belgian priest Alfons Stessel was shot to death on Dec. 19 near his church in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Guatemala City. The 65-year old priest of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary had been living in Guatemala since 1985. Neither Stessel nor the congregation had received threats in recent years, according to Francisco Harren, another priest of the international congregation, which has been active in Guatemala since 1955. "We can't imagine what has been the motive of this murder," said Harren; adding that in the early 80s one congregation member was killed and another kidnapped, "but now we didn't have any problems." [Inter Press Service 12/20/94] On Dec. 20, the Guatemalan National Coordinator of Human Rights (CONADEHGUA), an umbrella of non-governmental human rights groups, issued a statement calling the Stessel murder "obviously...a political crime because his work went against the intention of the country's authorities to maintain a climate of social injustice." CONADEHGUA said Stessel worked for many years with marginalized communities, giving them education, health and "knowledge to defend their rights..." [IPS 12/20/94] President Ramiro de Leon Carpio, a former human rights procurator, condemned the murder but said it was the work of common criminals. [Diario Las Americas 12/24/94 from EFE] Meanwhile, Guatemala's Court of Constitutionality has confirmed the Supreme Court's resolution to begin a judicial process against five military officers for responsibility in the Sept. 11, 1990, murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang. Presidential Guard member Noel de Jesus Beteta Alvarez is serving a 25 year sentence for stabbing Mack to death. The officers who will now be charged as intellectual authors of the crime are Gen. Edgar Augusto Godoy Gaitan, who was chief of the Presidential Guard; colonels Juan Guillermo Oliva Carrera and Juan Valencia Osorio; and specialists Juan Jose Larios and Juan Jose Del Cid Morales. The petition to open the proceedings against the officers was brought by the victim's sister, Hellen Mack Chang. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/22/94 from AP] 10. NICARAGUA: MORE THAN ONE POLITICAL MURDER A DAY IN 1994 According to a Nicaragua Human Rights Center (CENIDH) report presented by CENIDH president Vilma Nunez, 367 people have died in Nicaragua during 1994 from political violence. Nunez said that nearly 70% of the victims were former contras living in the north of the country, principally in Matagalpa and Jinotega. There have been numerous clashes this year between army troops and rearmed ex-contra groups that the government dismisses as "common criminals." [Diario Las Americas 12/24/94 from EFE] One such "recontra" group recently shot to death 6th military region chief Maj. Jose Antonio Estrada and Sandinista deputy mayor Carlos Alberto Valdivia. [La Jornada 12/18/94 from AFP] [The source gave no further information on this murder than what we have printed here, and we have no other sources for it.] 11. NICARAGUAN ASSEMBLY APPROVES 1995 BUDGET On Dec. 13, Nicaragua's National Assembly approved a 1995 budget of $378.7 million in income and $415.9 million in expenses. The budget was approved with 69 votes in favor, none against and four abstentions. The $37.2 million fiscal deficit is to be financed from $17 million in international donations and $20.2 million in international loans. Of the $378.7 million budgeted for income, 86.6% will come from "indirect taxes" and the rest, 13.4%, from "direct taxes." The approved budget stays within the expense limit set by the administration of President Violeta Chamorro, but reduces the administrative funding assigned to the following government ministries: Presidency, Labor, Finance, Economy, Tourism, Agriculture, Foreign Relations, Foreign Cooperation, Governance (Interior) and Education. These administrative cuts are designed to free up funds for improving the salaries of health workers ($3.3 million), education workers ($3.2 million) and of the National Police ($2 million). However, these amounts will translate to salary increases of only about 20%, while health and education workers have been demanding 100% increases. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/14/94 from Notimex] 12. HONDURAS: EX-ARMY OFFICER TO TESTIFY IN DISAPPEARANCES Under strict security measures, former Honduran colonel Leonidas Torres Arias arrived in Honduras on Dec. 15 to give testimony on cases of forced disappearances to the attorney general's office. Torres' testimony is considered crucial for identifying those responsible for the death of Nelson Mackey Chavarria, a student murdered 12 years ago at the hands of alleged members of state security forces [see Update #254, #255]. Torres, who was allegedly returning from a medical check-up in the US, arrived in Honduras just as an order for intelligence services to find him-- presumably signed by armed forces chief Gen. Luis Alonso Discua-- was circulating in the capital. The letter called for Torres to hold a private meeting with Discua before giving testimony to the attorney general's office. [Inter Press Service 12/16/94] Twelve years ago, from exile in Mexico, Torres had accused a senior military officer currently still serving in the armed forces--Col. Alexander Hernandez--of being responsible for Mackey's death. Asked about that charge, the former colonel told the press that "anything I may have said then, I will have to stick to before the attorney general's office, although it is attempting to implicate me in these cases." [IPS 12/16/94; La Jornada 12/18/94 from IPS, EFE] But on Dec. 16, the day after his arrival, Torres reversed his story and cleared current military personnel of responsibility by charging that deceased former armed forces chief Gustavo Alvarez Martinez was responsible for Mackey's murder, and that Hernandez had merely been following orders from Alvarez. [LJ 12/18/94 from IPS, EFE] Correction: Due to inconsistencies in our sources and careless editing, we spelled Mackey's name two different ways in Update #255; it now seems that both were wrong as our sources have settled on the spelling used above. 13. PANAMANIANS PAY TRIBUTE TO INVASION VICTIMS On Dec. 20, the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Panama, about 100 relatives--many carrying black flags with the word "Justice" spelled out in white--gathered in the Jardin de Paz cemetery in Panama City for a mass to the invasion victims buried there. For the first time, the annual tribute to the victims had some limited official support: a salute by 30 police and presidential guard officers and the presence at the mass of Government and Justice Minister Raul Montenegro and Public Works Minister Luis Blanco. New president Ernesto Perez Balladares-- from the same Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) as Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, whose removal was the ostensible reason for the US invasion--declared Dec. 20 a "Day of National Mourning" but did not order government or private offices to close. Isabel Corro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Fallen [victims of the invasion], told the crowd she hopes the new government will comply with demands to compensate widows and orphans of the soldiers killed in the invasion--demands denied by the previous administration of Guillermo Endara, which was sworn in on a US military installation just before the invasion. The US gives the official Panamanian death toll of the invasion as 373, among civilian and military victims. But many--including Corro--believe that thousands of civilians were killed in the US invasion, and that most of their bodies were dumped in mass graves. "We have opened about six [mass] graves and we still have to open another six," Corro told the gathering. Recently, Gilda Camargo, the lawyer of the victims' relatives, announced that a team of Argentine anthropologists will visit Panama to verify the alleged existence of two mass graves on the outskirts of the capital. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/94 from AP] 14. COCA CULTIVATORS LAUNCH PROTEST IN COLOMBIAN AMAZON On Dec. 10 the Colombian army sent army troops to the town of San Jose in the Amazon department of Guaviare to break up a protest by some 20,000 campesino coca-growers opposing the aerial fumigation of the area with the herbicide "glifosato." The campesinos have no other way to support themselves besides planting coca plants and opium poppies. They also charge that the aerial fumigations are destroying their subsistence food crops as well as the coca and poppy plants. Gen. Harold Bedoya ordered the troops to remove the campesinos from the local airport, which the protesters have kept blockaded since arriving there with their families on Dec. 8. "There is no doubt that those most interested in an end to the fumigation are the drug cartels," claimed Bedoya. "Because of that, behind those protests are dark hidden interests." On Dec. 13, the government imposed a curfew in San Jose. [La Jornada 12/11/94 from UPI, IPS; El Diario-La Prensa 12/14/94 from AP] On Dec. 15, a Colombian governmental commission reached an accord with the campesino protesters in San Jose. Attorney general Alfonso Valdivieso annouced his disagreement with the accord, which stops fumigation on fields of less than three hectares. "We won't fall into the ingenuousness of thinking that a 60 hectare expanse can't be divided into 20 fields of three [hectares each]," said Valdivieso. Interior Minister Horacio Serpa emphasized that the accord provides for an aggressive crop substition program for fields of under three hectares, which the government will fund with $1,200,000. [LJ 12/18/94 from AFP, EFE] 15. MASSACRE WITNESS SHOT IN BRAZIL On Dec. 9, Wagner dos Santos was shot and seriously wounded in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Dos Santos is a survivor of and key witness to the killing of eight street children on July 23, 1993, known as the Candelaria massacre. Dos Santos told authorities he was abducted by plainclothes police officers near the House of Witness, a safe house where he was living under state protection. He says the officers handcuffed him and took him to a nearby railway station, where they beat him, shot him several times and left him for dead. Dos Santos has identified three members of the Military Police as responsible for the 1993 massacre; based mainly on his testimony, the officers were charged and are awaiting trial. Dos Santos told a human rights worker that the officers who abducted him made it clear they were shooting him for having identified their colleagues as perpetrators of the massacre. [Amnesty International Urgent Action Bulletin 12/13/94] 16. IN OTHER NEWS... On Dec. 22, police in Ecuador used heavy equipment to destroy some 400 shacks in a shantytown on the outskirts of northeastern Quito, arresting more than a dozen residents who protested the action. Authorities said the lands were invaded illegally. [Diario Las Americas 12/24/94 from AFP]. Pedro Collor de Mello, the brother of Brazilian ex-president Fernando Collor de Mello, died of brain cancer in a New York hospital on Dec. 19. Pedro, who made public the corruption scandal that forced his brother out of office, slipped into a coma within hours of hearing that the ex-president had been acquitted of corruption charges by Brazil's Supreme Court [see Update #255]. [New York Times 12/20/94]. On Dec. 11, followers of Colombian cult leader, politician and witch Regina Betancur ("Regina 11") held a silent march in Bogota to protest her kidnapping from near the city of Cali 50 days earlier and to request her release. Regina 11, a mentalist and founder of the Unitarian Metapolitical Movement, has been a congressperson and presidential candidate; she was elected to the Bogota city council on Oct. 30, when already in the custody of her captors. Her family has not received any request for ransom. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/12/94 from AFP] 17. UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE NEW YORK CITY AREA For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. "Super Barrio on the Zapatistas." Paper Tiger TV broadcast: 1/2 MON, 7:30 PM on MNN 1/3 TUE, 8:00 PM on BCAT, 1/4 WED, 6:30 PM on BronxNet, 1/5 THU, 4:30 PM on MNN. Call 212-420-9045. * -- + 212-675-9690 NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE 212-675-9663 + + Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us + + e-mail: nyt@blythe.org info: info@blythe.org + >