WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #258, JANUARY 8, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Colombia: Child Killed as Army Breaks Up Campesino Protests 2. Mexico's New Plan: More Austerity, More Privatization 3. Can Mexico Sell Plan to Workers? 4. Temporary Truce in Southern Mexico 5. US Repatriates Haitian Refugees 6. Haiti: Election Macoutes, Soldiers Rotated Out 7. Peru: Two Presidential Candidates Withdraw 8. Uruguayan Leftist Disavows "Confrontation" with Government 9. Venezuela: Ex-President Perez Peeved by Pardons 10. More Prison Riots in Venezuela 11. Chile: Controversy Over Special Prison for Army and Police 12. Chile: Nuclear Plant a Trade-in for Canadian NAFTA Support? 13. Chile to Train Police in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti...? 14. New Civilian Police Force Takes Over in El Salvador 15. Other News: Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Cuba/Nicaragua 16. 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We welcome your comments and ideas: send them via e-mail to nicanet@blythe.org. * 1. COLOMBIA: CHILD KILLED AS ARMY BREAKS UP CAMPESINO PROTESTS Some 2,000 Colombian campesinos blocked highways on Dec. 25 in the Amazon region of Putumayo, near the Ecuadoran border, to protest the aerial fumigation of coca plants by the government's anti-narcotics forces. The campesinos blocked highways that lead from the oil town of Orito to the villages of Santa Ana and La Hormiga. Col. Leonardo Gallego, director of the police anti- narcotics division, said the campesinos were also protesting the opening of a highway in the zone. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/26/94 from AP] The protests began on Dec. 22 when campesinos occupied seven oil pumping stations and managed to partially shut down production. [Associated Press 1/5/95] Soldiers were sent in to restore order so that the state oil company Ecopetrol could renew its operations; an Ecopetrol spokesperson said crude oil production had dwindled from 11,500 to 4,000 barrels a day. [Reuter 1/5/95] On Jan. 6, an Ecopetrol spokesperson said that since the protests began on Dec. 22, the company had already lost more than $2.5 million in damages, in addition to lost oil production at the seven stations. [Reuter 1/6/95] On Jan. 4, the demonstrators threw firebombs that set at least two 1,000-barrel oil storage tanks ablaze outside Orito after soldiers tried to break up their occupation of one of seven pumping stations in the area. The oil tanks exploded, and were still burning the next day. On Jan. 4, three army helicopters retaliated by firing tear gas at the protesters, leaving a 6- year-old boy dead, reportedly from tear-gas and smoke inhalation. Speaking from the Colombian capital, Interior Minister Horacio Serpa denied there were any casualties. [AP 1/5/95; Reuter 1/5/95] By Jan. 5, army troops had retaken all but one of the pumping stations. As of Jan. 6, about 2,000 peasants were still occupying the last installation, in the town of La Hormiga near the border with Ecuador. "The majority of the farmers are willing to die for the cause," Felipe Guzman, mayor of La Hormiga, said in a telephone interview. "They are ready to go until the end." [AP 1/5/95] A special 300-member army battalion was flown to Putumayo on Jan. 6 to reinforce the more than 1,000 soldiers already there. [Reuter 1/6/95] Interior Minister Serpa said in a radio interview that negotiations between the coca growers and the government can only begin when the protests end. [Reuter 1/5/95] "We're ready to meet with them ... if they halt their violent actions," he told local reporters. [Reuter 1/6/95] The coca growers suspended their protests on the afternoon of Jan. 6, according to Serpa, who announced the immediate sending of a government commission to the area to examine and attend to the needs of the population. [ED-LP 1/8/95 from AP] Campesinos staging similar protests in the Amazon region of Guaviare forced the government to agree on Dec. 15 to halt aerial fumigation of plots smaller than three hectares [see Update #256]. Coca cultivations smaller than three hectares are supposed to be destroyed by hand or mechanically. Justice Minister Nestor Humberto Martines warned that the government will not allow even "one centimeter of illegal cultivations" and promised that all plantings of opium poppies, coca plants and marijuana will be destroyed, no matter what their size. [ED-LP 12/26/94 from AP] The government, under heavy pressure from the US to produce results in its fight against drug trafficking, has not been fumigating in Putumayo for some time but intends to start again. The protesters are also demanding that the government build roads, schools and hospitals in the area, which has long been neglected. [Reuter 1/5/95] [Note: Colombia is divided into 23 departments, one "special district" (the capital), five intendencias and five comisarias. The intendencias and comisarias are primarily in the less- populated eastern lowlands of the Amazon and Orinoco river basins. Putumayo is an intendencia; Guaviare is a comisaria.] 2. MEXICO'S NEW PLAN: MORE AUSTERITY, MORE PRIVATIZATION After several postponements, on Jan. 3 Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon finally appeared on national television to announce his government's plan for recovery from the effects of the peso's collapse last month. Under the plan, agreed to by business and labor leaders, the peso will continue to float against the dollar. Businesses are to keep down price increases except for imported goods, while the government promises to maintain a ceiling of 10% on price increases for products from state-owned companies (principally fuel and electricity). Labor agrees to hold wage demands for the lowest-paid workers at the 7% limit agreed to in the annual pact they signed in September [see Update #244]. The government will cut its own spending by about 7% (1.3% of the gross national product), and will speed up its privatization plans to raise about $1.5 billion through the sales of enterprises such as ports and parts of the banking, railroad and communications sectors. With these measures, Zedillo claims that the current account deficit (the disparity between what Mexico pays out and what it receives) will be cut in half, down to about $14 billion. This would represent $11 billion in interest payments to foreign investors and a $3 billion trade deficit. [Financial Times (UK) 1/4/95; New York Times 1/4/95; Wall Street Journal 1/4/95] To meet debt payments to foreign investors, the government will now be able to draw on an $18 billion credit provided by foreign governments and banks--$9 billion from the US Treasury, $1 billion from Canada, $5 billion from Europe's Bank for International Settlements, and $3 billion from international commercial banks, including Citibank. [NYT 1/3/94] Foreign investors were unimpressed by the plan. The peso fell another 5% the day of Zedillo's speech; the Mexican stock market (BMV) plunged 6%, but recovered as investors moved their holdings from pesos into stocks. Investors were disappointed that Zedillo had given no proposal for privatizing large parts of Pemex, the Mexican national petroleum monopoly which is probably the country's most valuable asset. [FT 1/4/95; NYT 1/5/95, 1/6/95] On Jan. 5, Finance Secretary Guillermo Ortiz Martinez appeared in New York for some 14 hours of meetings with investors and editors. He tried to reassure Wall Street by saying that in fact Mexico was planning to sell off Pemex's petrochemical operations and part of the state electrical monopoly to generate $12 billion to $14 billion over two years--"music to investors' ears," according to the Financial Times. Despite the assurances, the peso plunged another 7.7% on Jan. 6, bringing it to its lowest point since the crisis began, down some 40% in three weeks. The BMV closed the week down 16.91% (in dollars). On Jan. 6 Ortiz visited International Monetary Fund (IMF) president Michel Camdessus in Washington and announced that Mexico was asking the IMF for a $2.5 billion loan. [FT 1/6/95; NYT 1/6/95, 1/7/95] 3. CAN MEXICO SELL PLAN TO WORKERS? President Zedillo's economic recovery speech was delivered a day late, after four postponements and a 14-hour marathon session with the leaders of Mexico's major unions, which are affiliated with Zedillo's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The labor leaders had serious doubts about their ability to sell the plan to their rank-and-file, who will be expected to accept a 7% wage ceiling in a year for which experts project a 15-18% inflation rate. To get the union leaders to sign on to the wage limit, Zedillo reportedly had to put aside an ambitious plan for privatizing Pemex, which would have resulted in significant job losses. [FT 1/4/95; NYT 1/5/95; Washington Post 1/4/95] The final pact avoids the dramatic 20-30% cut in government spending analysts had predicted; the 7% cut Zedillo actually announced is still harsh--equivalent to slashing $70 billion from the US budget, as the New York Times notes approvingly. [NYT 1/6/95] "What we saw is that the government has no political capital left with the unions," political consultant Juan Pablo Sandoval told the Financial Times. In fact, the head of the powerful electrical workers union never even signed the pact. [FT 1/5/95] To make matters worse, Zedillo's campaign for the presidency last year relied on claims that "economic stability" depended on keeping the PRI in power, with the implication that economic chaos would result if voters elected opposition candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Now PRD legislators are calling for criminal prosecution of Zedillo's predecessor, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, for his handling of the peso during his time in office. Constitutional experts Emilio Krieger and Salvador Abascal say that in fact Salinas may be liable under the Law of Responsibilities of Public Servants. [La Jornada (Mexico) 12/31/94] [Among the political dangers for Zedillo in privatizing Pemex would be the fact that Cardenas' father, the national hero Lazaro Cardenas, is widely revered for having nationalized the oil industry in 1938.] The Mexican peso continues to bring down other Latin American markets with it. Argentina and Brazil are especially hurt by this phenomenon, which South Americans are calling the "Tequila Effect." [FT 1/5/95; WSJ 1/6/95] Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem and Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, inaugurated on Jan. 1, are identified with the US-inspired neoliberal policies Mexico has been following for the last 12 years. The US government is not immune to this effect. As the British Independent notes, both the Bush and Clinton administrations "supplied much of the smoke and mirrors [about the peso] necessary to ensure Congressional approval" for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Clinton is now starting to "fret" about a "political crisis" in Mexico, where a "debacle...would also make a mockery of the lofty language at December's Summit of the Americas about a hemispheric free trade area. More immediately, a plunging peso and falling living standards are likely to lead to an increase in Mexican immigration to the US..." [Independent (UK) 1/4/95, 1/5/95] On Jan. 6 the US Justice Department announced that it is hiring more than 1,200 new Border Patrol agents. With this move "we will complete our plan to take control of the entire Southwest border," said Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. [WP 1/7/95] 4. TEMPORARY TRUCE IN SOUTHERN MEXICO In a communique dated Dec. 30 the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) of Chiapas state in southern Mexico declared a truce to last through Jan. 6. The move was in recognition of the federal government's acceptance of the National Mediation Commission (CONAI) as the mediating group for possible renewed negotiations. In another communique, the rebels said there was no more need for the fasts and hunger strikes many Mexicans, including CONAI head Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, had been maintaining to promote new talks. [LJ 12/31/94] On Jan. 6 the EZLN extended the truce for another six days. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 1/8/95 from AFP] A Zapatista soldier told reporters that the rebels didn't want to fight "right now" because "we're going to have a party on Jan. 1" to celebrate the first anniversary of the EZLN's surprise offensive on Jan. 1, 1994. The rebels took advantage of the truce to unload three trucks carrying supplies donated by supporters in Mexico, Canada, Europe and the US, including the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, USA (NCDMUSA) [see Update #255]. "Yours is a struggle which can change the life of the world," a French woman named Dominique told the EZLN's "Major Rolando" as the gifts were presented. EZLN military head "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" took time off to write the press a letter denying government charges that his army's second offensive, on Dec. 19, had caused the peso devaluation: "I solemnly promise to convert my bank account not to dollars...but to marcos" (Spanish for deutschmarks). [LJ 12/31/95] With the threat of war on hold, the Zapatistas are continuing their efforts to promote a broad national opposition movement. "The Third Declaration of the Lacandona Forest," dated January 1995, calls for a "National Liberation Movement," to be headed by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas and the Democratic National Convention (CND), a grassroots coalition formed in August 1994. The declaration demands an end to single party rule, a constitutional convention, and the "reorientation of the national economic program, putting aside lies and deceptions, and favoring the most dispossessed sectors in the country, the workers and the campesinos, who are the principal producers of the wealth that others appropriate. [NCDMUSA translation 1/2/95 from LJ 1/2/95] Tensions also eased in the neighboring state of Tabasco, enough to let the PRI's Roberto Madrazo Pintado be inaugurated as governor on Dec. 31 [not Jan. 1 as reported in Update #257]. Led by Cardenas and former PRD gubernatorial candidate Andres Lopez Obrador, protesters staged a peaceful sit-in in Villahermosa, the state capital, promising not to let Madrazo govern. PRD supporters had been blocking Pemex facilities in the western part of the state. Zedillo broke tradition by not attending the swearing in. [Reuter 12/31/94] Even the volcano Popocatepetl, which erupted on Dec. 21, seems to have calmed down, allowing 75,000 people from the area to return home, although some ash was still falling on nearby towns as of Dec. 30. [LJ 12/31/94] Correction: Update #157 attributed reactions to Zedillo's Dec. 29 speech to Telemundo TV. The interviews were on Univision TV. The same issue said the peso was first allowed to float on Dec. 22. The Mexican government cut the peso free the night of Dec. 21. 5. US REPATRIATES HAITIAN REFUGEES On Jan. 5 a US federal judge in Miami refused to act on a lawsuit intended to block a US government plan to repatriate the 3,800 Haitian boat still interned in the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The next day the first 54 refugees were forcibly returned to Port-au-Prince, while several hundred others were being rounded up at the base. The US says that all the refugees will be out of Guantanamo within 10 days. Over 20,000 refugees were interned at the base during a wave of attempts to escape Haiti's military regime last summer. Most returned voluntarily after US troops restored elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power on Oct. 15. Another 677 returned after a Dec. 29 announcement that the US would pay $80 to any refugees who left Guantanamo voluntarily. The remaining Haitians insist that their lives would still be in danger if they went home, a claim the US denies. International law experts note that the US has no legal basis for involuntary repatriation; a repatriation agreement made with former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier lapsed in 1994 and was not renewed by President Aristide. Nevertheless, the Aristide government has not protested the forcible repatriations and failed to send representatives to meet the first boatload of returned Haitians. [New York Times 1/7/94; Los Angeles Times 1/7/94] "Most of the paramilitary thugs who killed the families of these Haitians at Guantanamo and who targeted them as well are still armed and dangerous in Haiti," says Miami attorney Cheryl Little, who is filing an appeal on behalf of the refugees. "I'm going to sleep in the open arcades tonight," one of the 54 returnees told Radio Quisqueya. "My fate will be on the conscience of President Aristide." [LA Times 1/7/94] 6. HAITI: ELECTION MACOUTES, SOLDIERS ROTATED OUT In December the Haitian government set up a Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to organize parliamentary elections for some still unannounced date in the spring. One CEP member is Delouis Domond, who belongs to the political party established by the late Roger Lafontant, a leader of the dreaded Tonton Macoute paramilitary force under the Duvalier dictatorship. Leftists object that Article 291 of the 1987 Constitution puts a ten-year ban on political participation by former Tontons Macoute. But since being restored by US troops in October, the Aristide government has been promoting "reconciliation" with rightwing forces. [Haiti Progres (NY) 1/4-10/95] The US military says it will have all members of the Army's 10th Mountain Division out of Haiti by Jan. 26, to be replaced at least in part by soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division. A New York Times op-ed suggests that no infantry is necessary at this point and that the 1,050 troops of the Special Forces (Green Berets) can now handle the job by themselves. [NYT 1/5/95, 1/8/95] 7. PERU: TWO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES WITHDRAW Former Lima mayor Alfonso Barrantes Lingan of Peru's United Left coalition announced the withdrawal of his presidential candidacy in a letter published by the press on Jan. 3. Barrantes ran for president in 1985 and 1990; he explained in his letter that he withdrew from this year's race because the campaign "has devolved into insults and a war is being waged which is a shameful spectacle." The vice presidential candidates of the leftist coalition said they had not known of Barrantes' decision. The elections are to be held on Apr. 9. The withdrawal of Barrantes follows the Dec. 26 pullout of presidential candidate Lourdes Flores Nano of the center-right Popular Christian Party (PPC), who was moved to the top of the PPC's list of congressional candidates. Of the remaining 13 presidential candidates, the two considered to have a chance of winning are incumbent Alberto Fujimori and former United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar. [El Diario-La Prensa 1/4/95 from AP] Meanwhile, garbage is piled high on city streets in Lima, where municipal sanitation workers have been on strike for over two weeks demanding better salaries and protesting the delay in their bonuses. [Diario Las Americas 1/7/95 from AFP] 8. URUGUAYAN LEFTIST DISAVOWS "CONFRONTATION" WITH GOVERNMENT Senator Danilo Astori of the leftist Frente Amplio coalition has said he is willing to agree with the Uruguayan government on "state policies" that "move the country out of its paralysis." Astori's moderate "Uruguay Assembly" sector of the Frente Amplio won 46% of the leftist coalition's total votes in the Nov. 27 general elections [see Update #253]. The two other main parties-- the Blancos and the Colorados--had already agreed to cooperate with each other in Congress. The three political forces ran a virtual three-way tie in the elections and have nearly equal representation in Congress. "This cannot be solved only with confrontation," said Astori, a former dean of the University of the Republic's Department of Economics. "[The situation] must be faced with willingness to reach agreements that allow the country to make progress in significant areas." Analysts say Astori means to show that the left can govern responsibly, and thus bridge in 1999 the two percentage points that separated the Encuentro Progresista--the center-left electoral alliance primarily made up of the Frente Amplio--from the Colorado Party in the 1994 elections. [Inter Press Service 12/30/94] 9. VENEZUELA: EX-PRESIDENT PEREZ PEEVED BY PARDONS Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera has pardoned former interior minister Alejandro Izaguirre in the middle of his trial for corruption. Ex-president Carlos Andres Perez, who is facing corruption charges in the same trial [see Update #254], criticized the pardon, explaining that a pardon issued during a trial "impedes and annuls the investigation and leaves in doubt the guilt or innocence of the accused." But Perez also said he was glad because Izaguirre--who was the interior minister in his administration--had been unjustly held under house arrest. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/25/94 from AFP] Venezuela's government has meanwhile expressed disapproval of Cuban president Fidel Castro's recent honoring of Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chavez, who led two alleged coup attempts against ex-president Perez in 1992. Chavez was imprisoned after the coup attempts failed, but was pardoned last Mar. 26 by current president Caldera. According to Venezuela's local press, Castro's welcoming of Chavez in Cuba was in retaliation for the Caldera government's recent reception of ultra-right anti-Castro Miami Cubans Armando Balladares and Jorge Mas Canosa in the presidential palace. Perez, who during his administration promoted Cuba's reentry into the international community, expressed his displeasure with the Chavez incident. [ED-LP 12/21/94 from EFE] 10. MORE PRISON RIOTS IN VENEZUELA At least four inmates died and five were wounded on Jan. 2 in a prison riot in the western Venezuelan state of Tachira. Justice Ministry officials said a fight broke out at the Santa Ana penitentiary when veteran inmates attacked a group of prisoners who had recently arrived from Sabaneta jail in Maracaibo; the new arrivals had reportedly been robbing other prisoners. Local radio stations reported that up to 10 prisoners may have died in fighting with guns and knives; one prisoner inside the jail told Reuter that 15 inmates died. Troops surrounded the Santa Ana jail but did not enter until mid-morning after the fighting was over and officials had reached an agreement with the rioters to transfer the new prisoners. Local rights groups and prison authorities had called Santa Ana a model prison, compared with most of Venezuela's notoriously violent and overcrowded prisons. [Reuter 1/2/95] 11. CHILE: CONTROVERSY OVER SPECIAL PRISON FOR ARMY AND POLICE On Jan. 6, the Chilean government of President Eduardo Frei narrowly averted a crisis by deciding to allow the legislature to rule on whether a new prison will be constructed to keep military and police officers who are being tried or have been sentenced for human rights violations separate from other convicts. Public Works Minister Ricardo Lagos--a strong opponent of the military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990--had resigned in protest on Jan. 5 when the government revealed plans for the special prison; he withdrew his resignation on Jan. 6 when the government said it would let the legislature decide. [El Diario-La Prensa 1/8/95 from AFP] Government officials told the daily El Mercurio that the prison's purpose would be to safeguard the physical well-being of military, police or public officials who could be the object of attacks from other prisoners in reprisal for their actions, as well as to "protect the dignity of the institutions to which they belonged." The government also announced it would send a bill to Congress that will clearly establish the authority of the prison system director over where to send prisoners. Presently the judge handling the case determines the place of detention of the accused. [Chile Information Project (CHIP) News 1/6/95] Military and police officers are supposed to be held in regular jails, although many are instead secretly housed in military or police installations. [ED-LP 1/8/95 from AP] The announcement of the new prison sparked controversy, especially because it came at a time when the courts are deciding sentences in critical human rights cases against members of the military's secret police (DINA). The Supreme Court is about to resolve the final appeals on the sentencing of former DINA chiefs Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza for the 1976 car-bombing assassination in Washington of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier. Defense lawyers for Contreras and Espinoza are asking that their seven and six year prison sentences be lowered to less than five years, which would allow them to be freed on bail and "not spend one day in prison," as Contreras has always demanded. In another case involving DINA agents, investigative judge Eleodoro Ortiz will decide soon whether to issue indictments for the torture and murder of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, or whether to apply the amnesty law and close the case. [CHIP News 12/28/94, 12/29/94, 1/6/95] Government officials deny that the idea of a special prison for the military was inspired by the Letelier case. But shortly before government ministers met on Jan. 5 with the presidents of the ruling coalition political parties to win their support for the prison, Defense Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma met with the same party presidents to convey the army's concern that the sentence issued for Contreras might be confirmed. [CHIP News 1/6/95] On Jan. 5, US Ambassador Gabriel Guerra Mondragon paid a 40- minute visit to Supreme Court president Marcos Aburto. Guerra insisted that it was only a courtesy call, that he and Aburto spoke "practically nothing" of the Letelier case, and that while the US is still very interested in the Letelier case, his visit to Aburto in no way could be interpreted as pressure from the US government. [CHIP News 1/6/95] 12. CHILE: NUCLEAR PLANT A TRADE-IN FOR CANADIAN NAFTA SUPPORT? Canada plans to build a 700 megawatt nuclear plant in Chile's northern desert near Antofagasta, according to French news agency Agence France Presse. Private companies and government agencies of both countries will participate in the $1.7 billion project, which is to be discussed officially when Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien visits Chile Jan. 24-26. Chretien begins a Latin American tour on Jan. 19; he will also visit Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Costa Rica. [Diario Las Americas 12/31/94 from AFP] Manuel Baquedano, President of Chile's Political Ecology Institute (IEP), said Chretien may condition his support for Chile's membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on acceptance of the nuclear plant proposal. [Inter Press Service 1/3/95; Chile Information Project (CHIP) News 1/3/95] National Energy Commission president Alejandro Jadresic has denied that Canada is exerting pressure to build the plant, that the issue is on the agenda for Chretien's visit or that NAFTA entrance is conditioned on the project. [CHIP News 1/5/95] 13. CHILE TO TRAIN POLICE IN NICARAGUA, GUATEMALA, HAITI...? The governments of Nicaragua and Guatemala have asked the Chilean government to send teams of Carabineros police officers to train police forces there. Chilean president Eduardo Frei is studying the requests. Last December Chile's foreign ministry rejected a similar petition to have police officers train their counterparts in Haiti. Instead, the Chilean government is considering giving grants to Haitian police officers to study in Carabineros police academies in Santiago. Carabineros presently participate in the United Nations peace mission in El Salvador. [Chile Information Project (CHIP) News 1/5/95] The Carabineros continue to be linked to human rights violations and cases of police brutality. Even a 1993 US State Department reported that "during 1993 members of Carabineros and the Investigations Police continue to torture or mistreat prisoners." [CHIP News 11/21/94] 14. NEW CIVILIAN POLICE FORCE TAKES OVER IN EL SALVADOR On Dec. 31, El Salvador's 127-year-old National Police force was formally dissolved and authority passed to the new National Civilian Police (PNC), formed as part of the 1992 peace accords. The new PNC will be responsible for all of El Salvador's public security. It is to be completely independent of military control, with a force of 10,000 agents by 1995, including civilians, former rebel and military combatants, and former National Police agents. The PNC was formed partly in response to charges of widespread corruption and abuse by the former National Police. The National Police is the third security body to be dissolved as a result of the 1992 peace accords, following the National Guard and the Treasury Police, which were disbanded in March of 1992. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 1/6/95 from Agence France- Presse, United Press International; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/31/94] The official National Police demobilization ceremony will not take place until the second week in January, although rightwing Salvadoran president Armando Calderon Sol insisted on Dec. 30 that the force would disappear completely by Dec. 31. [La Jornada 12/31/94] The US government has donated several small planes and three UH-1H helicopters to help the PNC combat the rising crime and drug trafficking problems in El Salvador. [LADB Notisur 1/6/95 from AFP, UPI] 15. IN OTHER NEWS... One student was shot to death on Jan. 6 in Quito, Ecuador, during student protests that began Jan. 3 against a 33% increase in public transit fares. Family members and friends said the victim, 17-year old Juan Carlos Luna, was shot by anti-riot police. There was no official response to the charges, though Quito police chief Col. Edmundo Egas told a press conference that some of the demonstrators were using "high-caliber weapons," and that four police agents were wounded by bullets as they tried to break up the demonstration. The police reported 14 arrests, and Education Minister Fausto Segovia said classes might be suspended the following week to avoid new protests. [El Diario-La Prensa 1/8/95 from AP]... On Dec. 16 in Belem, capital of the Brazilian state of Para in the northern Amazon, a jury found Jose Serafim Sales and Francisco de Assis Ferreira guilty of the murder of Expedito Ribeiro de Souza, president of the Union of Rural Workers of Rio Maria. Sales, who fired the shots that killed Expedito, was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Ferreira, the ranch manager who hired Sales, was sentenced to 21 years. Jeronimo Alves de Amorim, the rancher who is accused of having ordered the assassination, is still in hiding. The judge ordered his arrest. Amorim is also charged with involvement in five recent murders in the city of Xinguara. Meanwhile, Jose Ubiratan Matos Ubirajara, who was convicted last April of the murder of Jose and Paulo Canuto, has escaped from prison. For more information, contact the Rio Maria Committee at (617) 492-9922; e-mail: riomariausa@igc.apc.org. [Rio Maria Bulletin Vol. IV, #4, January 1995]... On Dec. 17, the Peruvian Association for Human Rights (APRODEH) announced that a total of 631 cases of disappearances occurred in Peru between August of 1990 and Dec. 10 of this year; 199 of the victims were younger than 18 years old. APRODEH said that 363 of the disappearances were carried out by members of the army, while the navy was responsible for 53. [La Jornada 12/18/94 from AFP, EFE, UPI, ANSA]... Forensic authorities in Venezuela are trying to identify the carbonized bodies of the victims of three buses that collided and then crashed against a gas and oil pipeline on Dec. 28 in the state of Monagas. CORPOVEN, the company that runs the gas lines, says that at least 70 people died and many more were injured. Oil and gas lines run parallel to the highways in Venezuela, making them extremely vulnerable to accidents. [DLA 12/31/94 from EFE; ED-LP 12/29/94 from EFE; WP 12/29/94 from AP]... The Cuban government has agreed to pay for Cuba's diplomatic residence in Nicaragua, according to Nicaraguan presidency minister Antonio Lacayo. The value of the residence will be subtracted from Nicaragua's debt with Cuba, said Lacayo. [Diario Las Americas 1/7/95 from Noticiero Nicaraguense] The residence, located in the Las Colinas neighborhood of Managua, was confiscated from the original owners by the Sandinista government and subsequently sold to Cuba. But the former owners recently won a court decision authorizing them to repossess the building, and since then Nicaragua's foreign ministry had been pressuring the Cuban representative in Managua, Pedro Lovaina, to give up the residence. [Nicaragua Network (DC) Hotline 11/15/94] 16. UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS 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. FILE CABINETS NEEDED by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network, any size. If you donate them to us, we will come to your home or office and haul them away. Leave us a message at 212-674-9499. VOLUNTEERS & INTERNS NEEDED in the New York City area to help with the Weekly News Update. Big projects and small, long-term and short-term. Leave us a message at 212-674-9499. 1/17 TUE - Stop the legal lynching of political prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Protest the inauguration in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, of the new Pennsylvania governor, who has vowed to execute Abu-Jamal. For bus tickets from NYC call 212-330-8029. 1/17 TUE, 5-8 PM - Demonstration and march to commemorate the assassination of Patrice Lumumba by CIA-Mobutu and demand withdrawal of occupation forces from the Congo (Zaire). Meet at Zaire Mission, 48th St & 3rd Ave, march to UN. For information call 212-787-1733. -- + 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 + >