WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #262, FEBRUARY 5, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Mexico Bailout: Clinton Goes for Broke 2. US Establishment Backs Mexico Gamble 3. Mexican Civil Society Prepares Referendum on Bailout 4. Mexican Senator Shot At As Repression Fears Mount 5. Guatemalan Journalist Murdered... Televisa Lawsuit Linked? 6. Ecuador/Peru: Border Conflict a "Ridiculous Tragedy" 7. Helms Forces Out Nominee for US Ambassador to Panama 8. Salvadoran Anti-Drug Police on Strike 9. First Civilian Police Force Inaugurated in Honduras 10. Colombian Army Colonel Fired for Torture 11. Cuban Balseros Shipped Back to Guantanamo 12. Cuban Couple Murdered in Miami 13. USAID, Soros Fund at Work in Haiti 14. New Testimony Links CIA to Chile/Iraq Arms Deals 15. Banana Workers Sue Standard Fruit 16. Upcoming Events & Announcements * 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, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. 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. MEXICO BAILOUT: CLINTON GOES FOR BROKE International financial markets panicked on Jan. 30 as fears rose that the Mexican government was close to defaulting on its short- term debt and that a proposed $40 billion loan guarantee plan from the US wouldn't pass Congress in time--or perhaps ever. The International Herald Tribune reported that Mexico's foreign reserves had fallen to as little as $2 billion, leaving the country unable to meet its regular debt payments, despite its access to a $10 billion credit line from the US and Canada. $17 billion or more in dollar-linked short-term government bonds come due this year, in addition to $18 billion in short-term private bank obligations. International financier George Soros announced that "[i]f stability is not reestablished in Mexico, it would have a knock-on effect throughout the world because investors would be shell-shocked." The peso plunged 10% to its lowest level since the crisis began on Dec. 20 (about 6.35 to the US dollar) and the Mexican stock market (BMV) fell 3%. [Financial Times (UK) 1/31/95; Guardian (UK) 1/31/95; New York Times 1/31/95] [The Mexican reserves had in fact fallen to $3.483 billion as of Jan. 31, the Banco de Mexico, the nation's central bank, announced on Feb. 1. This was a 43% drop from Dec. 31. [NYT 2/3/95; Wall Street Journal 2/3/95]] On Jan. 31 US president Bill Clinton suddenly dropped the $40 billion loan guarantee plan and announced a new $49 billion package of guarantees and outright loans which would not require Congressional approval. The largest share is $20 billion from the Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund, which the president can draw on at his own discretion. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will add another $10 billion to the $7.76 billion it had offered Mexico the week before, already the largest loan in the IMF's 50-year history [see Update $261]. Europe's Bank for International Settlements is to put up $10 billion, and another $2 billion would come from Canada and Latin America. The BMV soared by 10.3% on the day of Clinton's announcement, and the peso rose to 5.75 to the dollar. [FT 2/1/95; NYT 2/1/95; Washington Post 2/1/95] The stock market fell back from the dramatic high and ended the week about where it began, but the peso closed the week at 5.24 to the dollar. [NYT 2/4/95] 2. US ESTABLISHMENT BACKS MEXICO GAMBLE The all-but-secret Exchange Stabilization Fund was established by Congress in 1934 to stabilize the US dollar in case of emergency. As of mid-1994 it was valued at almost $37.5 billion, according to Reuter, about half in dollars, and half in Japanese yen and German marks. [Reuter 2/1/95] The US can also draw on $11 billion from its reserves at the IMF, but the Financial Times notes that putting more than half of the fund into the Mexico bailout "has raised concerns about possible depletion of the US's capacity to intervene in foreign exchange markets for other purposes." [FT 2/1/95] Clinton's package includes $1 billion already promised by Latin American countries with their own potential economic crises: $300 million each from Argentina and Brazil, and $200 each from Chile and Colombia. [Inter Press Service 1/27/95] Ironically, Mexico itself is one of the donor nations that joined in a IMF-backed $900 million package to give Haiti emergency recovery and development aid. [IPS 1/31/95] The US political and media establishment rushed to congratulate Clinton on his action. The conservative Wall Street Journal and the liberal New York Times both wrote that Clinton "deserves credit," while the liberal Washington Post said the president "correctly swung to an alternative that requires no votes." [WSJ 2/1/95; NYT 2/1/95; WP 2/1/95] "The president exercised his authority, he took a tremendous burden on his shoulders, he did what key leaders felt was necessary," said conservative House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). [FT 2/2/94] But there were also dissenters. Six key US allies--Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland-- abstained on Feb. 1 when Washington asked them to approve the drastic $10 billion increase in the IMF loan. [NYT 2/3/95] A CNN- Time poll released at the end of the week before showed 73% of the US population rejecting the original Clinton plan. [La Jornada (Mexico 1/29/95] 3. MEXICAN CIVIL SOCIETY PREPARES REFERENDUM ON BAILOUT According to an opinion poll published in the conservative opposition daily Reforma on Jan. 30, Mexico City residents said 2-1 that the original US bailout plan would hurt Mexico more than it would help. [NYT 2/3/95] Union organizer Berta Lujan of the Authentic Workers Front (FAT), a union group independent of the pro-government Mexican Workers Federation (CTM), responded to Clinton's unilateral bailout on Jan. 31 with the remark that the plan would simply increase Mexico's debt. "We were promised so much with the free-trade agreement," she said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "One year later, we are in crisis." [WSJ 2/1/95] The Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC) issued an analysis on Jan. 31 calling Clinton's new package "nothing but promises." "The only thing that this new packet will do is postpone the moment when the Mexican government has to admit it cannot pay its financial debts, either foreign or domestic." [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol. 2, #16, 1/31/95] In a letter published on Feb. 2 but dated Jan. 31, "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) charged that "the government is trying to mortgage to big finance capital the national resources that by historic right belong to all the Mexican people." The government is "jeopardizing our national sovereignty still further, trying to get out of a crisis that it provoked itself by following the neoliberal model." He called for the formation of a National Liberation Movement (MLN) to seek the end of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Marcos asked the Democratic National Convention (CND), a grassroots coalition the EZLN sponsored last summer, to join with former presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to form the MLN. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 2/5/95; Associated Press 2/3/95] Under both the original and the current plan, Mexico's entire revenue from petroleum exports, about $7 billion a year, is put into the US Federal Reserve as collateral for the loan guarantees. Mexico's foreign relations secretary Jose Angel Gurria told Mexican legislators late last month that these payments would continue until 2005 for the original package of $40 billion, about six years for the principal [as reported in Update #261] and the rest for interest. [Presumably the new bailout plan would require payments past 2005.] On Jan. 27 the Chamber of Deputies gave the government authority to privatize the railroads and the satellite telecommunications network, another demand of the US investors. Columnist Antonio Gershenson notes that with its most profitable enterprises now privatized or mortgaged off, the government will have to try to finance itself by raising taxes, which will cause still more economic dislocation in a country with almost half the population below the poverty line. [LJ 1/29/95] Meanwhile, the Civic Alliance, an election monitoring group set up last year, has taken responsibility for organizing the unofficial plebiscite on the bailout that Cuauhtemoc Cardenas proposed last month, although the date may be moved back to Feb. 19, a week later than Cardenas' suggested date. Voters will be asked two questions: 1) whether there should be criminal investigations of the officials who brought on the economic crisis, and 2) whether Mexico should accept the bailout. The organizers say the plebiscite will be nonpartisan and that the results will be given to the Congress "whatever they may be." The PRD's leader in the Federal District (DF), Rene Bejarano, says that the civic groups plan to have at least one voting place in each of the capital's 2,500 colonias (neighborhoods). [LJ 1/29/95; Mexico Update 1/31/95; ED-LP 1/30/95 from EFE] A similar informal plebiscite was held in the DF in March 1993 on home rule for the capital; 12,000 citizens staffed 2,987 polling places and 330,000 people voted, about two thirds the number that had voted in the previous municipal vote [see Update #165]. Organizers plan for the new plebiscite to cover the entire country. 4. MEXICAN SENATOR SHOT AT AS REPRESSION FEARS MOUNT Some forces in the US are afraid that Mexican resistance may move beyond plebiscites. Conservative columnist Robert Novak says that unless "Mexican finance is brought under control" there is "the danger of revolution in Mexico." [WP 1/30/95] The New York Times reports "a sign of potential problems": as of Feb. 1 workers at the Thomson Consumer Electronics Company plant in Chihuahua state, across the border from El Paso, Texas, had stayed off the job two days to protest the de facto wage cut caused by the peso's devaluation. [NYT 2/2/95] Tensions remain high in southern Mexico despite efforts started last month to resolve both the electoral conflicts in the states of Tabasco and Chiapas and the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas. The PRD and the PRI in Tabasco have agreed to hold a plebiscite to determine whether new gubernatorial elections should be held to supersede the Nov. 20 vote, but the date and logistics remain up in the air. Former Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) advisers Santiago Creel and Jose Agustin Ortiz Pinchetti have backed up PRD claims of gross irregularities in 78% of the polling places they studied. But Tabasco's rightwing PRI groups remain resistant. A newly formed, supposedly non-partisan Tabasqueno Civic Front took over a news show on radio station XEVA on Jan. 28 and tried to block a PRD demonstration in the state capital, Villahermosa. [LJ 1/29/95] The PRD claims the rally drew 40,000, making it the largest in Tabasco's history. [Mexico Update 1/31/95] Independent observers from the Autonomous Action Group for Peace reported on Jan. 30 that the Mexican army had once again stepped up its activities in Chiapas, despite a truce declared last month. Also on Jan. 30, the National Federation of Rural Property Owners announced that ranchers would take the law into their own hands if the Chiapas state government didn't bring an end to campesino land occupations, which now account for 40,000 hectares outside the EZLN's territory and 200,000 hectares inside the rebel zone. [IPS 1/30/95; ED-LP 1/30/95 from AP] The Chiapas- based Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center charged on Jan. 31 that armed mercenaries known as "white guards" continue to harass the population in Chicomuselo municipality, where a Jan. 10 confrontation between campesinos and the police and mercenaries left at least six dead [see Update #259]. [Fray Bartoleme Human Rights Center Open Letter, posted on NY Transfer 2/2/95] On the night of Feb. 2 unknown persons fired at the car of Heberto Castillo Martinez, a PRD senator for Veracruz, as he was driving away from a Mexico City restaurant. One of the bullets pierced a window, just missing Castillo's wife. Neither was injured. The PRD reported the incident the next day, noting that 300 of its supporters have been murdered in the six years since its formation. The party said that three people had deliberately slammed into Castillo's car a month earlier. [Telemundo TV (US) 2/3/95; Reuter 2/4/95] A veteran leftist who was jailed following the 1968 student strikes, Castillo was denied entry into the US last September by the State Department; he had been invited to speak at Cornell University [see Update #246]. Cutbacks in the Mexican federal budget will not affect the military or the federal security forces, according to the Finance and Public Credit Secretariat. The security budget has in fact risen slightly, to about $2.17 billion. This is still low by US standards, and is about the same as the budget for the transportation and communications department. [LJ 1/29/95] 5. GUATEMALAN JOURNALIST MURDERED... TELEVISA LAWSUIT LINKED? Journalist and radio announcer Alberto Antoniotti Monge was shot on the night of Jan. 29 at the door of his home in Guatemala City by five unidentified assassins; he died shortly afterwards in the hospital. No one has claimed responsibility for the murder. At the time of the attack, Antoniotti worked as press adviser for Public Ministry prosecutor Ramses Cuestas Gomez; he had also had a column in the daily El Grafico, was an independent radio and television producer, was president of the Guatemalan Association of Radio Announcers, worked as a promoter of public events and was a spokesperson for the ultra-rightwing Guatemalan National Liberation Movement (MLN). [El Diario-La Prensa 1/31/95 from EFE; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 2/4/95 from the Inter-American Press Society (SIP)] For 18 years Antoniotti worked for the Mexican television news network ECO, part of the giant Televisa conglomerate. When Televisa fired him in 1994, Antoniotti presented a $1.2 million lawsuit against the network for "violation of labor rights." [Inter Press Service 1/30/95; ED-LP 1/31/95 from EFE] His son, Italo Antoniotti, a correspondent for the US television network NBC, told the press that "the only problem" his father had was the lawsuit against Televisa. According to his son, Antoniotti's firing was "unjustified" because he suffered from throat cancer, which altered his vocal cords. [Inter Press Service 1/30/95] Antoniotti suffered a previous assault in May of 1993, while he was a correspondent for ECO. [DLA 2/4/95 from SIP] 6. ECUADOR/PERU: BORDER CONFLICT A "RIDICULOUS TRAGEDY" On Jan. 27, Ecuadoran president Sixto Duran Ballen called a state of emergency, declaring that the army had repelled attacks by Peruvian troops on the border [see Update #261]; within 24 hours, thousands of Ecuadorans mobilized to defend their country's sovereignty and support their government's actions. On Jan. 31 Ecuador announced a unilateral ceasefire as talks are under way to find a diplomatic solution to the border conflict that has left an unknown number of soldiers dead on both sides. [Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI) 1/31/95] [In an article published on Feb. 1, New York Times reporter James Brooke mentioned that on Jan. 27 Ecuadoran students were protesting their government's economic policies outside the Presidential Palace in Quito; on Jan. 30, after a weekend of combat on the border, "students marched again outside the palace- -this time to cheer the President." [NYT 2/1/95] (The Times never covered the widespread and ongoing student protests, in which two students were killed by police--see Updates #258, #259.) "The history of the border conflict between Ecuador and Peru has demonstrated to us that the armed conflict has been a mechanism to divert the attention of the people and conceal the serious level of crisis to which the governments in power have brought us," explained the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) in a statement signed by CONAIE president Luis Macas. [CONAIE statement 1/31/95, posted on email by the South and Meso-American Indian Rights Center (SAIIC)] Noting that more than 300 indigenous communities are located in the area of military conflict, Macas called for the territory-- and for the natural resources located in it--to be legally handed over to the indigenous peoples. [CONAIE statement 1/31/95, posted on email by SAIIC] Numerous other statements condemning the armed conflict and the increased militarization and demanding an immediate peaceful solution have been issued jointly by Peruvian and Ecuadoran womens' organizations, by Peruvian and Ecuadoran indigenous groups, and by more than 80 nongovernmental organizations of both countries. "Let's not feed the arms industry," reads the statement signed by eight women's groups from Ecuador and seven from Peru. "Let's hold back those who encourage violence. Let's not fall in the dirty game of fratricidal struggles. [Communiques posted on email by ALAI] A joint declaration issued by the Interethnic Association of Development of the Peruvian Jungle (AIDESEP) and the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadoran Amazon (CONFENIAE) called on the people of both countries to avoid "false nationalism." AIDESEP president Juan Chavez Munoz and CONFENIAE communications secretary Gabriel Saant signed the declaration in Quito, where indigenous representatives from nine countries were attending a meeting called by the Coordinating Council of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) to plan activities for the decade of indigenous people recently declared by the United Nations. Bolivian delegate Vicente Pessoa called the border conflict a "ridiculous tragedy." [Inter Press Service 1/27/95] By contrast, Ecuador's United Workers Front (FUT) labor federation and the Ecuadoran Central of Classist Organizations (CEDOC) issued statements condemning only the Peruvian state for its "clear expansionist intentions" and declaring support for Ecuador's armed forces. [Communiques posted on email by ALAI] Ironically, two Ecuadoran banks have just made major investments in Peru. Ecuador's Banco Popular bought 53% of Peru's Banco Interandino, and the Ecuadoran Banco de Pichincha bought 25% of Lima-based Banco Financiero. Two other Ecuadoran financial institutions are evaluating possible bids for Peru's state-owned Banco Continental, due to be auctioned to private bidders in a few weeks. [Financial Times (UK) 1/31/95] Meanwhile, Ecuador's government has announced a series of war taxes, primarily on vehicles and on banking transactions. [NYT 1/31/95] The border conflict brought Peru's stock market down 8% on Jan. 30, the first negative indicator in an otherwise booming investment climate; the Peruvian economy grew 12% last year, the highest 1994 growth rate of any country in the world. [NYT 1/31/95] Peru will hold general elections on Apr. 9, in which President Alberto Fujimori will try fo an unprecedented second consecutive term; Ecuador's next general elections are scheduled for May 1996. 7. HELMS FORCES OUT NOMINEE FOR US AMBASSADOR TO PANAMA The White House has withdrawn the name of Robert A. Pastor as the nominee for US ambassador to Panama after staff members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that committee chair Jesse Helms (R-NC) would use his powers to make sure the nomination was never put to a vote. "It's clear to me that after a year of having the embassy vacant and with so many important interests at stake that it would be wrong for me to involve myself in an indefinitely long process," said Pastor in a phone interview from Atlanta. "Therefore I asked the President not to resubmit my name and he agreed." As the chief National Security Council aide on Latin America under President Jimmy Carter, Pastor supported the Panama Canal Treaties, which mandate the return of the canal zone to Panamanian control by the end of the year 1999. Helms vehemently opposed the treaties. During a filibuster last September in which Helms blocked a vote by the Foreign Relations Committee on Pastor, Helms said Pastor "presided over one of the most disastrous and humiliating periods in the history of US involvement in Latin America." Helms also asserted that Pastor was partly responsible for what he indicated was a Carter administration cover-up of alleged involvement by Nicaragua's Sandinista government in arms shipments to leftist rebels in El Salvador. Pastor's nomination had wide support from Democrats and Republicans; his nomination passed a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote 16-3 and was expected to pass by a large margin if allowed to come to a vote in the full Senate. [New York Times 2/1/95] 8. SALVADORAN ANTI-DRUG POLICE ON STRIKE On Jan. 23, the entire Anti-Narcotics Division of El Salvador's newly inaugurated National Civilian Police (PNC) began an open- ended strike to demand the rehiring of 60 agents who were dismissed on Jan. 18. The 60 agents, including three subdirectors, were dismissed on the recommendation of the United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL), which supervises El Salvador's peace process. The Anti-Narcotics Division was created by simply transferring over the former Anti- Narcotics Unit from the defunct National Police through a December 22, 1992 agreement between the government and the leftist former rebel organization Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN). A July 15, 1994, evaluation of the PNC by ONUSAL found various irregularities in the transfer, including the incorporation of over 200 new agents into the anti- drug force after the signing of the agreement and prior to its relocation to the PNC; ONUSAL has recommended the dismissal of the agents who were incorporated during this time. Some 600 striking PNC agents threatened on Jan. 30 to burn the Anti-Narcotics Division's archives if their demands are not met. The strikers are demanding the removal of PNC director Rodrigo Avila, salary increases on a par with other PNC units, and exemption from Police Academy training courses. While one fired agent said they might be willing to accept severance pay, strike spokesperson Rene Escobar said "we will destroy the archives before we accept compensation." The strike is being supported by agents of the Criminal Investigation Division, the Forensic Laboratory and the Anti-Kidnapping Division, all of which are also made up of former National Police members. The strikers did not rule out joining the members of the Association of Demobilized Members of the Armed Forces of El Salvador (ADEFAES)- -who are continuing to promote violent takeovers [see Update #261]--in order to win support for their demands. [El Diario-La Prensa 1/31/95 from AFP; Proceso (El Salvador) #646, 1/25/95; El Salvador Information Project Summary of Concerns 1/21/95] 9. FIRST CIVILIAN POLICE FORCE INAUGURATED IN HONDURAS Honduras' first civilian police force, the Office of Criminal Investigation (DIC), was inaugurated on Jan. 23 to replace the military secret police disbanded last year for corruption and human rights violations it committed as the arm of the military specializing in torture. The 453 agents of the DIC will be overseen by the Public Ministry and trained by US and Israeli advisers, among others. DIC Director Wilfredo Alvarado said the force would be run in a professional manner, with complete respect for human rights and investigation methods based on modern scientific techniques. "I can guarantee the people that this body will introduce an era of full respect and justice in Honduras," said Alvarado, a psychiatrist. Speaking at the inauguration of the new offices, Honduran president Carlos Roberto Reina promised that the DIC was just the first step in the process of turning the entire police force over to civilians in order to return credibility to the nation's security forces. [Inter Press Service 1/23/95] In a mysterious incident on Jan. 28, a hand grenade exploded near President Reina as he inaugurated a tourism complex in the northern city of San Pedro Sula. Although one police commander hinted that the incident may have been intentional, Information Minister Juan Ramon Duran said it was "an incident in which the grenade fell from one of the guards making up the police squad." Two drivers from the presidential motorcade were injured in the explosion. [La Jornada (Mexico) 1/29/95 from AP, IPS, Reuter, EFE] 10. COLOMBIAN ARMY COLONEL FIRED FOR TORTURE Alirio Antonio Uruena, a colonel of the Colombian army, was fired from the armed forces on Feb. 1, the Justice Ministry announced. The Inter-American Human Rights Commission, the human rights investigative body of the Organization of American States (OAS), found Uruena guilty of ordering the murder of 107 campesinos in the town of Trujillo in southwestern Colombia between the years of 1989 and 1991. The request to dismiss Uruena came directly from President Ernesto Samper; the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that the armed forces would "obey and respect" the president's decision. The officer will now be the subject of a disciplinary investigation. According to the commission, Trujillo's residents were victims of torture, threats, illegal searches and arrests, and disappearances between 1989 and 1991. The dismembered bodies of the missing would often appear floating in the Cauca river in Valle department. A preliminary investigation dismissed the charges against Uruena and others and blamed the violence on a vendetta between drug dealers. The results of the second investigation by the Commission were handed over to Samper on Jan. 31. According to Defense Minister Fernando Botero, other military personnel were also implicated in the investigation. Uruena, who was an army major at the time, accused the victims of being guerrilla sympathizers and used blowtorches and electric saws to torture them. [ED-LP 2/2/95 from Notimex] 11. CUBAN BALSEROS SHIPPED BACK TO GUANTANAMO On Feb. 1, the US began sending groups of Cuban balseros--people who fled Cuba in rafts seeking to emigrate to the US--from "safe haven" camps in Panama to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As of Jan. 31, the Guantanamo base camp held 20,402 Cubans. The first group of 500 balseros was flown out on Feb. 1, and a second group of 500 left the next day. [Washington Post 2/2/95; WP 2/3/95 from Reuter] Another 500 balseros were sent from Panama to Guantanamo on Feb. 3, while 73 were sent from Panama to Miami the same day under the program of "humanitarian conditional freedom." [El Diario-La Prensa 2/5/95 from AP] Cuban Foreign Relations Ministry spokesperson Miguel Alfonso announced on Feb. 3 that the US will stick to its end of an immigration accord signed last September and will only admit "a minimum number" of balseros directly to the US for strictly humanitarian reasons. Alfonso called rumors that the US would accept all the balseros [see Update #261] "a clear manipulation." [DLA 2/4/95 from EFE] On Feb. 2, a US immigration judge granted political asylum to 19- year old Cuban soldier Leonel Macias, who is being sought by authorities in his country for murdering a Cuban navy lieutenant who tried to block him as he hijacked a military boat to leave Cuba last August. Macias said he left Cuba because friends had warned him that Cuban government agents were looking for him to kill him. [DLA 2/4/95 from EFE] Correction: In Update #261, we wrote that the balseros had fled Cuba "last fall." The heaviest wave of migration attempts began in mid-July and ended on Sept. 13. 12. CUBAN COUPLE MURDERED IN MIAMI Two Cuban astrologers, a husband and wife, were killed on the night of Feb. 1 in Miami inside a parked car near the radio station WCMQ, where Liliam Rosa Morad had just finished her regular astrology radio program. Morad and her husband, Manuel Ramirez, had planned to inaugurate a new astrology bookstore the next day. According to various media sources, in her projections for 1995 on her show, Morad had predicted that Fidel Castro would remain in power throughout the entire year. Police have ruled out robbery and suicide as a motive for the murder. The couple arrived in the US from Cuba six years ago and had a one-year old son. Morad had studied in the University of the Ukraine in Kiev, and in Vienna, Austria. Ramirez was an engineer and had worked in the former Czechoslovakia. [ED-LP 2/3/95 from EFE] 13. USAID, SOROS FUND AT WORK IN HAITI Graffiti have been appearing on walls in Port-au-Prince's huge Cite Soleil neighborhood promoting the candidacy of Reginald Boulos for mayor of Delmas, the northern sector of the capital. (The repeatedly postponed legislative and municipal elections are now scheduled for April.) Boulos is a doctor who heads the Centers for Development and Health, a healthcare network funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and reputed to employ FRAPH members [see Update #213]. Boulos is now rumored to be a favorite of Washington's for the December presidential race. [Inter Press Service 1/18/95] New York-based international financier George Soros has recently opened a foundation in Haiti. Soros, who has accumulated some $7 billion from the speculative ventures known as "hedge funds," maintains foundations throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to promote privatization and other "neoliberal" economic policies. The umbrella group for these foundations is headed by Aryeh Neier, former head of Human Rights Watch. [New Yorker 1/23/95] Neier still writes a regular column, "Watching Rights," for the left-liberal weekly Nation. He recently reported on the human rights situation in Haiti without mentioning his foundation connection. [Nation 2/6/95] 14. NEW TESTIMONY LINKS CIA TO CHILE/IRAQ ARMS DEALS Former National Security Council (NSC) official Howard Teicher filed an affidavit during the week of Jan. 31 asserting that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen sell sophisticated cluster bombs to Iraq in the mid-1980s. Teicher worked for the NSC from 1982 to 1987 as a main adviser on the Middle East. His affidavit was placed in the court record in a Miami conspiracy case against two executives of the Los Angeles company Teledyne. Teicher says he took notes at meetings with then-CIA director William Casey and his deputy director Robert Gates; he says the notes, now sealed in the archives of the Ronald Reagan presidential library in California, show the CIA "authorized, approved and assisted" Cardoen with the cluster bomb sales. Gates denied the allegations on Feb. 4. Casey died in 1987. Though Teledyne has pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a $13 million fine [see Update #261], a company lawyer said Teicher's affidavit might provide a basis for reconsidering the plea. The lawyer, William Linklater, said Teledyne might argue, as Cardoen did, that there can be no conspiracy to get around US export laws if the US government itself condoned the sales. [New York Times 2/5/95] 15. BANANA WORKERS SUE STANDARD FRUIT By the week of Jan. 23, more than 600 banana workers from the Nicaraguan region of Chinandega had filled out the legal documents necessary to include their cases in a class action suit against Standard Fruit Company demanding compensation for the effects of the insecticide Nemagon, used by Standard Fruit in Nicaragua until 1980. The symptoms caused by the insecticide include severe liver, kidney, lung and bone damage, as well as sterility. According to the Nicaraguan lawyers working on the case, the class action suit involves victims from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and the Philippines. It is expected that over 2,500 banana workers will eventually join in the suit. The lawyers say Standard Fruit Company continued to use the pesticide in these countries even though it had been banned for almost 30 years in the US because of its toxic effects. The workers are demanding $50,000 each in compensation. [Nicaragua Network (DC) Hotline 1/31/95] 16. UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. Update Volunteers Wanted: 1) To clip articles, file and do computer entry. Every Sat. 2-7 PM at 339 Lafayette (call first 212-674-9499). Fun for compulsive readers! 2) To work on radio newsfeed. Radio experience a plus. Leave a message (include evening phone number) at 212-674-9499. Colombian Human Rights and Nonviolence Training - March 31-April 6, 1995, in Washington, DC, Peace Brigades International sponsors a volunteer training for service on its Colombia human rights observation team. The training will be in Spanish; participants must complete an application beforehand. Contact John Lindsay- Poland, PBI Colombia, 1167 Hayes St. #2, San Francisco, CA 94117, (415) 864-7549. February 4 - April 28, New Native Film & Video, an ongoing free series. For a schedule, contact the Film & Video Center, George Gustav Heye Center, Nat'l Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Bowling Green, New York, NY 10004, 212- 825-6700, fax 212-825-8180. 2/9 THU, 12 Noon - Act-Out against the Bail-Out. At Goldman Sachs & Co., 85 Broad St, Manhattan. For info call CREED at 212-645- 5230 or 212-674-9499. 2/9 THU, 7:30 PM - Chico Ginu, Rubber Tapper Leader from Western Amazon. Amanaka'a Gallery, 584 Broadway, #904. Call for reservations 212-925-5299. 2/10 FRI, 7 PM - "Las Doce Sillas," 1962 film directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea. Spanish, no subtitles. At Viva Galeria, 445 W. 50th St. For info call 212-245-7131. 2/11 SAT, 3 PM - Rally/forum to save death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. At PS41, 116 W. 11th St (at 6th Ave). $5 suggested donation. For info call 212-406-4252 or 212-580-1022. 2/11 SAT, 7 PM - "Hasta Cierto Punto," 1983 Cuban film about machismo directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea. Spanish, no subtitles. Viva Galeria (see above). 2/12 SUN, 1-3 PM - Native Narrative: A Filmmakers' Conversation. W/speakers Randy Redroad, Chris Eyre, Deron Twohatchet. For location & contact info see New Native Film & Video listing. 2/12 SUN, 3 PM - Haiti Forum: Perspectives on the US Occupation. Part of national Haiti Week. DC 1707, AFSCME, 75 Varick St. Haiti Anti-Intervention Committee, 212-592-3612. 2/13 MON, 7:30 PM - CBS Tries the NY3. Paper Tiger video on the representation of the Black Panther Party in the CBS docudrama "Badge of the Assassin." Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) cable. Also Tue. 2/14, 8 pm, on BCAT; Wed. 2/15, 6:30 pm on BronxNet; Thu. 2/16, 4:30 pm on MNN. 2/15 WED, 7 PM - "La Muerte de un Burocrata," 1966 film directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea. With subtitles. Viva Galeria (see above). -- + 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 + >