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                WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                   ISSUE #268, MARCH 19, 1995

         NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
      339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499


     1. Venezuela Cracks Down on Suspected "Subversives"
     2. Venezuela Rounds Up and Deports Colombian Immigrants
     3. Death Squads Step Up Threats in Central Colombia
     4. Mexican Austerity Plan Gets Slow Start as Peso Plunges
     5. Mexico's Zedishock "More Explosive Than Chiapas"
     6. Peace in Southern Mexico, War on the Internet?
     7. Haiti: Peasant Group Member Murdered as Violence Spreads
     8. Latin American Nations Protest Nuclear Waste Shipment
     9. USAID Funding Cut to Nicaraguan Women's Group
    10. US & UN Send Mixed Signals on Guatemala Human Rights
    11. Guatemalans to Fight Far Right With Broad Coalition?
    12. Bolivian Dictator Finally Extradited From Brazil
    13. In Other News: Colombia, Dominican Republic & Peru
    14. Upcoming Events in the New York Area & Beyond


ISSN#: 1068-5332. These updates are published weekly. A one-year
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1. VENEZUELA CRACKS DOWN ON SUSPECTED "SUBVERSIVES"

Venezuela's political police arrested 150 people in more than 100
raids conducted Mar. 15 and 16 in at least four cities--Caracas,
Maracaibo, Valencia and Cumana--Interior Minister Ramon Escovar
announced on Mar. 16. Escovar ordered the raids on Mar. 14 to end
alleged subversive plans by students and revolutionaries to
destabilize public order. [Financial Times (UK) 3/16/95; New York
Times 3/16/95; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/17/95 from Notimex]
Political police director Rafael Rivas Ostos told reporters that
those arrested were planning for a wave of street protests
culminating in a violent social explosion similar to the February
1989 street riots against economic austerity measures in Caracas
that left at least 300 dead, known as the "caracazo." [Reuter
3/14/95] [The police subsequently released 40 of the people who
were arrested in the sweeps because no proof was found of their
participation in the alleged destabilization plot. [Diario Las
Americas 3/18/95 from EFE]]

Among the arrested were retired military officers, university
students and even a former featherweight boxing champion, Antonio
Esparragoza. The 15 retired military officers arrested were part
of the populist Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement (MBR-200),
which carried out two unsuccessful coup attempts in 1992 against
the government of then-president Carlos Andres Perez. Police say
they have now dismantled the MBR-200's civilian-military
structure. [FT 3/16/95; ED-LP 3/17/95 from Notimex; Reuter
3/14/95]

According to the Latin American edition of the Spanish magazine
Cambio 16, Colombian officials suspect MBR-200 of collaborating
with the Colombian rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN),
who killed eight Venezuelan marines in a Feb. 26 attack on a
military border post [see Update #267]. Retired Lt. Col. Hugo
Chavez Frias, leader of the MBR-200, has denied the accusations
of arms-trafficking leveled in the magazine. [Reuter 3/14/95]

After the raids were made public, Chavez openly challenged
President Rafael Caldera to arrest him, "to see who lasts longer:
I as a prisoner or you in the presidential palace." The police
did not arrest Chavez, though they arrested his brother Adan
Chavez Frias, a university professor. [FT 3/16/95; NYT 3/16/95;
ED-LP 3/17/95 from Notimex]

President Caldera's popularity has been dropping in recent weeks.
While he held a 60% approval rating during most of his first year
in office, the president's performance is now judged "bad" by 47%
of respondents to one poll; in another recent poll, his economic
policies were termed "not successful" by 72% of respondents. [NYT
3/16/95]

On Mar. 16 about a thousand students, unionists, pensioners and
activists held a peaceful protest march in Caracas against the
government crackdown and police abuses, demanding the release of
those arrested and respect for human rights. The demonstrators
also demanded that the government restore the constitutional
rights it suspended last June [see Update #231]. Student leader
Leonardo Molina, president of the Federation of University
Centers of Venezuela, said that many people did not attend the
march for fear of police repression. [ED-LP 3/17/95 from Notimex]
[The Support Network for Justice and Peace, a Venezuelan human
rights group, reported recently that police and military forces
killed 32 people and tortured 79 others in January, double the
rate of January 1994. [NYT 3/16/95]]

2. VENEZUELA ROUNDS UP AND DEPORTS COLOMBIAN IMMIGRANTS

During the week of Mar. 13, while the police were conducting
sweeps against suspected "subversives," Venezuelan soldiers
rounded up about 1,000 undocumented Colombian immigrants, burned
some of their houses and crops, and deported them to Colombia.
The move was in retaliation for the Feb. 26 attack by Colombian
guerrillas on a Venezuelan border post. [NYT 3/18/95]

Some Colombians left Venezuela voluntarily to avoid losing their
belongings in the deportation raids. One of those forcibly
deported, farmworker Carlos Arturo Garcia, said in a radio
interview that after the Venezuelan army seized him and other
Colombians, "they put us in a hole all day in the sun and without
water, and the next day they took us in a helicopter to the
border." He added, "They put a machete at my wife's throat to
make her talk, because they told us that we were accomplices of
the guerrillas." The Colombian government has asked Venezuela's
foreign ministry to allow the participation of Colombian consular
officials in the deportation roundups in order to protect the
human rights of the deportees. As of Mar. 16, the Venezuelan
government had not responded to the request. [ED-LP 3/17/95 from
AP]

On Mar. 15 President Caldera declared the border area "a theater
of operations" and airlifted 5,000 troops there. The Colombian
government has increased its own military presence on the border
to 6,200 soldiers. According to Venezuelan government
spokesperson Guillermo Alvarez Bajares, Colombian guerrillas have
attacked Venezuela's military installations about 50 times over
the past 10 years.

Some observers are hinting at the potential of a border war like
the one going on between Ecuador and Peru. Others argue that
Venezuela is using old problems--the 1.5 million undocumented
Colombian immigrants in Venezuela and the cross-border attacks by
Colombian guerrillas--to stir up nationalism and distract
Venezuelans from their country's current economic and social
crisis. In January, well before the guerrillas' border attack,
the Venezuelan government started a campaign to encourage
patriotism, airing television commercials with slogans like
"Venezuela is mine" and printing up two million paper flags. [NYT
3/18/95]

3. DEATH SQUADS STEP UP THREATS IN CENTRAL COLOMBIA

Jorge Enrique Tenorio Lobio, the mayor of El Castillo in the
central Colombian department of Meta, has been threatened with
death by local paramilitary organizations, who have placed a
bounty of five million pesos ($5,900) on his head. Tenorio is one
of very few surviving mayors from the leftist Patriotic Union
(UP) party. Since its formation in 1985, some 2,500 active
members of the UP, including many candidates and elected
officials, have been murdered. The previous two mayors of El
Castillo, William Ocampo Castano and Maria Mercedes Mendez de
Garcia, were also assassinated.

Between Dec. 17 and Jan. 23 of this year, 16 people have been
murdered or disappeared in the department of Meta, 12 apparently
by death squads or the army and four by guerrillas. Local
emerald-mining mogul Victor Carranza is thought to be behind much
of the paramilitary violence in Meta; the "Black Serpent" death
squad is believed to be financed by him. Carranza, who has
considerable power over the emerald-mining region just north in
Boyaca department, is apparently trying to gain control over
mining areas in Meta; on the pretext of "cleaning up the
subversives" Carranza is using paramilitary groups to force
peasants off their land, which he can then take over for mining.
[Colombia Support Network Urgent Action 3/11/95, based on a
report by a Witness for Peace Delegation which visited El
Castillo on 1/31/95]

On Mar. 15, a death threat was received by the Civic Human Rights
Committee of Meta, based in the departmental capital
Villavicencio. The threat was left on the answering machine of
the Committee, which works with other local non-governmental
organizations to report human rights violations and assist
families who have been displaced from their homes and villages.

In recent months, there has been an upsurge in military and
paramilitary activity in the Ariari region, south of
Villavicencio, where there is a strong guerrilla presence.
Civilians living in areas where guerrilla forces are active have
been subjected to serious human rights violations, such as
extrajudicial execution and "disappearance" by the security
forces and paramilitary groups. The "Black Serpent" paramilitary
group has openly threatened residents of the town of Medellin de
Ariari with annihilation. As a result, an increasing number of
civilians have fled the area for Villavicencio. Direct threats
and intimidation against Committee members and others working
with these displaced families have increased to such a degree
that there is very serious concern for their safety. [Amnesty
International Urgent Action 3/16/95]

Supporters of human rights are urged to contact President Ernesto
Samper Pizano (fax #011-571-286-3066) and Defense Minister
Fernando Botero Zea (fax# 011-571-222-1874), demanding protection
for Mayor Tenorio and human rights workers in Meta, and the
immediate disarming of the "Black Serpent" ("Serpiente Negra")
paramilitary group. Please send copies to the Colombia Support
Network at fax# 608-255-6621.

4. MEXICAN AUSTERITY PLAN GETS SLOW START AS PESO PLUNGES

Mexican finance secretary Guillermo Ortiz Martinez visited New
York on Mar. 14 to explain his government's new austerity plan to
some 70 or 80 Wall Street financiers with large investments in
Mexico. The plan, announced on Mar. 9, slashes government
programs, raises gasoline prices and the sales tax, and allows
for 42% inflation while granting a basic wage increase of just
10%; the government projects that the measures will cause a sharp
recession with a 2% negative growth rate. Ortiz told investors
that the goal is to cut Mexico's current-account deficit
(composed mostly of the trade deficit and payments on foreign
loans) to $2.4 billion, down from the $14.1 billion Ortiz
projected in January; last year's deficit was $29.4 billion. The
difference is to come from a trade surplus--a 27% jump in exports
and a 12% decline in imports. The British Financial Times gave
Ortiz's presentation a qualified endorsement: "The schedule is
tough, but not impossible." [FT 3/15/95; New York Times 3/15/95;
Wall Street Journal 3/15/95]

The Mexican government is counting on the 50% fall in the peso's
value to let Mexican companies undersell competitors on the world
market. In February the country reported a $452 million trade
surplus, the first since 1990 and the highest since 1988. But
many foreign investors are skeptical about prospects for a big
increase in exports. As the Wall Street Journal notes: "Despite
huge inflows of foreign investment during the past six years,
when Mexico seemed to be a model for emerging economies
everywhere, surprisingly little money found its way into the
infrastructure projects and machinery that make companies
globally competitive." The plan's increased taxes and high
interest rates will in fact keep many potential exporters from
expanding production to take advantage of export opportunities.
[WSJ 3/16/95] The interbank interest rate, the guide for many
consumer and business loans, has now reached an amazing 110%.
[NYT 3/16/95]

Investors were apparently not satisfied with Ortiz's assurances.
On Mar. 15 the rate for Mexico's two-week treasury certificates
(the first offered since 1989) was 92.5%; rates for one-month
treasury bills jumped to 82.38% the same day. The peso dropped as
low as 7.3 to the US dollar, closing at 6.95. [NYT 3/16/95; WSJ
3/16/95] On Mar. 17 the dollar itself fell to 89.06 Japanese yen,
another record low. [NYT 3/18/95] The US-trained architect of
Mexico's economic policy since 1988, former president Carlos
Salinas de Gortari, left Mexico for de facto exile in New York
City on Mar. 10, reportedly at the request of his successor,
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. [La Jornada (Mexico) 3/12/95]

5. MEXICO'S ZEDISHOCK "MORE EXPLOSIVE THAN CHIAPAS"

The Mexican Chamber of Deputies approved President Zedillo's
austerity plan on Mar. 17 after a bitter 10-hour debate. [NYT
3/19/95 from AP] There was even opposition from within the ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has an
overwhelming majority in the Congress. [Los Angeles Times
3/17/95] Fidel Velazquez, the conservative head of the PRI-
dominated Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM), told the daily
Excelsior that the measures were "authoritarian" and would cause
"more unemployment...perhaps even the demise of labor unions."
[Associated Press 3/11/95]

The small business sector that makes up much of the PRI's base is
furious. In the southern state of Chiapas, a committee of
shopkeepers declared a two-year moratorium on the payment of a
total past-due debt of some $70 million. [LJ 3/12/95] A
nationwide debtors' strike on Mar. 16 shut down 874 bank
branches; this was headed by El Barzon, a large organization of
small and medium farmers and other producers calling for a
moratorium on both domestic and foreign debt [see Update #267].
[Independent (UK) 3/18/95; Washington Post 3/18/95] "We are
members of the chamber of commerce, not your traditional
leftists," El Barzon's Mexico City coordinator, Alfonso Ramirez,
told the Washington Post. "But I tell you this, this problem is
more explosive than Chiapas"--site of a year-long rebellion by
indigenous campesinos--"and the protests will be more serious and
widespread." [WP 3/17/95]

Many different sectors are protesting on many different issues.
As of Mar. 12 more than 2,000 protesters were marching to Mexico
City from Guerrero state with the slogan: "Mexico, never again
without us!" The Guerrero 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance
sponsored the march, which included Nahuas, Amuzgos, Tlapanecos,
Chatinos and Mexicans of African descent. Meanwhile, indigenous
people from Chiapas were continuing their sitin in the capital's
main plaza. [LJ 3/12/95] The National Coordination of Coffee
Producers' Organizations (CNOC) is calling for mobilizations in
10 states; the 65,000 members demand restructuring of Mexico's
coffee industry, a peaceful solution in Chiapas and a rejection
of the economic plan. [CNOC press release 3/15/95] On Mar. 12 the
National Student Convention (CNE) met in the Che Guevara
Auditorium of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
in Mexico City to consider a possible national student strike; 80
delegates from 15 states attended. [LJ 3/12/95]

What role labor might take is unclear. As the Financial Times
remarked, "the fear of unemployment is likely to dampen demands
for greater wage increases." [FT 3/11/95] Bertha Lujan of the
Authentic Workers Front (FAT), an independent union group, writes
that wage demands can't be the response to what she calls
"Zedishock"--a reference to the "Fujishock" of Peruvian president
Alberto Fujimori's 1990 austerity program. The pro-government CTM
would probably oppose such demands, she notes; the most important
contracts for the year were already renewed in the first two
months of the year, and many smaller business are now genuinely
unable to pay. "The problem is more basic," she writes. "The
people and their organizations are constructing [the
alternatives] in theory and practice, and these are the ones that
will have to be imposed in the country sooner or later." [LJ
3/12/95]

There are a number of alternative economic plans from various
organizations, including a group of prominent economists and the
Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC). All call for
renegotiation of the foreign debt and for development financing
focused on the domestic market. [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol.
2, #22 3/14/95] [The center-left Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) issued a similar plan on Feb. 21; see Update
#265.] But US journalist John Ross warns that the PRI "old
guard...along with hardliners in the military and the disaffected
landowners (such as those in Chiapas)...could seize power to
reestablish 'order.'" This "will inevitably meet with a growing
resistance that could open the floodgates to widespread violence
and even civil war." [San Francisco Bay Guardian 3/8/95]

6. PEACE IN SOUTHERN MEXICO, WAR ON THE INTERNET?

The Mexican government is working to give at least the appearance
of renewed negotiations with the rebel Zapatista National
Liberation Army (EZLN) in Chiapas. After Congress passed a law
granting limited amnesty to the rebels, the government announced
on Mar. 14 that the military would withdraw from the towns it
occupied during a new offensive last month. An EZLN communique
dated Mar. 11 and released Mar. 17 accepted the possibility of a
renewed exchange of notes but insisted on full withdrawal of the
military before face-to-face talks resume. The official
mediators, the National Mediation Commission (CONAI) noted on
Mar. 16 that the Mexican army "remains in its positions in the
zone of conflict in Chiapas and up until the present we have not
seen that they have withdrawn from a single roadblock." [El
Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/17/95 from AFP, 3/19/95 from combined
services; NYT 3/19/95]

But even if peace comes to Chiapas, David Ronfeldt of the
California-base RAND Corporation is concerned that the Mexican
opposition may work through the Internet computer network to make
the country ungovernable. He warns that activists, terrorists and
drug cartels are using telecommunications throughout the world to
wage what he calls "netwar." "The country that produced the
prototype social revolution of the 20th century [the Mexican
Revolution of 1910-17] may now be giving rise to the prototype
social netwar of the 21st century," Ronfeldt warns. [Pacific News
Service posted on New York Transfer 3/18/95] [The RAND is a think
tank with connections to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).]
In an article on Internet use by rightwing racist and antisemitic
groups in the US, the New York Times quotes a Mar. 10 statement
by US vice president Al Gore: "We have established principles in
this country that define what is protected speech and what is
not, and there are technological ways being developed to protect
people from receiving provocative and hate speech over computer
networks." [NYT 3/13/95]

Correction: Update #266 item 2 cited Update #2521 on the Ruiz
Massieu assassination case. The correct reference is Update #251.

7. HAITI: PEASANT GROUP MEMBER MURDERED AS VIOLENCE SPREADS

On Mar. 1 Faudner Simon, a driver for Haiti's Peasant Movement of
Papaye (MPP), was shot twice on the Delmas highway near Port-au-
Prince as he drove home after dropping off a US delegation he had
picked up at the airport. Nothing was stolen, indicating that the
motive was political. Simon died later at the hospital. The MPP,
the country's largest peasant organization, said in a Mar. 3
press release that the killing was "a clear warning... This
cowardly murder...shows clearly that the Macoute [rightwing
paramilitary] forces are not interested in reconciliation. On the
contrary, they continue to kill, intimidate, terrorize...." [The
attack came two weeks after a raid by six Green Berets on the MPP
headquarters; see Update #266.]

Simon's murder was one of nine in the first week of March. On
Mar. 2 a car drove into a group of youths in Port-au-Prince's
Bel-Air neighborhood, killing five and wounding 10. Many say that
the driver was a man who used to drive for Louis Jodel Chamblain,
one of the leaders of the Front for the Advancement and Progress
of Haiti (FRAPH), a rightwing paramilitary group. On Mar. 3
former deputy Eric Lamothe was gunned down in Port-au-Prince.
Lamothe, who was planning to run for Senate in the June 4
elections, was voted in with the same electoral coalition as
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990 but later supported the
anti-Aristide forces. The other two murders were apparently
common crimes, but Haitians feel that most crimes are now
committed by former members of the military or of paramilitary
groups.

The neighborhood self-defense groups known as "vigilance
brigades" have grown along with the violence. The Aristide
government and even the US occupying forces have to some extent
encouraged the brigades, while trying to maintain control over
them. In several cases the brigades have lynched people they
arrested; generally, they turn the suspects over to the US forces
or the interim police, who soon let them go for lack of evidence.
On Feb. 25 the government made a show of issuing arrest warrants
for several prominent rightists, including former Tontons Macoute
leader and Port-au-Prince mayor Franck Romain; Gen. Williams
Regala, who allegedly orchestrated the murder of 30 voters in the
1987 elections; and Dieumaitre Lucas, a landowner implicated in
the 1987 massacre of 130 peasants in Jean Rabel. Romain and
Regala were tipped off and escaped the country. [Haiti Progres
(NY) 3/8-14/95, 3/15-21/95; Haiti Info (Port-au-Prince) Vol. 3,
#11, 3/11/95]

The Haitian government is also seeking the extradition of FRAPH
leader Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant from the US. [New York Times
3/16/95 from Reuter] [Constant, who says he was a paid informer
for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was legally admitted
to the US in December; see Update #264]. Father Daniel Roussiere
of the Gonaives branch of Peace and Justice, the Catholic
church's human rights group, suggests that the US is purposely
allowing instability to continue in order to "keep the democratic
sector from coming out into the open too fast." [Haiti Info
3/11/95]

US president Bill Clinton plans to give Haiti a brief visit of
seven or eight hours on Mar. 31, the day the military occupation
is officially turned over to the UN. [HP 3/15-21/95] On Mar. 11
Clinton nominated Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch to be
central intelligence director, and later announced that the new
CIA director would have a position in the cabinet. Sen. Richard
Lugar (R-IN) noted that the last CIA head to sit on the cabinet
was William Casey in the Reagan administration. Lugar said that
in creating the cabinet post Reagan had made "a mistake that
contributed to the Iran-contra disaster." [Washington Post
3/15/95] Deutch is said to have been one of the main planners of
the US occupation of Haiti last September. [HP 3/15-21/95]

Correction: In one sentence Update #266 item 10 gave the last
name of a US Army captain facing court martial at Ft. Drum, New
York, as Lockwood. His name is Rockwood, as it appeared elsewhere
in the item.

8. LATIN AMERICAN NATIONS PROTEST NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT

The Uruguayan government announced on Mar. 13 that it will not
authorize the transit of the British merchant ship "Pacific
Pintail" through its territorial waters. The ship is transporting
14 tons of radioactive plutonium waste from France to Japan [see
Update #260]. A Foreign Relations Ministry communique claims that
Japanese diplomatic authorities had given "assurances that the
mentioned transport will take routes situated outside the areas
of national jurisdiction and that the navigation will be subject
to the maximum existing security conditions." Previously, Defense
Minister Raul Ituria had told the press that his government was
working with Argentina and Brazil to block the ship's entry into
the South Atlantic zone. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/14/95 from AP]

Ecuador and Chile recently joined Caribbean and Central American
nations in their agreement to block the Pacific Pintail's passage
through their region and the Panama Canal. [Inter Press Service
3/11/95] On Mar. 9, Chile's Chamber of Deputies unanimously
passed a resolution urging the Chilean government to prohibit the
passage of the Pacific Pintail through Chilean territorial
waters. The Pacific Pintail is now navigating international
waters near the Brazilian coast in an apparent attempt to reach
the Pacific around Cape Horn at the southern tip of the American
continent. A motor boat of the international environmental
organization Greenpeace follows close behind at a distance of 2.5
miles, reporting regularly on the nuclear ship's course. [CHIP
News 3/10/95, 3/15/95; La Jornada 3/12/95 from AFP]

9. USAID FUNDING CUT TO NICARAGUAN WOMEN'S GROUP

Bowing to pressures from Senator Jesse Helms in the US and the
rightwing Catholic organization Opus Dei in Nicaragua, the US
Agency for International Development (USAID) has suspended funds
for Ixchen, a Nicaraguan non-governmental organization that has
been offering alternative health services for low-income women
since 1989. Ixchen has nine clinics throughout Nicaragua; the new
AID funding would have allowed Ixchen to expand into 22 rural
areas where communities had already started to organize basic
gynecological services and health training to prevent cancer and
sexually-transmitted diseases.

The USAID cutoff was prompted by rightwing accusations that
Ixchen has been performing abortions, in violation of Nicaraguan
law. Ixchen director Dr. Maria Lourdes Bolanos insisted that
Ixchen is respecting Nicaraguan laws, and said AID has no proof
of the charges. Bolanos explained that because of the abortion
rumors, USAID had put several conditions in the aid contract that
were unacceptable to her organization. She insisted that the
attacks on Ixchen are part of a global campaign by organizations
like Opus Dei to weaken and destroy women's rights movements.
Sources say that President Chamorro could have decided to stand
up for the program and chose not to do so. [Nicaragua Network
(DC) Hotline 2/27/95]

The Nicaraguan government has announced it will investigate
accusations by the daily La Tribuna that illegal abortions are
being performed at the privately-run Ixchen and Si Mujer women's
healthcare centers. La Tribuna carried a front-page expose by a
journalist who visited both centers, presenting herself as
"desperate" because of an unwanted pregnancy. In both facilities,
she says she was offered an abortion on the premises. La Tribuna
also published a testimonial by a woman who terminated her
pregnancy at Ixchen. [Barricada Internacional #382, 2/95]

10. US & UN SEND MIXED SIGNALS ON GUATEMALA HUMAN RIGHTS

Several hundred people gathered at a rally on Mar. 12 in
Washington DC's Lafayette Park, across from the White House, to
draw US attention to human rights abuses in Guatemala. US lawyer
Jennifer Harbury was there on the first day of a renewed hunger
strike to press the Guatemalan government for information about
her husband, guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez of the
Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union. [Reuter 3/12/95]

On Mar. 10, the US government said it was suspending the last of
its military aid to Guatemala--a training program for Guatemalan
military officers in the US worth around $200,000--because of the
Guatemalan government's lack of progress in investigating several
human rights cases involving US citizens [see Update #267].
Officials have also suggested that "Strong Roads," an $18 million
series of US military construction exercises to improve
Guatemalan highways, will not be renewed once it expires in June.
Referring to an upsurge in guerrilla attacks on economic targets
and kidnappings for ransom, the US Embassy in Guatemala said the
US government will block entry visas for members of the URNG high
command, except visits to attend peace negotiations where their
presence is requested by the United Nations mediator. [San
Francisco Chronicle 3/11/95; Reuter 3/12/95; El Diario-La Prensa
3/13/95 from AP; Inter Press Service 3/10/95]

The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) voted unanimously on Mar.
3 to keep Guatemala in category 21 of its human rights scale. The
decision means UN human rights expert Monica Pinto will continue
to monitor the country and make recommendations on improving its
human rights record--and Guatemala will not receive UN
condemnation as a systematic abuser of human rights. The vote
took place less than an hour after President Ramiro de Leon
Carpio addressed the UNHRC in defense of his government. De Leon
later said he was satisfied with the Commission's decision,
although he did not agree with its recommendations to disband the
paramilitary Civil Defense Patrols (PAC). Other UNHRC
recommendations included the elimination of military
commissioners; the demilitarization of the police forces; and a
ceasefire as soon as possible. For the last 17 years, Guatemala
has come under UNHRC scrutiny annually for its high level of
human rights violations. For years human rights groups have
unsuccessfully called on the commission to place Guatemala under
category 12, which results in UN condemnation for systematic
abuses. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #9, 3/7/95]

Just ten days later, on Mar. 13 the UN observer mission in
Guatemala (MINUGUA) released its first report, condemning
widespread involvement of security forces in human rights
violations and the failure of the Guatemalan government to
prosecute these crimes. "The mission has established the
existence of a high and persistent number of serious human rights
violations, almost all of which have been left unanswered by the
relevant authorities," said MINUGUA director Leonardo Franco.
MINUGUA began operations last November; its mandate is to verify
observance of a human rights accord between the government and
the leftist guerrillas. The MINUGUA report's most serious
criticism of the rebels was for their attacks on electricity
pylons. [Financial Times (UK) 3/15/95; El Diario-La Prensa
3/14/95 from AP]

Meanwhile, grassroots groups are criticizing what they call
MINUGUA's passive and subdued stance in the midst of continued
militarization, human rights violations and land conflicts. On
Mar. 6, a caravan of 150 delegates from the National Widows
Coordination (CONAVIGUA), the Communities of Population in
Resistance (CPR) of the Sierra, and the Mayan Defense Committee
left Quiche province for the capital on a march against army
control of their Ixil communities. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #9,
3/7/95]

11. GUATEMALANS TO FIGHT FAR RIGHT WITH BROAD COALITION?

Guatemalans from diverse groups are planning to join forces to
stop the extreme right in the national elections coming up this
November. At a forum sponsored by the Mutual Support Group for
Families of the Disappeared (GAM), daily La Hora owner Oscar
Clemente Marroquin Godoy called the formation of a progressive
front "workable and absolutely necessary." Other supporters of a
progressive political front included Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen,
general secretary of the National Advancement Party (PAN); Helen
Mack Chang, sister of slain anthropologist Myrna Mack; former
University of San Carlos president Alfonso Fuentes Soria; former
congressperson Victor Hugo Godoy; and Dionisio Gutierrez,
director of the TV program "Free Encounter." [Cerigua Weekly
Briefs #8, 2/28/95; Noticias de Guatemala Informacion Semanal
2/27/95-3/3/95 from Prensa Latina]

12. BOLIVIAN DICTATOR FINALLY EXTRADITED FROM BRAZIL

Former Bolivian dictator Luis Garcia Meza arrived in the capital
La Paz on Mar. 15--"looking thin and annoyed," according to the
British Financial Times--after being extradited from Brazil to
serve a 30-year prison sentence at Chonchocoro maximum security
prison. Before leaving Brazil, the 63-year old said he would live
to "see the bodies of my enemies go by" from his jail cell. "I'm
being used as a scapegoat to whitewash and conceal all that is
being done [in Bolivia] under democracy," said the ex-dictator.
In July of 1980, Garcia Meza overthrew constitutional president
Lydia Gueiler Tejada in a bloody coup that involved the murders
of numerous opposition leaders. He left Bolivia a year later, in
August of 1981, when he was himself overthrown in a coup. Garcia
Meza was tried and sentenced in absentia in 1993; he remained a
fugitive from 1989 until his arrest on Mar. 11, 1994, in Sao
Paulo. [FT 3/16/95; El Diario-La Prensa 3/16/95 from AP]

13. IN OTHER NEWS...

Colombia's state hospital system was disrupted on Mar. 14 when
doctors began a 48-hour strike for better wages. The strike was
not fully observed due to internal differences between the unions
that represent Colombia's 91,000 state doctors. In most state
hospitals only emergency services were provided, although
according to Health Minister Alfonso Gomez only 20% of the state's
hospital sector was affected by the strike. [ED-LP 3/15/95].

Some 8,500 nurses in the Dominican Republic began a 48-hour strike
on Mar. 13, leaving the country's hospitals with emergency
services only. The strike was organized by four national nursing
unions which said they were tired of waiting for the government to
solve their few simple requests, including health insurance,
salary raises, and help with acquiring state- constructed housing.
Graduated nurses currently have a monthly salary of about $185,
while nurses' aides make about $152 a month. [ED-LP 3/14/95].

Several supporters of the Peruvian Maoist guerrilla organization
Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path, officially called the Peruvian
Communist Party) interrupted Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori
after he addressed international investors in New York City on
Mar. 14. Holding up a protest banner and demanding the release of
jailed Sendero leader Abimael Guzman, the protesters called
Fujimori a "puppet of the United States" and accused him of
"benefiting from the blood of Peru." The protesters were shouted
down by members of the audience and escorted away by hotel
security. Fujimori said he was sorry the protesters were taken
away because he would have liked to speak with them. He said
Guzman, who was captured by police in Lima in 1993, will never be
released from prison. "Be sure that Abimael Guzman... will stay in
jail and die in jail," said Fujimori. [Reuter 3/14/95]

14. UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE NEW YORK AREA & BEYOND

For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are
not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network.

Human Rights & Displaced People in Colombia - June 30-July 11,
Peace Brigades International sponsors a delegation to Colombia,
focusing on the hemisphere's worst human rights crisis,
communities displaced by political violence, and positive
initiatives for change. $1350 covers airfare from Miami, food,
lodging, translation and transport within Colombia. Contact
Natalia Lopez, 186 Bonview St, San Francisco, CA 94110, (415)
282-6941.

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.

Work Brigade to Nicaragua - July 1-22, 1995. Hard work, simple
food, rich rewards. NICCA, 2140 Shattuck Avenue, Box 2063,
Berkeley, CA 94704. 510-832-4959.

3/23 THU, Noon - Student Strike Aginst the Cuts, rally. City
Hall. CUNY Coalition Against the Cuts 212-642-2549.

3/23 THU, 7 PM - CREED meeting. 339 Lafayette St, #11.
212-674-9499.

3/26 SUN, 1 PM - "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it,"
seminar series. Lesbian & Gay Center 208 W 13th St. $4 per
session. Freedom Socialist Party 212-677-7002.

3/24 FRI, 8:30 - Join Newt Gingrich for Breakfast! NY Hilton, 6th
Ave & W 53rd St. ACT UP 212-564-AIDS.

3/24 FRI-3/30 THU - In Washington: "A Time to Speak," 7-day
liquid only fast to protest US Army School of the Americas (SOA).
East steps of Capitol. Call SOA Watch 706-682-5369.

3/25 SAT, 1 PM - "Radical Chelsea" Walking Tour. Meet at Chelsea
Hotel, W 23rd St (bet. 7th &  8th Aves). $6. 718-492-0069.

3/29 WED, 4 PM - "Prisoners of Colonialism: the Struggle for
Justice in Puerto Rico" w/Ronald Fernandez. Hunter College West
Bldg, E 68th St & Lexington Ave.


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