WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #277, MAY 21, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. President Reelected in Argentina 2. Identities of CIA Guatemala Station Chiefs Revealed 3. US Cubans Protest Immigration Policy 4. US Pushes For 7,000 Haitian Cops 5. Haiti: Constant, Rockwood, "Future Interventions" 6. Mexican Rebels and Government Agree to "Minimum Agreement" 7. Mexico: Guanajuato, Yucatan, Mexico City Elections 8. Natural Born Killers in Mexican Elite 9. Nicaragua: Strikers and Police Clash, Three Killed 10. Workers March Against Tax Increase in El Salvador 11. Brazilian Oil Workers Strike Against Privatization 12. FBI Still Spies on Activists 13. In Other News: Puerto Rico, Colombia, Paraguay, Cuba 14. 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, 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. PRESIDENT REELECTED IN ARGENTINA President Carlos Saul Menem won reelection by a wide margin in Argentina's general elections on May 14, avoiding a runoff against his closest opponent. With 98.48% of the votes counted Menem had 49.9%, even higher than the 47% he won in 1989. Center- left coalition candidate Jose Octavio Bordon was in second place with 29.25%, and Horacio Massaccesi of the Radical Civic Union (UCR) had 16.97%, his party's worst showing since 1916. Former military officer Aldo Rico of the rightwing MODIN party was in fourth place with 1.77%, and each of the other 10 presidential candidates--including leftist filmmaker Fernando "Pino" Solanas [see Update #266]--won less than 0.5% of the vote. A joint session of Congress will ratify the election results on June 1, and Menem's new four-year term will begin July 8. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 5/19/95 from Notimex, Associated Press, Reuter, Agence France-Presse; Inter Press Service 5/15/95] Only in the capital district did Bordon manage to defeat Menem-- and then only narrowly. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/16/95 from AP] The still unofficial count indicates that Menem's party, the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, will have 135 of the 257 seats in the lower house of Congress, up from 125. Bordon's center-left coalition FREPASO and the parties that backed it will have 26 seats (up from 13), while the UCR lost seats but retained its position as the largest opposition force with 69 seats (down from 83). The 28 seats remaining will be held by smaller parties. Legislators and provincial officials take office on Dec. 10. [LADB Notisur 5/19/95 from Notimex, AP, Reuter, AFP; IPS 5/15/95] There was no change in the Senate, which was already controlled by the Peronists. [ED-LP 5/16/95 from AP] The Peronists took nine of the 14 provincial governorships at stake in these elections, and the UCR took the remaining five. Menem's former running mate, Eduardo Duhalde, was reelected as governor of Buenos Aires province with 52% of the vote. Duhalde is considered a prime candidate to head the Peronista presidential ticket in 1999. On May 17, Bordon and his running mate Carlos "Chacho" Alvarez announced the transformation of FREPASO into a confederation with a unified political platform and leadership. Bordon explained the need for a "permanent political structure, not just an election alliance, which FREPASO has been until now." The confederation will give FREPASO the third largest congressional bloc when the new legislature convenes. FREPASO's next challenge at the polls will be the race for mayor (intendente) of Buenos Aires, which for the first time will be decided by direct vote. Those elections will be held before the end of the year. Election analysts said that while Menem's supporters focused on economic issues, much of FREPASO's support was a protest against Menem's disdain for Congress, his lack of social policy, and alleged corruption. Since taking office in 1989, Menem has often bypassed Congress, issuing 335 emergency decrees compared with a total of 23 decrees issued by democratically elected presidents during the previous 146 years. In addition, Menem vetoed more than 10% of the bills passed by Congress. According to Bordon, Menem appealed to voters' fear of losing economic and social stability. "When Menem realized last month he could face a runoff, he said: 'It's me or chaos,'" explained Bordon, adding, "I have to admit this tactic gave the government good results." [LADB Notisur 5/19/95 from Notimex, AP, Reuter, AFP] There were some charges of fraud and irregularities in the elections, such as a lack of FREPASO and UCR ballots, dirty and crumpled FREPASO and UCR ballots, delays in the opening of polling places, a lack of voting officials, and the ejection of FREPASO's party observers from polling sites. [La Jornada (Mexico) 5/15/95, electronic version] 2. IDENTITIES OF CIA GUATEMALA STATION CHIEFS REVEALED The CIA station chief in Guatemala who was removed in February for failing to pass on information about the CIA's ties to Guatemalan Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez [see Update #269] had been on probation since the previous May for withholding information about human rights abuses committed by the Guatemalan army. According to the New York Times, in April 1994 the deputy chief of station reported to the Latin American division chief that there had been "a possible suppression by the chief of station of a report concerning human rights violations by the military." He also reportedly failed to warn Ambassador Marilyn McAfee about a Guatemalan army plot to destroy her reputation with false and scurrilous allegations. [NYT 4/25/95] Though the New York Times did not identify him, that station chief was Dan Donahue, who held the post from 1993 to 1995. The names of all the CIA's Guatemala station chiefs from 1977 to the current year have been published in an article by investigative journalist Allan Nairn in the latest issue of The Nation. Nairn was able to identify the nine station chiefs "through interviews with US and Guatemalan officials and through written sources, including US pay manifests." From 1988 to 1991, the CIA station chief was Alfonso Sapia-Bosch. During this period, Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack was murdered, US nun Dianna Ortiz was abducted, raped and tortured, hundreds of Guatemalan civilians were massacred at Santiago Atitlan and US innkeeper Michael DeVine was executed. Sapia-Bosch previously worked in the White House from 1982 to 1983 as then-president Ronald Reagan's chief adviser on Central American affairs. [Nation 6/5/95] On May 15, the New York Times ran a story about a US citizen murdered in Guatemala in 1992, another case that the US embassy failed to investigate and may have even helped to cover up. Archeologist Peter Tiscione was stabbed four times in the neck with a machete in his hotel room in August of 1992, hours after telling the US embassy that he was being followed and was afraid for his life. Guatemalan authorities claimed Tiscione's wounds were self-inflicted, and the US embassy accepted their conclusion. His wife Bernice, who didn't even have enough money to ship her husband's body home for burial, felt helpless to investigate further. But after hearing about US Rep. Robert Torricelli's (D-NJ) public charges that a paid CIA asset--Col. Alpirez--was involved in the murders of US innkeeper DeVine and imprisoned Guatemalan guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, Bernice Tiscione sent the congressperson a letter. Torricelli has promised to seek a US State Department investigation into Peter Tiscione's death. [NYT 5/15/95] Correction: In Update #275, we reported that Francisco Solbal Sontay--one of five soldiers serving a 30-year sentence for their participation in the DeVine murder--had accused Alpirez of ordering the murder. In fact, Solbal says Alpirez knew of the plan to assassinate DeVine but that the order was given by Col. Roberto Garcia Catalan. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA Human Rights Update Peacenet Versions #16 & 17, 5/5/95] 3. US CUBANS PROTEST IMMIGRATION POLICY Cuban immigrants and Cuban-Americans in Florida, New York and New Jersey have been waging a campaign of protests since May 2, when the US government announced its new policy of repatriating Cuban balseros picked up at sea [see Update #275]. Actions have included numerous demonstrations, civil disobedience (several dozen people blocked the Lincoln Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey on May 15) and even a half-day strike on May 16 in the Miami area, in which thousands reportedly participated. While police have been tolerant and few protesters have been arrested, there has not been widespread support for the Cubans in Florida. [New York Times 5/16/95, 5/17/95] Florida Governor Lawton Chiles claimed on May 11 that his office has been receiving more complaints about the Cuban-American protesters than about the new immigration policy. In fact, Chiles said, many Florida residents are even angry that Washington plans to allow the 20,000 balseros currently being held at the US naval base in Guantanamo to enter the US. He admitted that there are growing anti-immigrant sentiments in Florida and that a measure like California's anti-immigrant Proposition 187 would probably pass in Florida if voted on today. [Radio Havana Cuba 5/11/95] While the Cubans held their civic strike in Miami on May 16, Chiles was in Haiti to offer his state's assistance in preventing "another mass immigration crisis" brought on by Haitians fleeing poverty and violence. [NYT 5/17/95] 4. US PUSHES FOR 7,000 HAITIAN COPS During his Mar. 31 visit to Haiti, US president Bill Clinton gave Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide a proposal for expanding the country's new police force to 7,000 members and for training them inside the US. Officials of the Aristide government are said to be unenthusiastic about the US plan, which was revealed by a Haitian press agency earlier this month. The Haitian government has planned on a 4,000-member force; the first class of 365 agents, trained by Canadian, French and US advisers at a new police academy in Haiti, is due to graduate on June 1. But Leon June, the Justice Ministry official in charge of reorganizing the police, called the US proposal "very interesting" in early May; a few days later he suddenly resigned on the grounds that he was "tired out." June is considered a likely contender for the presidency in the December elections. [La Jornada 5/14/95 from ANSA, AP, AFP, EFE and IPS; Haiti Progres (NY) 5/10-16/95 and 5/17-23/95] The New York-based leftist weekly Haiti Progres writes that the US is using the proposal for an expanded police force as a "backup solution" after President Aristide rejected the US plan to retain a large part of the 7,000-member Haitian army. Aristide dissolved the Haitian army for all practical purposes in late December; he is now pushing to have the dissolution made official once the new Parliament is chosen in June 25 legislative and local elections. Haiti Progres notes that the US plans to leave Haiti a "new police force" at the end of the current occupation just as it left a "new army" at the end of its 1915-1934 occupation. That army was originally called the Gendarmerie d'Haiti--"Haitian Police Force." [HP 5/10-16/95] The current wave of violence may generate some popular support for the expansion of the new police force. Haitians from the left and the grassroots movement had already had suspicions about the UN occupation force's apparent inability to control violent crime, much of it committed by Haitian army veterans. [HP 4/26- 5/2/95] Early in the invasion the US insisted that the Haitian army would be drastically reduced and split into a small army and a small police force. Haitian activists predicted that the combined army and police would be the same size as the old army-- between 7,000 and 10,000 members [see Update #249]. 5. HAITI: CONSTANT, ROCKWOOD, "FUTURE INTERVENTIONS" Haitian analysts continue to speculate on the US government's motives for arresting former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant in New York City on May 10. There is a widespread belief that US intelligence agencies knew where he was hiding and had in fact helped him enter the US when he fled Haiti last December. Constant himself fueled speculation when he announced after his arrest that he had met with an agent of the US Information Agency (USIA) "no later than the month of January 1995." There are also reports that he made one or even two trips to Montreal while living illegally in New York, even though both Canadian and US officials were supposed to be on the lookout for him. [HP 5/17-23/95] The New York-area daily Newsday bluntly proposes that the US should use Constant as a bargaining chip to get more concessions from Aristide. The Haitian president "is justifiably eager to have Constant return to face justice," writes the liberal paper, which strongly supported the September 1994 US intervention. "Accordingly, he should agree to the repatriation of all Haitian boat people still in US custody." In April Aristide rescinded an agreement former dictator Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier made with the Reagan administration to let the US intercept Haitian refugees in international waters and forcibly repatriate them. The US "can ensure Aristide's cooperation by expediting Constant's extradition to Haiti," Newsday writes. [Long Island Newsday 5/18/95] Meanwhile, on May 14 a US Army court martial sentenced Capt. Lawrence Rockwood to a discharge with loss of pay but decided not to make him serve any time in prison. Rockwood had been convicted the day before on four charges stemming from an unauthorized attempt to inspect the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince on Sept. 30, 1994. Rockwood's defense was that he had attempted to carry out the US intervention's stated goal of protecting Haitians from human rights abuses. After sentencing, Rockwood said: "They don't want me behind bars.... They want this story and the allegations against their criminal negligence to go away." [New York Times 5/15/95] The Los Angeles Times devoted an editorial to "The Real Lesson of the Rockwood Case," finding Rockwood guilty as charged but agreeing with him that the US should have inspected the prison as "[o]ne of its first priorities." The Rockwood case "will have served a valuable purpose" if it "now forces the military--and its civilian bosses--to better prepare for dealing with human rights abuses in future interventions." [LAT 5/16/95] Apparently the US is planning on more Haiti-style "humanitarian interventions." In early May a US delegation to Uruguay presented Foreign Minister Alvaro Ramos and Defense Minister Raul Iturria with a plan for a permanent regional multinational force. Canada and Argentina are said to support the plan, while Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela have expressed reservations. Uruguay rejected what Iturria called a "new US military doctrine...converting our armed forces into 'national guards' in the region." The US hoped to have the plan passed at a meeting of defense ministers from 34 American countries in Williamsburg, Virgina July 24-26. [LJ 5/14/95 from AFP] 6. MEXICAN REBELS AND GOVERNMENT AGREE TO "MINIMUM AGREEMENT" After three days of intense, sometimes angry discussions, on May 15 negotiators from the Mexican federal government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) reached a "minimum agreement" for "easing tensions" in the southern state of Chiapas. At the session, held in the indigenous town of San Andres Larrainzar (which the rebels call San Andres Sakamch'en de los Pobres), the government backed off from its earlier plan for the rebels to regroup in three sites, a proposal the EZLN had dismissed as a joke [see Update #276]. Instead, the government suggested an arrangement in which the federal army would retire from seven narrow belts, leaving local roads free and giving the EZLN responsibility for public order in the areas. The rebels at first rejected this plan as well, insisting that the army had to retire from the town of Guadalupe Tepeyac, which before the government's Feb. 9 offensive was virtually the EZLN capital. But late on May 15 the Zapatistas agreed to consult their supporters on giving the proposal a test run in one of the areas. The government accepted a rebel invitation to go to one village to observe a "consultation," the process through which the EZLN says its base makes decisions. [La Jornada (Mexico) 5/14/95, 5/15/95 (electronic edition); Reuter 5/16/95, 5/17/95; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol. 2, #30, 5/17/95; Anderson Valley Advertiser (California) 5/17/95] Media attention was focused on "Commander Trinidad" (also called "Grandma Trini"), an eloquent 65-year old Tojolabal woman who joined the EZLN delegation for the first time on May 12. [LJ 5/14/95; Mexico Update 5/17/95] One government negotiator, Gustavo Iruegas, is a former ambassador to both Nicaragua and El Salvador. He was familiar with the peace processes in those countries, where the insurgent forces regrouped in specific sites, just as in the Mexican government's first proposal. [Associated Press 5/13/95] The EZLN scored a media coup when it invited federal negotiators to observe the consultations, since the government had spread rumors that the consultations were a myth and that all decisions were made by a few EZLN leaders like "Sub-Commander Marcos." [AVA 5/17/95] 7. MEXICO: GUANAJUATO, YUCATAN, MEXICO CITY ELECTIONS The Mexican government may be looking for success in peace talks to offset likely embarrassments in upcoming state elections. Voters in the central state of Guanajuato and the southeastern state of Yucatan will vote for governors on May 28. President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) may lose to the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in both states. Analysts generally feel that PRI electoral fraud deprived the PAN's Guanajuato candidate, Vicente Fox Quesada, of a victory in 1991. (Then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari negotiated a settlement which gave the state to the PAN but not to Fox; the current governor is Carlos Medina.) Fox, who wants to run for president in 2000, is heavily favored to win. In Yucatan state, PRI candidate Ignacio Vazquez Torres has a slight edge over the PAN's Luis Correa Mena, a former federal deputy who once boasted publicly that he had never read a book. The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is not a serious factor in the state. [LJ 5/13/95 (electronic edition) and 5/14/95] But the PRI is understandably afraid to face voters anywhere after a half year of severe economic crisis. The PRI has been doing its best to scuttle elections for a new "citizens council" in the Federal District (DF). A law passed in December 1993 set this June as the month when DF residents would vote for the 400 council members, whose responsibilities are still not clearly defined. The local PRI has managed to put the vote off until November, and Zedillo is reportedly trying to postpone the elections until 1997, when the federal government has agreed to allow free elections of the Mexico City "regent" (mayor). Currently the federal president appoints the regent. All three parties have strong bases in the DF and at this point no one is predicting how--or whether--the November elections will go. [Mexico Update Vol. 2, #29, 5/10/95; LJ 5/14/95; Mexpaz Bulletin #22, Heartbeat of Mexico, 5/16/95] 8. NATURAL BORN KILLERS IN MEXICAN ELITE On May 17 officials of the western Mexican state of Jalisco charged four men with the May 10 murder of former state attorney general Leobardo Larios Guzman. The four men are said to be linked to the so-called Tijuana drug cartel. [New York Times 5/18/95] Federal attorney general Antonio Lozano Gracia had announced the arrest of three different suspects the day of the killing [not the day after as reported in Update #276]; they were released on May 11. Mexico City daily La Jornada reports that tests showed that the original suspects had not fired weapons that day; but his office failed to tell Lozano Gracia this before he announced the arrests on the nightly news program "24 Hours." [LJ 5/14/95] In another drug-related scandal, on May 19 a US federal prosecutor charged a ten-year veteran of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Raymundo Solis, with planning to sell a house to Juan Garcia Abrego, a US drug trafficker said to head Mexico's "Gulf Cartel." Solis is an INS inspector in Hidalgo, Texas; the US government charges that he used his post to protect drug shipments. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/21/95 from Notimex] Yet another scandal involves Mexican president Zedillo. In the beginning of May an article in the leftist newsweekly Proceso cited a source in the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to the effect that Colombia's Cali Cartel sent $40 million to Mexico in 1994, probably to support Zedillo's electoral campaign. Zedillo's office denies the charge. [ED-LP 5/3/95 from AP] Meanwhile, even PRI members are dissatisfied with the ever- changing official account of the March 1994 assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. Many Mexicans are now demanding that former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his secretary of the presidency, Jose Cordoba Montoya, be required to testify to investigators. [LJ 5/14/95] Meanwhile, on May 15 Judge Carlos Luna Ramos rejected an appeal for the release of Salinas' brother Raul, who remains in prison charged with masterminding the September 1994 assassination of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, a former brother-in-law of Carlos and Raul Salinas. [Reuter 5/16/95] Journalist Alexander Cockburn reveals a disturbing incident from the childhood of the Salinas brothers. On Dec. 17, 1951, when Carlos was four and Raul was five, the brothers and an 8-year old friend shot and killed a 12-year old girl who worked in the Salinas household as a servant. The boys were playing war games, using a loaded .22 that belonged to the Salinas brothers' father, according to a report the next day in the Mexico City daily Excelsior. The children told police that Manuela (last name unknown) was "sentenced to death... They struggled to carry the gun to her, and they asked her to kneel so that the execution might be carried out. Then they lifted the gun and fired." The girl died from a single shot to the head. The daily El Universal reported that the future president took credit: "I killed her with one shot. I am a hero!" The judge in the case held the father, Raul Salinas Lozano, at fault for leaving the loaded gun in the house, and he ordered that a psychologist be employed to erase the boys' memory of the incident. [Nation 5/29/95] 9. NICARAGUA: STRIKERS AND POLICE CLASH, THREE KILLED A demonstration against government austerity programs led to a shootout late on May 17 that left two protesters and one police officer dead in Managua, authorities reported on May 18. The protest was part of a general strike called by the "National Coordinating Group in Defense of Property, Credit and the Standard of Living" to protest government austerity measures and the tight credit policy imposed by international lending institutions [see Update #276]. Police spokesperson Erick Delgadillo said police were watching over a few dozen demonstrators when members of the militant Parrales Vallejos bus cooperative tried to close off an intersection by burning tires and building barricades of paving stones. Police intervened to reopen the intersection and protesters fought back using AK-47 assault rifles, pistols and homemade mortars, Delgadillo said. According to Delgadillo, riot police and protesters exchanged fire for 20 minutes before the battle broke up. Several people were injured and six protesters were arrested. "It is still not determined who shot first, but it is presumed it was [the protesters]," said Delgadillo. He added that it was the first time police have killed protesters in the five years since President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro took office. The Parrales Vallejos bus cooperative has been involved in several violent clashes with police in recent years. In 1993, a transit strike led by the group ended in a similar confrontation with riot police in which a police commander and a bystander were killed by gunfire. [Reuter 5/18/95] Presidency Minister Antonio Lacayo blamed the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) for the violence, saying that he had heard "from a direct source" that FSLN founder and National Directorate member Tomas Borge had met with Parrales Vallejos cooperative members on the night of May 15. "The [FSLN's] order was to raise the level" of the strike, according to Lacayo, "and on Wednesday we had the building of barricades, the burning of tires, and the lives of those who live in that sector were put in danger." Police spokesperson Vilma Reyes told Associated Press that on May 19, the police cleared without incident several roads that had been blocked by strikers in Chontales and Matagalpa departments. Also on May 19, some 30 former soldiers occupied the Governance Ministry offices in Jinotega to demand layoff compensation. Reyes called the situation in the country "relatively normal," and said that the last 11 people arrested in strike-related incidents would soon be released. Reyes also said that the police would continue guarding 40 of the country's Catholic churches after bombs exploded in several of them the previous week. [El Diario- La Prensa 5/21/95 from AP] Even before the May 17 incident, World Bank representative Ulrich Lachler had expressed concern over the strike: "Any kind of mobilization or protest worries me in the sense that it causes disturbances in the economy of the country, especially [in] this year which began so favorably," he said. Lachler said President Chamorro is taking measures to keep the budget deficit within certain margins; failure to do so will force the government "to print money and this could cost, in terms of inflation..." The most recent such measure was a rate hike in electrical energy; rates went up 5.5% for residential service and nearly 13% for commercial service. The increase provoked immediate criticism from the business sector; the FSLN urged business groups to join protests against the economic measures. [La Jornada 5/14/95 from DPA, EFE, AFP, ANSA, Reuter] 10. WORKERS MARCH AGAINST TAX INCREASE IN EL SALVADOR Hundreds of state employees marched in San Salvador on May 15 to protest the government's proposal to increase the value added tax (IVA) from 10% to 14%. The peaceful demonstration was organized by the Salvadoran Association of Telecommunications Workers (ASTTEL) and was joined by members of the Salvadoran Association of Workers of the Rio Lempa Hydroelectric Commission (ATCEL). Both unions are demanding salary increases, the suspension of the privatization process, and legislative rejection of the IVA increase. Finance Minister Manuel Enrique Hinds said that the proceeds from the IVA increase would be used to finance the remaining commitments of the peace accords signed in 1992--which need about $150 million--and the Program of National Reconstruction, which requires another $180 million. [El Diario- La Prensa 5/16/95 from Notimex] The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) writes that "this is merely a ploy to push through the tax hike: It was just a few months ago that President [Armando] Calderon Sol, due to determined resistance from workers and consumers, was forced to retract his vow to raise the IVA to 12% as part of his widely unpopular economic plan." [CISPES El Salvador Watch #38, June 1995] Peaceful protests continued in El Salvador through at least May 18, ending that day in front of the congress building as legislators debated the tax increase. [Diario Las Americas 5/20/95 from AFP] The legislature was expected to approve the increase on May 18, but the situation remained uncertain as the ruling ARENA party still lacked two votes it needed to achieve a majority of 43. Legislative sources said that because of public rejection of the measure, the IVA increase might be reduced from four percentage points to two. Carlos Luna, leader of the National Union of Salvadoran Workers (UNTS), told Associated Press that the tax increase "is bringing the country to an inevitable social explosion." Luna said that on May 22, state employees will begin a new series of strikes and protests against the increase. [ED-LP 5/19/95 from AP] 11. BRAZILIAN OIL WORKERS STRIKE AGAINST PRIVATIZATION The directors of the Brazilian state oil company Petrobras have agreed to negotiate with the firm's workers, dropping a demand that the workers lift their nearly three-week long strike [see Update #276] before any talks take place. [Diario Las Americas 5/20/95 from EFE] The majority of the oil company's 50,000 workers are continuing the strike they began May 3, despite a judicial order declaring the action illegal and "abusive." The strikers are demanding salary raises and protesting the government's plans to privatize Petrobras. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso has called on the oil workers to end the strike, but has dismissed any armed intervention, the possibility of which was suggested by a military source and by civilian cabinet chief Clovis Carvalho. CUT president Vicente da Silva warned that any military intervention aimed at stopping the strike could result in a "bloody conflict" like the one in 1988, when army troops invaded the National Steel Company and killed three striking workers. [La Jornada 5/14/95 from Reuter, DPA, EFE, AFP] Leonel Brizola, former governor of Rio state and vice president of the Socialist International, has proposed that Brazil hold a plebiscite on the issue of privatization. Brizola has spoken against the announced sale of such state companies as Petrobras and mining company Vale do Rio Doce, as well as hydroelectric plants and the telecommunications sector. Brizola actually suggested on May 19 that he was considering the possibility of supporting a military uprising to avert the sale of state enterprises. [DLA 5/20/95 from EFE] Brazil's privatization council formally announced on May 17 that it intends to sell 51% of Vale do Rio Doce--the world's largest producer of iron ore--in what is expected to be one of Latin America's biggest privatizations ever. [Financial Times 5/18/95] But many of these planned privatizations cannot occur until certain changes are made to the 1988 constitution; Cardoso's battle to push the reforms through is expected to stretch over months or even years. [Wall Street Journal 5/19/95] 12. FBI STILL SPIES ON ACTIVISTS On May 8 US president Bill Clinton urged quick passage of a bill that would give the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) expanded powers to tap phone and search credit records. [New York Times 5/9/95] This bill is separate from the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, which specifically targets immigrants and solidarity groups [see Update #274 and 275]. The FBI claims that guidelines imposed during the Ford administration limit its ability to prevent terrorist acts like the Apr. 19 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. But files the agency has been forced to give the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that FBI spying on dissidents has continued right up to the present. The New York FBI office keeps a 199-page file on the AIDS activist group ACT-UP; only 22 pages were sent to the CCR. Other targets have been the Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC) and the Center for Immigrant Rights (CIR); Riverside Church may also have been investigated. The ACT-UP file goes up at least to 1991. [New York Daily News 5/15/95; NYT 5/16/95] On May 11 the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism, technology and government information held a hearing to consider restrictions on the Internet computer network, which Sen. Arlen Spector (R-PA) says is providing "mayhem manuals" for making bombs. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) appeared irritated with witnesses who defended free speech on the Internet. "I'm a mother and a grandmother," she said, "and I don't want my kids to have access to this stuff." [NYT 5/12/95] 13. IN OTHER NEWS... On May 12, Puerto Rico's Senate approved a resolution to investigate whether the US Navy lost a nuclear device in Puerto Rican territorial waters during maneuvers near the island Vieques in 1966. Doctors from Vieques have pointed out that the rate of cancer is higher on Vieques than anywhere else in Puerto Rico. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/12/95 from EFE]. Some 243,000 Colombian teachers went on strike on May 8 to demand better salaries, after failing to reach an agreement in negotiations with Education Minister Arturo Sarabia Better. The National Federation of Teachers (FECODE) is seeking 90% raises, while the government is offering 37%. Sarabia hinted that the government may declare the strike illegal and force the teachers back to work. Meanwhile, dozens of doctors in public hospitals in Cucuta, Bogota, Bucaramanga and other cities handed in their resignations in protest, giving the government 30 days to meet their salary needs or hire replacements. [ED-LP 5/9/95 from AP]. Some 7,000 workers at Paraguay's state telephone company began their second day of a strike on May 19. The strikers are demanding that Congress pass a law broadening the state's $6 billion general budget to allow a 10% salary increase. Phone lines in much of the region near the capital were not operating. [Diario Las Americas 5/20/95 from AFP]. Relatives and friends of Cuban emigre Carlos Muniz Varela, murdered 16 years ago, held a fast on Apr. 26 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to demand that US authorities clarify his death. Muniz was murdered in Puerto Rico on Apr. 26, 1979, for his work promoting close ties between Cuba and the US. His relatives say the FBI waited five years to begin investigating the murder, and ignored their repeated requests to look into the probability that the murderers were rightwing Cuban-Americans in Miami. [Radio Havana Cuba 4/26/95, electronic version] 14. UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. NOW AVAILABLE! Hottest fashion since the ski mask: CREED buttons-- anticapitalism made stylish. Just $1. 212-674-9499. 5/25 THU, 7 PM - Round table & poetry reading commemorating birth of Malcolm X & death of Jose Marti. Casa de las Americas, 104 W 14th St. 5/26 FRI, 7 PM - CISPES Convention Forum: "The Challenge of Class in the New World Economy." Local 802, 322 W 48th St. Call 212- 645-5230. 5/27 SAT, 7 PM - CISPES Reunion Banquet. West End, 2911 B'way at W 113th St. 212-645-5230. 5/30 TUE - CREED Pro-Immigrant Rally & Festival at Battery Park. All-day festival starts at 8:30 AM, with music & street theater; rally at 12:30 PM. 212-645-5230 or 212-674-9499. 5/30 TUE, 7 PM - Organizing meeting for the 5th Cuba Friendshipment Caravan & the June 17 March on Washington. At Casa de las Americas, 104 W. 14th St. Call IFCO: 212-926-5757. -- + NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems + + Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us + + voice: 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 modem: + + 212-979-0471 e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 212-979-0464 + >