WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #279, JUNE 4, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Brazil: Government Crackdown Breaks Oil Strike 2. Bolivia: Labor Signs Pact Under State of Siege 3. Right and Center Split Two Mexican State Races 4. Mexico: Tabasco and Chiapas Disputes Continue 5. Sao Paulo Forum: Brazilian Left Backs Zapatistas 6. El Salvador: Government Signs Pact With Former Leftists 7. Chile: Court Upholds Sentences in Letelier Case 8. Elections Announced in Guatemala 9. Harbury Seeks Husband's Body in Guatemala 10. Cuba Frees Six Political Prisoners 11. Ecuador: Strike Against Privatization 12. Other News: Panama, Colombia, Honduras/Cuba 13. Upcoming Events & Announcements in the NYC Area & Beyond 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. BRAZIL: GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN BREAKS OIL STRIKE On June 2, the Brazilian oil workers federation (FUP) recommended that its member unions end their month-old strike against the state-owned oil company Petrobras [see Updates #276-278]. The strike began May 3 and was in its 31st day on June 2; under Brazilian law, after 30 days on strike, workers can be fired for "abandoning" their jobs. The government had announced that it was prepared to dismiss 1,000 workers immediately if they did not return to work on June 2, and another 1,000 the next week if the strike continued. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/4/95 from AP] By the morning of June 3, most of the 21 regional unions that make up the FUP had voted to drop all of their demands and return to work. Worker assemblies in the states of Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Minas Gerais and Amazonas all voted to end the strike. [New York Times 6/3/95] Walder de Goes, a political scientist in Brasilia and president of the Brazilian Institute of Political Studies, believes that the strike has helped President Fernando Henrique Cardoso win congressional votes for his package of free-market economic reforms. "The strike increased political support for breaking the monopolies," said de Goes. "It showed the public how risky it is to have a state monopoly in something so essential as oil." De Goes believes that when the lower house votes on June 7, it will approve the most controversial item of Cardoso's privatization package: allowing foreign companies to drill for oil in Brazil. The Senate, more tightly controlled by the ruling coalition, is expected to ratify all measures the deputies approve by July, according to the New York Times. [NYT 6/2/95] Enio Barreto, president of the Rio de Janeiro oil workers union, gave little importance to reports of the alleged unpopularity of the strikers. In a survey conducted by a radio station in Porto Alegre, in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, 76% of those interviewed blamed the strike on the government, and less than 20% blamed the oil workers. Barreto also pointed out that the unions had complied with a law demanding a 30% level of activity in order to maintain fuel supplies for hospitals, hotels and public services. [Inter Press Service 5/23/95] The strikers were demanding a 26% raise that had been promised them in an agreement signed by previous president Itamar Franco [see Update #278]. Meanwhile, Brazil's central bank president Persio Arida resigned abruptly from his post on May 31, citing "personal reasons." Arida was a leading architect of the anti-inflation real plan, introduced last year when Cardoso was finance minister. But he was widely criticized for a bungled currency devaluation in March [see Update #267]. Arida will remain in his post until the Senate confirms his successor, Gustavo Loyola, who was president of the central bank in 1992-93. On June 1, Finance Minister Pedro Malan promised there would be no change in Brazil's economic policy. [Financial Times (UK) 6/1/95, 6/2/95] 2. BOLIVIA: LABOR SIGNS PACT UNDER STATE OF SIEGE Bolivian government ministers and labor leaders signed a 24-page accord early on the morning of May 23 that put an end to a long wave of strikes and social conflict [see Updates #273-276]. The government expressed its satisfaction with the accord: Labor Minister Reynaldo Peters called it "a positive ending" because it "responds to the basic needs of workers"; he insisted that "there are neither winners nor losers" in the conflict. Union leaders were less enthusiastic about the pact. Oscar Salas, head of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB)--the country's largest labor federation--admitted that the union leadership had to sign the document without reaching a consensus. "We have to be objective: in some cases labor gains have been preserved, in others significant progress has been made, and in other areas we have not been able to reach accords, like on the issue of wages," said Salas. The accord itself does not address the issue of wage hikes, but the government has set an 8% basic increase, slightly higher than the 7.5% raise announced by authorities early this year. Teachers and health workers will receive 12%. The COB has not accepted the 8% increase. The minimum monthly salary was raised from 190 to 205 bolivianos (US$43), a far cry from the $180 the COB was demanding before the government cracked down on its general strike by declaring a state of siege. The COB also failed to push through its demands with respect to structural reforms of the state apparatus, as well as its opposition to a controversial education reform law and the privatization of state companies. But according to analysts, the union federation had no other alternative than to accept what the government decided, because the state of siege that was declared on Apr. 18 is still in force. "The exhaustion of the long, drawn-out demonstrations, and the arrest that 300 union leaders suffered seems to have left us without the necessary strength to get the government to suspend the state of siege," said a leader of the teachers union. The state of siege continues to prohibit people to meet or circulate during nighttime hours after 1 am, and also restricts the circulation of vehicles during that time. [Inter Press Service 5/23/95] 3. RIGHT AND CENTER SPLIT TWO MEXICAN STATE RACES Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) lost decisively in elections for governor of the west-central state of Guanajuato on May 28. Preliminary returns gave Vicente Fox Quesada of the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN) 58.4% against 32.7% for the PRI's Ignacio ("Nacho") Vazquez Torres. Martha Lucia Micher, candidate for the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), was a distant third with 7.7%. The ruling party won narrowly in elections held the same day in the southeastern state of Yucatan. PRI candidate Victor Cervera Pacheco took 49.32% of the votes against 43.86% for PAN candidate Luis Correa Mena, according to official figures. The PRI's margin of victory came from the countryside: the PAN carried Merida, the state capital, by an overwhelming 58.83% to 36.06%. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/30/95 from AFP] Voter turnout in both states was around 60%. [Inter Press Service 5/29/95] Guanajuato governor-elect Vicente Fox is something of a maverick in the PAN, which he joined in 1988; sometimes called a "neo- PANista," he is a leading contender for the Mexican presidency in 2000. Polls had favored him heavily in the Guanajuato race; most analysts agree that his loss to the PRI in the 1991 state race was fraudulent. Then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari overturned the 1991 results and appointed another PAN member, Carlos Medina, to be interim governor. Both Guanajuato and Yucatan are conservative strongholds. In Guanajuato PRD candidate Micher got about the same vote that her party's president, Porfirio Munoz Ledo, received in 1991. The PRD is even weaker in Yucatan, which gave it about 3% of the vote in the 1994 national elections, according to official figures. In 1991 federal legislative elections the party, then two years old, got 869 votes; the PRD tally fell to 862 in the 1993 gubernatorial race. [La Jornada (Mexico) 5/28/95] The PRI's defeat in Guanajuato is even more dramatic than its loss by 19% in the western state of Jalisco in February. The US media have rushed to congratulate Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon for holding two clean elections in one year. New York Newsday hailed a "new era in Mexico," while even before the vote the New York Times wrote about a "miracle in Mexico." [Newsday 5/30/95; NYT 5/22/95] But many election observers say that the vote in the Yucatan countryside was as fraudulent as ever. As of May 31 the PAN had presented 750 complaints affecting 20% of the voting booths in 20 municipalities. Candidate Correa Mena called the vote a "technical draw." [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update, Vol. 2, #32 5/31/95] The PAN has now joined the PRD in boycotting talks with the government on electoral reform. The PAN withdrew after the PRI- dominated Congress decided to go ahead with November elections for Mexico City's new "citizens councils" but announced that the posts would be nonpartisan and political parties would not be allowed to participate. [Mexico Update 5/21/95] Both the PAN and the PRD had hoped to do well in these local races [see Update #277]. 4. MEXICO: TABASCO AND CHIAPAS DISPUTES CONTINUE While the PAN will now govern four states, the PRD has never yet won a governorship, despite hotly disputed races last year in the southern states of Tabasco and Chiapas. On May 13 President Zedillo suddenly announced that he and Tabasco's PRI governor Roberto Madrazo Pintado "will work together until the year 2000." Former PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador holds that he was cheated out of the governor's office in the November 1995 elections. In January Zedillo promised to hold negotiations over new elections. Lopez Obrador spent most of May leading several hundred Tabasco supporters on a 1,000 km "exodus" to press the demand for new elections; the march was to arrive in Mexico City on June 3. [LJ 5/14/95, 5/21/95] Two PRD leaders were killed in an automobile accident on May 27 while driving from Mexico City to the city of Puebla for a meeting with Lopez Obrador's marchers. Guillermo Gonzalez Guardado, a federal deputy from the state of Chihuahua, drove off the Mexico City-Puebla highway into a 50 meter deep canyon; he was killed in the crash along with his passenger, Chihuahua state deputy Victor Aguilar Salazar. PRD president Munoz Ledo has asked for a thorough investigation of the accident. Gonzalez Guardado was injured in a similar accident in July 1995 when a vehicle cut him off; the deputy spent three months recovering. A PRD official in Chihuahua suggested that another vehicle may have been involved in the new accident as well. Gonzalez Guardado and President Zedillo took accounting classes together at the National Polytechnic Institute and remained personal friends. [LJ 5/28/95; Reuter 5/28/95] In late May the bodies of two Tabasco PRD activists, Jose Astudillo and Amelia Jimenez, were found on the banks of the Usumacinta River near Jonuta in eastern Tabasco. The two had been shot in the head; the bodies, which weren't identified until June 1, showed signs of torture. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 6/3/95 from AFP] Lopez Obrador charges that 42 counter-insurgency specialists from the Mexican Army and 13 agents from various police groups have formed a paramilitary group in Tabasco "which will be in charge of confronting peasant protests" against the national oil company, Pemex. [Mexico Update 5/31/95] Peace talks are scheduled to resume in neighboring Chiapas on June 7 between the federal government and the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels. The EZLN invited federal negotiators to attend a Zapatista consultation with its base [see Update #277]. EZLN spokesperson "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" wrote on May 24 that the negotiators would have to get to the consultation the same way as the EZLN delegates--on foot, dodging army patrols, carrying their own belongings and "not accompanied by porters, aides-de-camp or assistants." Marcos estimated the trip would take two days and promised he would "personally greet" the ones "who arrive alive.... I can even give them a guided tour of our headquarters." [EZLN Communique 5/24/95, LJ 5/30/95, translated by National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, USA] On May 30 the negotiators rejected the conditions as "not serious." [IPS 5/30/95; Mexico Update 5/31/95] 5. SAO PAULO FORUM: BRAZILIAN LEFT BACKS ZAPATISTAS The Sao Paulo Forum, a grouping of more than 100 Latin American leftist movements, held its sixth annual meeting May 25-28 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The meeting followed significant electoral defeats for member parties in 1994, most notably Brazil's Workers Party (PT) and Mexico's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). But Hugo Cores of Uruguay's Frente Amplio (Broad Front) noted that despite the losses, many leftist parties had established themselves as the second or third electoral forces in their countries and that this situation also needed to be analyzed. His party won 30% of the vote in national elections last November [see Update #253], just 2% less than the winning Colorado Party. This broke the two-party system through which the Colorado Party and the National Party had traditionally dominated Uruguayan politics. [Inter Press Service 5/25/95] The meeting was marked by tensions over the participation of some groups, notably the Lavalas movement of Haitian president Jean- Bertrand Aristide, who agreed to a military intervention by the US in September 1994 to remove the nation's de facto military regime. [IPS 5/25/95] Mexico's Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT) objected to the admission of observers from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Other Mexican parties accepted the PRI observers, and during a reception PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo danced a tango with PRI representative Rosa Maria Villarrello. "Porfirio is a very good dancer," Villarrello told reporters. [La Jornada 5/28/95] Two of the forum's founders were missing. The PT's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stayed in Brazil because of a crucial oil workers strike, while Daniel Ortega Saavedra of Nicaragua's Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was kept away by unspecified problems in his country. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/26/95 from Notimex] However, before the forum met Lula joined with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, former presidential candidate of Mexico's PRD, in a statement. The two leftist leaders from Latin America's largest nations promised to work together on joint strategies and economic alternatives in order not to "sit by with folded arms" as the US-sponsored neoliberal project collapses. [Mexpaz Bulletin #24, 5/31/95] In Montevideo the PT and part of the Frente Amplio offered a proposal denouncing the state party system in Mexico and supporting Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Front (EZLN). [LJ 5/28/95] The Organization of American States (OAS) is planning its own meeting for June 5-10. The group's 25th General Assembly will be the first presided over by the new general secretary, former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria. Gaviria plans to call for "revitalizing" the organization, implementing the proposals from last December's Summit of the Americas, and developing regional strategies for "the struggle against terrorism." [LJ 5/28/95] The General Assembly will be held in Haiti at the newly reopened Club Med. [Haiti en Marche (Miami) 5/31-6/6/95 from AHP; Haiti Progres (NY) 5/31-6/6/95] 6. EL SALVADOR: GOVERNMENT SIGNS PACT WITH FORMER LEFTISTS The rightwing government of Salvadoran president Armando Calderon Sol signed a "national pact" on May 31 with the Democratic Party (PD), a new social democratic party created in March by two former guerrilla organizations that split last December from the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) coalition [see Updates #254, #255, #267]. Signing for the PD were former rebel leaders Joaquin Villalobos, Ana Guadalupe Martinez, Eduardo Sancho and Sonia Aguinada. The pact was rejected by the FMLN itself, as well as by the center-right Christian Democrat Party (PDC), the center-left Democratic Convergence, and the Unity Movement. The pact was also not signed by the rightwing Party of National Conciliation (PNC), a traditional ally of the ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA). The pact was also rejected by both the business sector and the country's numerous grassroots organizations, which coincided in their criticism that the agreement emerged from "bilateral negotiations" between the government and the PD. FMLN deputy Miguel Saenz said his party did not sign the pact because the condition to sign it was consent to a planned increase in the value added tax (IVA) from 10% to 14% [see Update #277]. Saenz said that the FMLN, like the other opposition parties and the private sector, is prepared to discuss a national agenda with the government, but "we are not prepared to negotiate even a minimal increase to the IVA." Deputy Melida Villatoro, head of the PDC bloc in the Assembly, said the pact was a good document, but that her party did not sign it because its underlying intention is the tax increase. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/1/95 from EFE] The ruling ARENA party has 39 seats in the 84-seat legislative assembly; it was unable to gain the simple majority needed to approve the IVA increase. [ED-LP 5/31/95] Former PDC deputy Orlando Arevalo, who has now declared himself an independent, supports the tax increase. PD deputy Juan Ramon Medrano explained his party's position on legislative approval of the IVA: "If the government reformulates the position to 12%, we will support it." The new rightwing archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle [see Update #274]--who had said that he would dedicate himself exclusively to preaching the gospel--found time to state that the increase in "the public taxes is necessary in order to attend to the costs of health [and] education." [Fundacion Flor de Izote Weekly Report on El Salvador, Vol. 6, #20, 5/22-29/95] 7. CHILE: COURT UPHOLDS SENTENCES IN LETELIER CASE Just after 6pm on May 30, the Fourth Chamber of Chile's Supreme Court announced the confirmation of the preliminary prison sentences against former military secret police (DINA) chiefs retired general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda and Brig. Pedro Espinoza for the Sept. 21, 1976 car-bomb murder in Washington of Chilean ex-diplomat Orlando Letelier and his US aide Ronni Karpen Moffitt [see Update #278]. Hundreds of people who had gathered in the halls of the court building and in the surrounding streets to await the ruling burst out in cries of joy and applause at the announcement. [CHIP News 5/31/95] Immediately afterwards students clashed with the police, and a celebration march was forcibly limited to political and human rights groups. [Inter Press Service 5/30/95] [The Washington Post reported some disturbances as the crowd dispersed and masked demonstrators threw molotov cocktails and rocks at police [WP 5/31/95], while a report posted on email networks from Santiago by Samuel Rojas said the police tried to disperse the crowd using water cannons "and other repressive means." Rojas also writes that national television showed a demonstration in the port city of Valparaiso, where about 300 people marched peacefully to the Congress building. [Rojas article, datelined Santiago 5/30/95]] Contreras and Espinoza were sentenced in December 1993 to seven and six years of prison, respectively, as intellectual authors of a premeditated murder. The defense had appealed the sentences, asking for the absolution of the defendants based on their "irreproachable past behavior." The Letelier family lawyers and the State Defense Council had demanded life sentences for both. The ruling is not subject to appeal, and it holds that neither accused is eligible to appeal for conditional release under bail. Only the three months Contreras and Espinoza spent in prison between September and December 1991, after they were indicted, will be discounted from their prison sentences. [CHIP News 5/31/95] Contreras vowed to exhaust all legal means available to overturn the ruling, but the president of the Supreme Court's Fourth Chamber, Judge Servando Jordan, was emphatic that the sentence is final and "irreversible." There is no higher legal authority for Contreras to turn to, he affirmed. [CHIP News 6/1/95] On June 1, attorneys for Contreras and Espinoza filed a motion of clarification, the only legal recourse they have left, to delay Judge Adolfo Banados' signature on the arrest warrant. The Fourth Chamber is to consider the motion on June 5. The motion asks the court to subtract from their prison sentences the 13 months the two officers spent under custody from the time the US formally requested their extradition in 1978 until the Supreme Court ruled against it in 1979. [CHIP News 6/2/95; El Diario-La Prensa 6/4/95 from EFE] The extradition was refused because the US government's accusations against Contreras and Espinoza were based on testimony obtained from US citizen Michael Townley--a former DINA agent--through a plea bargain, and such evidence is inadmissible under Chilean law. [Los Angeles Times 6/1/95] Contreras--who said he had expected the unfavorable ruling-- continues to maintain that Letelier was killed by the CIA in conjunction with the Venezuelan secret service, and that he is a victim of political persecution. [Former US president George Bush was Director of Central Intelligence in 1976.] "I want to highlight all the irregularities and abnormalities in this political trial," said Contreras, "and also denounce the way in which the communists, socialists and that whole bunch of Marxists who betrayed the country, are still co-governing the nation and behaving ruthlessly, seeking basically the destruction of the Armed Forces." [CHIP News 5/31/95] The government announced on May 31 that the prison sentences for Contreras and Espinoza will be completed "by force, if need be." Contreras has been secluded for the past few weeks at his ranch near Puerto Montt in southern Chile, where he is protected by his bodyguards. "Never would I consider suicide because only cowards commit suicide," said Contreras at a May 31 press conference. "I am a general and I will die a general." Contreras did not reveal his plans for evading arrest, but said he would "evaluate the situation and then decide." Espinoza, who is still in active service with the Army, said he would obey the sentence and is awaiting formal notification in a military unit. [CHIP News 6/1/95] The first stage of construction of a special prison for military officers convicted of human rights violations--created especially in consideration of the Letelier case [see Update #258, #260]-- will not be completed until at least June 15. Prison system director Claudio Martinez said Contreras and Espinoza are to be held in a special precinct in the meantime, but will not enjoy any special privileges. [CHIP News 5/31/95] 8. ELECTIONS ANNOUNCED IN GUATEMALA On May 19, Guatemala's Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) formally issued the call for general elections to be held on Nov. 12 of this year. The TSE had announced on May 16 that the number of congressional seats up for election will be 80, not 112. The number of seats will be based on the 1981 census, because population figures from the recently released 1994 census are disputed and have not been made official. The 1981 count is at least four million short of the current population. But the new census, carried out by the National Statistics Institute, is also considered short; it shows the population as 8.2 million, while official projections based on birth and death rates suggest that the actual population is about 10.5 million. Reforms implemented by President Ramiro de Leon Carpio last year had brought the number of seats down to 80 from 112. [Diario Las Americas 5/20/95 from AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 5/21/95 from Notimex; Cerigua Weekly Briefs #19, 5/23/95] In recent weeks the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrilla coalition has been circulating what amounts to a political party platform. Aiming its message at labor, indigenous groups, small businesses, and the huge number of marginalized Guatemalans who have stayed away from the ballot boxes in recent elections, the proposal calls for "a broad political front" to compete electorally for power with the "retrograde" forces on the right. On May 16, the URNG leadership issued a statement directed at non-voters, saying that "electoral indifference is to be left behind....Now is the moment to stop abstentionism from benefiting a minority." [Latin America Data Base Notisur 5/19/95 from AP, Central American Report, Inforpress Centroamericana (Guatemala), AFP, Reuter] Asked about a hypothetical bid for reelection, President de Leon hinted about URNG support: "a group which we are fighting, and that is at the margin of the law, insists that if I seek reelection it will support me." [Noticias de Guatemala Weekly Bulletin 5/13-19/95] 9. HARBURY SEEKS HUSBAND'S BODY IN GUATEMALA On May 31, US lawyer Jennifer Harbury traveled to the Cabanas military base in western Guatemala, about five hours from Guatemala City, seeking permission to search for the spot where her husband--rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez--may be buried in a clandestine grave. She was accompanied by a US consular official, a forensic expert and a representative of the Guatemalan prosecutor's office. Harbury has asked for a judicial restraining order to prevent the area from being disturbed until she may be permitted to begin the exhumation process. [Washington Post 6/2/95; Press Release 6/1/95 from the Law Offices of [Harbury's lawyer] Jose Pertierra] The US State Department provided Harbury with information about the possible location of Bamaca's body, though spokesperson Lee McClenney warned that the information was merely a rumor which had not been confirmed. [Diario Las Americas 6/3/95 from EFE] 10. CUBA FREES SIX POLITICAL PRISONERS Cuba has freed six political prisoners in response to a request by the French human rights group France-Libertes. The group is led by Danielle Mitterrand, the wife of former French president Francois Mitterrand. France-Libertes sponsored a human rights delegation that visited Cuba at the end of April into early May. The release of the prisoners--most of whom were serving jail terms for "enemy propaganda"--appears to be a goodwill gesture by the Cuban government, which is seeking international support to counter attempts by US Republican legislators to tighten the 33- year old US embargo against Cuba. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/30/95 from AFP, 6/2/95 from AP; Financial Times 5/31/95; New York Times 5/31/95 & 6/2/95 from Reuter; San Francisco Chronicle 6/1/95 from Reuter] The six people the Cuban government announced it was freeing are Sebastian Arcos Bergnes, Indamiro Restano Diaz, Agustin Figueredo Figueredo, Pedro Castillo Ferrer, Ismael Salvia Ricardo and Luis Gonzalez Ogra. [NYT 5/31/95 from Reuter] The release of Arcos, Restano, Figueredo and Castillo on health and humanitarian grounds had been requested by France-Libertes, along with that of another prisoner, Omar del Pozo. The Cuban government has not announced any plans to release del Pozo; a spokesperson commented that del Pozo is in the hospital, where he is being treated for hypertension. [ED-LP 5/30/95 from AFP] Arcos was freed on May 31 after having been in prison since January 1992; Restano, in prison since December 1991, was released on June 1. It was not clear whether the other four had already been released. [NYT 6/2/95 from Reuter] Speaking from his home in Havana, Restano told journalists that he planned to travel this week to Paris, where he will stay two or three weeks at the invitation of the Mitterrands, examining what type of support he might obtain from international social democratic movements. "We have gotten out," said Restano, "to work and to fulfill our dream to create a social democratic party here, because I have the impression that an era of tolerance has begun." Restano said the release of the prisoners is a "tenuous sign of an incipient recognition of coexistence" between the Cuban government and opposition political parties. Restano is the president of the Harmony Movement, "a political organization," he says, "that seeks to be in power someday." [Diario Las Americas 6/3/95 from EFE] Sebastian Arcos, along with his brother Gustavo, heads the illegal Cuban Committee for Human Rights (CCDDH). "I don't consider this measure [the release of prisoners] to be an isolated incident," Sebastian Arcos told the French news agency Agence France Presse, "but one which forms part of a process of minimal opening that must follow up with the freeing of all the prisoners of conscience." Arcos confirmed that his release was unconditional: "I will never accept departure from the country, forced exile." [DLA 6/3/95 from AFP] Both Restano and Arcos denied that they had been tortured or otherwise mistreated in prison. [DLA 6/3/95 from EFE, AFP] Meanwhile, Francisco Chaviano Gonzalez, president of the clandestine National Council for Civil Rights, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Cuban court. Chaviano was convicted on Apr. 15 for profiting from the sale of falsified documents to obtain US visas [see Update #273]. The administration of US president Bill Clinton has condemned Chaviano's prosecution in what the New York Times calls "unusually strong language" and has urged the Cuban government to release him. [NYT 5/15/95] 11. ECUADOR: STRIKE AGAINST PRIVATIZATION The Unitary Workers Front (FUT), which groups the four principal union federations of Ecuador, led a 24-hour strike on May 25 to protest a package of constitutional reforms sent to congress by the executive branch [see Update #278]. The proposed reforms seek to eliminate social security benefits and allow the privatization of the oil industry, and the telecommunications and electrical energy sectors. In state hands, Ecuador's oil resources currently provide more than 50% of the national budget. The strike was only partially observed. The 90,000 teachers and students grouped in the Popular Front did not participate because they had not been consulted by the FUT. Likewise, the Energy Front, which groups electrical and oil workers, declined to take part in the strike, although it has been active in the struggle against privatization of these sectors. The main participants in the strike were indigenous people and campesinos who benefit from the Ecuadoran Social Security Institute (IESS); they had road blocks set up on the country's principal highways since May 24. Many of the indigenous protesters belong to the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the National Federation of Campesino and Indigenous Organizations (FENOC-I), and other powerful campesino organizations. Opponents of privatization had more fuel for their argument with the discovery that the US firm E-Systems, which is bidding for the Ecuadoran Civil Registry, has been accused in the US of selling information to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Many fear that if E-Systems wins the bid, US intelligence would have access to Ecuador's database. Meanwhile, the Ecuadoran government, claiming that its border war with Peru has cost $500 million, has imposed war taxes and cut public spending by 15%. Saying that this is not enough to meet the shortfall, the government is now pressuring Congress to eliminate exemptions from the value added tax, freeze salaries and increase the work day. "The government has wanted to take advantage of this national unity [caused by the war] to strike another blow at all of the grassroots sectors and the working class," said FUT leader Julio Chang Crespo. [Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI) 5/26/95] 12. IN OTHER NEWS... US president Bill Clinton will nominate Bill Hughes, a former Democratic congressperson from New Jersey, to be US ambassador to Panama. The announcement was made on June 1 by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-NJ). There has been no US ambassador in Panama since 1992, when Deane Hinton left the post; extreme rightwing Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) managed to block Senate confirmation of Clinton's previous nominee, Robert Pastor. [Diario Las Americas 6/3/95 from AFP]... The Colombian government has put new limits on US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents operating in Colombia, Foreign Minister Rodrigo Pardo said in a television interview on May 26. Pardo said he told the visiting assistant secretary of state for international narcotics matters, Robert Gelbard, that DEA agents in Colombia must tell the Colombian government of their activities, share intelligence, not carry out secret operations and not come in as tourists. [Washington Post 5/28/95 from Reuter]... The new foreign minister of Honduras, Delmer Urbizo Panting, has ruled out the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, China, North Korea and some Islamic nations. Former foreign minister Ernesto Paz Aguila had drafted a policy of gradually establishing friendly relations with Cuba and China; he charges that pressure from the US and Taiwan forced his resignation. [Radio Havana Cuba 5/11/95, electronic version; Inter Press Service 5/10/95] 13. UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS IN THE NYC AREA & BEYOND For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. FOR INFORMATION and urgent actions concerning a recent increase in paramilitary violence in the Colombian region of Uraba, contact the Colombia Support Network, PO Box 1505, Madison WI 53701, 608-836-5107 or 255-6554; fax# 608-255-6621; email: csn@igc.apc.org. 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 L"pez, 186 Bonview St, San Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 282-6941. 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. 6/8 THU, 7 PM - Promoting Inequality: the role of the multinational corporation. Workshop organized by Share the Wealth Project and the Learning Alliance. $12/$15/$18 (no one turned away). 324 Lafayette St. 7th Fl. 212-226-7171. 6/12 MON, 12:30 PM - Protest "Counterterrorist" Repression at Rep. Schumer's office, 1628 Kings Hwy, Brooklyn (between 16th & 17th; take D or Q to Kings Hwy). Also, tabling & leafleting all week. Call 212-674-9499 or 212-645-5230 to volunteer. 6/12 MON, 7:30 PM - Popular Education in El Salvador, with Jack Hammond. $6. 122 W 27 St, 10th Fl. 212-242-4201. 6/13 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. 6/15 THU, 7 PM - CREED general meeting. Location TBA. Call 212-674-9499. -- + 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 + >