WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #281, JUNE 18, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Draft Resister Jailed in Colombia 2. CIA Involvement Revealed in Honduras 3. US Troops Killed 83 Salvadorans in 1985 Revenge Strike 4. Exhumation Blocked in Guatemala 5. Mexico: Tabasco Election "Bomb" 6. Mexican Scandals: the Brothers Salinas and Ruiz Massieu 7. More Mexico: La Quina, Peace Talks 8. Bomb Kills 29 in Colombia 9. Chilean Army Still Dodging Arrests 10. Amnesty Approved for Peru Military 11. Cuba News Roundup: Vesco, Rightwingers & Archbishop 12. Dominican Republic: Government Official Shoots Protesters 13. In Other News: Nicaragua, Ecuador, Uruguay, Veneuzuela, Argentina, Haiti 14. Upcoming Events & Announcements * ISSN#: 1068-5332. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. 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.) The Electronic Edition of this Update is distributed by NY Transfer News Collective. Subscriptions 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 as "Weekly News Update on the Americas," and send us a copy. We welcome your comments and ideas: send them via e-mail to nicanet@blythe.org. * 1. DRAFT RESISTER JAILED IN COLOMBIA On June 10, the Colombian police arrested and jailed 18-year old draft resister Luis Gabriel Caldas Leon. On Sept. 28 of last year, it was announced that Caldas had declared himself a conscientious objector to obligatory military service. Caldas offered to serve his military term doing environmental service directed by the Education and Environment departments of the civilian government, as allowed by 1993 law #99, but he was not given this option and was instead convicted by a military court for desertion--although he had never served in the Armed Forces. The Bogota-based Collective for Conscientious Objection to Obligatory Military Service and JUSTAPAZ Christian Center for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action are asking for faxes to President Ernesto Samper Pizano (fax# 571-1-286-7434), demanding that the Colombian government recognize freedom of conscience as protected by article 18 of the 1991 constitution ("No one will be obliged to act against his [or her] conscience"), release Caldas from prison, and allow him to fulfill his term of service doing non-military environmental work. Please send copies of any correspondence to Colectivo/JUSTAPAZ (fax# 571-1-287-3660 or 571- 1-285-6315). [Colectivo/JUSTAPAZ Urgent Actions 6/12/95, 9/28/94] 2. CIA INVOLVEMENT REVEALED IN HONDURAS A 14-month investigation by the Baltimore Sun has revealed that the US State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped to train a specialized counter-intelligence unit of the Honduran army known as Battalion 316. The Sun also discovered that US officials deliberately misled Congress and the public about Honduran military abuses in order to keep up public support for the Reagan administration's wars in Central America. According to the Sun, Battalion members were flown to a secret location in the US for training in surveillance and interrogation, and later were given CIA training at Honduran bases. A CIA officer based at the US embassy in Tegucigalpa frequently visited a secret jail known as INDUMIL, used as a torture center. The Battalion's training by the CIA was confirmed by Richard Stolz, then deputy director for operations, in secret testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in June 1988. In his testimony, declassified at the Sun's request, Stolz told the committee: "The course consisted of three weeks of classroom instruction followed by two weeks of practical exercises, which included the questioning of actual prisoners by the students." [NY Newsday 6/12/95 & San Francisco Chronicle 6/15/95, both from Baltimore Sun] Stolz claimed that "physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected, not only because it is wrong, but because it has historically proven to be ineffective." Interviews with members of Battalion 316 confirm Stolz's testimony: the CIA taught them to apply psychological pressure, but not physical torture. However, former battalion members and victims say the CIA knew that torture was being used. [SFC 6/15/95 from Baltimore Sun] Beginning in 1981, the US provided funds for Argentine counterinsurgency experts--notorious for torturing and murdering political prisoners in Argentina--to train the Honduran forces. Argentine and CIA instructors worked together training Battalion 316 members near Tegucigalpa. Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, who as chief of the Honduran army personally directed Battalion 316, received strong US support, even after he told US ambassador Jack Binns that he intended to use the Argentine method of eliminating suspected subversives. [NY Newsday 6/12/95 & SFC 6/15/95, both from Baltimore Sun] In 1983, the Reagan administration awarded Alvarez the Legion of Merit medal for "encouraging the success of democratic processes in Honduras." [SFC 6/15/95 from Baltimore Sun] The Sun says that Alvarez's relationship with Donald Winters, the CIA station chief in Honduras, was so close that Alvarez was the godfather of Winters' adopted child. [Inter Press Service 6/12/95] On June 12, the CIA declined to respond to charges that it knew of and tolerated murder and torture carried out by Battalion 316. In a prepared statement, the agency said that Congressional and internal probes in the late 1980s found "no wrongdoing" by CIA officers with respect to Battalion 316 and that any notion that it the agency was "involved in or sanctioned human rights violations" in Honduras was "totally wrong." But Anne Manuel of Human Rights Watch/Americas pointed out to Inter Press Service that Human Rights Watch and other groups have identified a similar pattern of CIA involvement in Guatemala, Haiti, and Peru. [Inter Press Service 6/12/95] A Honduran government report published in December of 1993 revealed that members of Battalion 316 murdered numerous people in the 1980s [El Daily News (NY) 6/15/95 from AP], and that the battalion was responsible for most of the 184 verified cases of disappearances in Honduras during that decade. The army claims Battalion 316 was created in 1984 under the direction of current armed forces chief Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, but there are indications it existed before 1982. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/14/95 from AP] On June 14, the Honduran armed forces announced they were prepared to open their archives to civilian authorities investigating the disappearances. [ED-LP 6/15/95 from AP] But on June 16, the attorney general's office charged that the armed forces had already destroyed their archives in order to protect more than 100 military officers under investigation. Special Human Rights Prosecutor Sonia Marlina Dubon told Associated Press that "the armed forces already showed us their files, but they are purged or falsified archives that don't reflect the reality of what occurred." "The armed forces claim that someone destroyed or burned all the information they had about the disappeared persons," explained Dubon, "but they don't identify who committed that crime... and they say they only have data from 1990 to the present date." According to Dubon, the investigation is centered on two former US ambassadors to Honduras, John Dimitri Negroponte and Chris Arcos, and on an undetermined number of former and current CIA agents. "The government of the United States is the only hope Honduras has of obtaining proof to punish those guilty of such shameful acts," said Dubon, adding that "we have already requested that the US government declassify the State Department information relating to the situation in Honduras during the 1980s..." [ED-LP 6/18/95 from AP] 3. US TROOPS KILLED 83 SALVADORANS IN 1985 REVENGE STRIKE An article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has revealed that in 1985 an elite airborne squad of 11 US Rangers from Fort Lewis in Washington state was dispatched on a top secret mission to murder 83 Salvadoran guerrilla combatants in a nighttime raid. The Rangers were not given any background on the mission and did not even know what country they were taken to or who their targeted victims were; they were not allowed to wear uniforms or any form of military identification. After sliding down a rope from a helicopter into a guerrilla camp, the Rangers fulfilled their mission in about 12 minutes: they killed everyone in the camp, 83 people. Civilians taking part in the raid then gathered up documents and supervised the fingerprinting of each body while some of the Rangers destroyed the rebels' weapons and explosives. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer 6/15/95] The new revelations come just a few weeks after the television news program 60 Minutes reported that as many as 5,000 US military personnel served in dozens of combat operations in El Salvador. 60 Minutes focused on the soldiers' demand for official recognition of their combat role; the US government and the Pentagon still claim that US forces only trained their Salvadoran counterparts and never participated in any direct combat actions, which were prohibited by mandate of the US Congress. [Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) Press Release 6/15/95] 4. EXHUMATION BLOCKED IN GUATEMALA US lawyer Jennifer Harbury arrived at the Cabanas military base on the morning of June 14 to begin exhumation proceedings at a clandestine cemetery believed to possibly hold the remains of her murdered husband, guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez. Harbury was accompanied by forensic personnel, members of the United Nations Observer Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), and special prosecutor Julio Arango Escobar. The delegation was met at the base by base commander Lt. Col. Sainz and by army lawyer Julio Citron Galvez, as well as a small number of journalists the army had invited. Citron announced that the excavation could not proceed because the army had protested Arango's assignment to the case and he had been removed. Also, Citron said the army did not accept Harbury's presence as a witness at the excavation. Citron argued that Harbury's marriage to Bamaca had been recognized only at a state level, not a federal level, and was therefore not valid. (The marriage is recognized by a Texas court--there is no such thing as federal marriage in the US.) Citron also challenged the presence of MINUGUA at the base, saying the case was under the jurisdiction of the Commission of Historical Clarification, not of MINUGUA. The only one with the authority to remove Arango from the case is Attorney General Ramses Cuestas Gomez. The motion to recuse Arango is pending; Cuestas has not yet ruled on it. The Guatemalan Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC/USA) is asking supporters to step up pressure in the case so that the excavation is allowed to continue with Harbury present as a family member, with MINUGUA present to verify that her due process rights are being respected, and with Arango present as the state-appointed special prosecutor. For information contact GHRC/USA, phone 202- 529-6599; fax 202-526-4611; email: ghrc@igc.apc.org. [GHRC Urgent Action 6/14/95] The fax number for Attorney General Cuestas is 011-502-2-536554. 5. MEXICO: TABASCO ELECTION "BOMB" Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) illegally spent 237 million new pesos in order to win the Nov. 20, 1994 gubernatorial elections in Tabasco, according to documentation supplied by the losing candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). At a June 9 press conference in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador presented 16 boxes of bank ledgers, check stubs, invoices and receipts indicating that the PRI's Roberto Madrazo Pintado had spent more than $70 million (at the peso's value before the December economic crisis). The PRD candidate said he had received the boxes from two unknown men the night of June 5 as he and hundreds of his supporters were camped out in a protest at the capital's main plaza, the Zocalo [see Update #280]. [Univision TV (US) 6/9/95; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update, Vol. 2, #34, 6/13/95; New York Times 6/13/95; Financial Times (UK) 6/15/95] The documents, which were reviewed by Santiago Creel and Jose Agustin Ortiz Pinchetti, advisers to the Federal Election Institute (IFE), indicated that Madrazo's campaign spending was 60 times the legal limit, more than $133 for each of the 290,000 votes the candidate received. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/11/95; Mexico Update 6/13/95] At his June 9 press conference, Lopez Obrador pointed out that the PRI's campaign costs in small, impoverished Tabasco exceeded the $50 million Bill Clinton spent in his 1992 campaign for the US presidency. [Univision TV 6/9/95] The "Tabasco Bomb," as Lopez Obrador's supporters call the allegations, points to corruption throughout Tabasco's political scene, with payments or favors going to figures as different as a Baptist minister and former federal deputy Cuitlahuac Vazquez Hidalgo from Lopez Obrador's own PRD. Madrazo had previously been linked to Cremi-Union bank head Carlos Cabal Peniche, in hiding after being charged with massive bank fraud in September 1994 [see Update #242]. [LJ 6/11/95] The documents also show the PRI paying hotel bills for various journalists and academics at a Tabasco Holiday Inn. The list includes political analyst Denise Dresser, at the time a visiting fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, DC, and German Dehesa, a columnist for the independent Mexico City daily Reforma. Dresser says that the PRI campaign had given her an invitation to observe the election but that she had turned it down and had in fact never been to Tabasco; Dehesa too denies attending. "Our appearance on the list," Dresser writes, "suggests that our names were later used to justify campaign expenses that were devoted to other illegal activities or channeled into private pockets." [Email posting from Denise Dresser 6/12/95] [Dresser is best known as a strong promoter of former Mexican president Carlo Salinas de Gortari and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "Salinas is keeping all classes happy," she assured the Washington Post during the November 1993 debate on NAFTA in the US Congress. [WP 11/11/93]] At a June 10 press conference Tabasco PRI leader Nicolas Haddad Lopez charged that the documents were forged; his hands trembled so violently that he had trouble reading his statement. [LJ 6/11/95] Mexican federal officials say off the record that the documents are genuine. The main question is now is who leaked the papers. Some government officials call the scandal "Moctezuma's revenge," blaming Governance Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragan, a political rival of Madrazo. [FT 6/15/95] Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador's supporters, who walked 1,000 kilometers from Tabasco to Mexico City last month in an "Exodus for Dignity and National Sovereignty," voted on June 10 to end their Zocalo sit- in and go home. "The passage of time has shown we were right," one marcher, Normita Argaiz, remarked. "We were able to prove that Madrazo governs Tabasco illegally." [LJ 6/11/95] 6. MEXICAN SCANDALS: THE BROTHERS SALINAS AND RUIZ MASSIEU The Tabasco electoral fraud charges came in the midst of still more scandals left over from the 1988-1994 administration of Carlos Salinas. According to Newsweek, Salinas' brother Raul--now in prison on charges of masterminding the Sept. 28, 1994 assassination of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu--may be linked to Gulf Cartel drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego. [Newsweek 6/12/95] On June 13 Mexico's deputy attorney general Rafael Estrada Samano told reporters that "[o]f course" former president Salinas was being investigated in connection with the Ruiz Massieu murder. [Reuter 6/14/95; Los Angeles Times 6/15/95; Wall Street Journal 6/15/95] On June 13 US federal judge Ronald Hedges began hearings in Newark, New Jersey on Mexico's extradition request for former deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu. Mexico charges that Ruiz Massieu, the younger brother of the assassinated PRI leader, had used his position heading the murder investigation to help cover up Raul Salinas' role. Mario Ruiz Massieu was seized at Newark International Airport on Mar. 3 as he and his family were trying to flee from Mexico to Spain. The US has charged Ruiz Massieu with a false currency declaration to customs officials at the airport. On June 15 the US filed to confiscate $9,041,598 he has been keeping in a Houston bank. On the stand in Newark, the former prosecutor had trouble explaining the huge US bank account, which he said resulted from a monthly salary of $10,000 to $40,000. Judge Hedges has refused the defense request to have former president Salinas questioned. But Ruiz Massieu created a new scandal when he explained why he had asked to head the investigation into his brother's death. "I had to go look at the faces of these people who did this crime," he said. "I wanted to make sure [they] did not substitute anyone in the place of the guilty ones like they did in other crimes." According to the daily Reforma, the former prosecutor explained that he was referring to the Mar. 23, 1994 assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. "The attorney general's office showed one face publicly in the media the day that they arrested him," Ruiz Massieu said, "and days later presented a different face, saying that it was the same person, which the public didn't believe because they were absolutely different." Photos the day of the murder show a suspect with curly hair and an incipient moustache; the man charged, Mario Aburto Martinez, had short hair and no moustache. [Reuter 6/14/95, 6/15/95, 6/16/95; El Daily News 6/16/95 from (AP)] The Ruiz Massieu case may generate yet another scandal, this time on the issue of national sovereignty. New York Times reporter Tim Golden writes that the US government had grown suspicious of Mario Ruiz Massieu by the time the new government of Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was to take office on Dec. 1, 1994. "Two American officials said both [Ruiz Massieu and an associate] were on a list of more than a dozen officials presented to Mr. Zedillo's team by the American ambassador to Mexico, James R. Jones, as people whom the Clinton administration did not want to see in the new government," according to Golden. [NYT 6/14/95] 7. MORE MEXICO: LA QUINA, PEACE TALKS On June 1 a Mexican appeals court judge overturned one of the major criminal convictions won by the Salinas administration, which had set out in 1989 to break the hold of union leader Joaquin ("La Quina") Hernandez Galicia over the workers of the state-owned Pemex oil company. Known for his wealth and corruption, Hernandez had failed to back Salinas in the 1988 presidential race. Hernandez was eventually convicted and sentenced to 35 years in jail for the death of a federal agent in a 1989 shootout, along with illegal arms possession and the premeditated murder of a union rival. Last month the 72-year old La Quina went on hunger strike, and on May 29 governance secretary Moctezuma met with the union leader's wife. The next day the premeditated murder and arms possession convictions were overturned; Hernandez has already served the time for the federal agent's death and may soon be released. [Inter Press Service 6/1/95; San Francisco Chronicle 6/3/95 from Los Angeles Times] "This shows that the judicial system is a sham, still light years away from the development of a system of rule of law," complained political analyst Denise Dresser. [SF Chronicle 6/3/95] [Two weeks later Dresser herself was denying involvement in a PRI electoral scandal--see item #5] On June 13 the federal government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) ended their third round of negotiations without reaching any concrete decision on plans to reduce tensions in the southern state of Chiapas. Talks are to resume on July 4. [Mexico Update 6/13/95] Correction: Update #280 misspelled the name of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, the Spanish institution that is buying a 70% interest in Mexico's Grupo Financiero Probursa. 8. BOMB KILLS 29 IN COLOMBIA A bomb exploded June 10 in Medellin, Colombia, at the base of a sculpture by Colombian artist Fernando Botero, killing at least 29 people who had gathered at a outdoor concert there. In a communique sent to a television station on June 11, the Simon Bolivar National Guerrilla Coordinator (CNG) took responsibility for the bomb attack but said it was intended only to destroy the sculpture, not to kill people; the communique said that mistakes were made, but that it was inevitable in a war situation. A drug trafficking group also claimed responsibility during a phone call to a radio station. The police said they have arrested six people in connection with the bomb. According to the radio network Caracol, government security institutions have determined that the attack was carried out by the popular militias (urban guerrilla groups) hired by a drug trafficking organization. A presidential spokesperson suggested that the attack was carried out by a militia group hired by drug traffickers without the authorization of guerrilla leadership. At a news conference, Interior Minister Horacio Serpa confirmed that story, adding that the government has not yet been able to identify the militia group responsible. Serpa also denied any connection between the bombing and the June 9 arrest of Cali Cartel head Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela [see Update #280]. Because Defense Minister Fernando Botero Zea is the oldest son of the sculptor Botero, it was believed that the attempt may have been the action of drug cartels angry at the arrest of Rodriguez Orejuela. Botero Zea has not shown enthusiasm for the peace talks President Ernesto Samper Pizano is trying to set up with the CNG; the Defense Minister has also been criticized for creating "security cooperatives," which serve to legitimize rightwing paramilitary groups. Just before the bomb attack, Botero Zea had dismissed the possibility of new terrorist attacks in connection to drug cartels. Afterwards, he said that any confirmation of guerrilla involvement in the bomb would jeopardize the peace talks. [El Daily News 6/13/95 & 6/15/95 from Reuter; El Diario-La Prensa 6/13/95 from AP, 6/15/95 from EFE & AP; New York Times 6/12/95, 6/15/95; Washington Post 6/12/95 from AP; La Jornada 6/11/95 from Reuter, AFP, DPA, AP, EFE & ANSA; Inter Press Service 6/12/95] On June 15 Botero Zea traveled to Washington, where he was to meet with under-secretary of state for Latin American affairs Alexander Watson and other US government officials. [ED-LP 6/16/95 from Notimex] On June 16, a bomb exploded in the congress building in Bogota while both the lower house and the senate were in session. No one was hurt. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 6/17/95 from EFE] 9. CHILEAN ARMY STILL DODGING ARRESTS On June 14, Judge Adolfo Banados delivered to Chile's Investigations Police the arrest warrants for retired general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda and Brig. Pedro Espinoza that will send the two former secret police (DINA) chiefs to prison for seven and six years, respectively, for masterminding the 1976 car bomb assassination in Washington of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier [see Updates #278-280]. Arrest proceedings for Contreras were to be carried out on June 16 at the Naval Hospital in Talcahuano, where he has been receiving treatment for stress and symptoms of diabetes since June 13. The arrest order against Espinoza--who remains sequestered at the Telecommunications Commando in Penololen--was served on June 15. The Espinoza family claims the brigadier is suffering from acute depression and is requesting his transfer to the Military Hospital. Members of the Christian Democrat party and hundreds of members of human rights organizations and of the Socialist and Communist parties staged separate protests outside the Naval Hospital on June 14, calling for Contreras to be prohibited from "seeking refuge" at any military installations. On the same day, President Eduardo Frei assured Christian Democratic and Socialist party leaders that the government will not negotiate for any terms other than full compliance with the sentences. "There is simply nothing to negotiate," insisted Frei. [CHIP News 6/16/95] Earlier, on June 13, Frei made a nationally televised address in an attempt to ease the tension gripping the country. "No person and no institution can thwart the execution of the law," said Frei. "The citizenry can trust in the inviolability of our country's democratic institutions." [CHIP News 6/14/95] In a two-hour interview published in the daily La Tercera on June 15, former dictator and current armed forces commander in chief Gen. Augusto Pinochet called the trial of Contreras and Espinoza "unjust," and said it was "a fabricated, ad hoc trial comparable to the Nuremberg trials," carried out for purely political reasons. Pinochet said Contreras and Espinoza should serve out their terms in "a secure, honorable, and peaceful place." [CHIP News 6/16/95] Public outrage over Pinochet's comments prompted President Frei to cancel a trip to Brazil, where he was to attend a meeting of the Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur). [Diario Las Americas 6/17/95 from EFE] On the same day Pinochet's remarks were published, prison system director Claudio Martinez visited the nearly completed military prison where Contreras is to serve out his sentence. Martinez confirmed that the prison is now ready to receive up to 50 prisoners, and matches Pinochet's description of "a secure, honorable and peaceful place." Each of the complex's ten rooms has a private bathroom with air conditioning and closed circuit television and there are communal dining rooms, workshops and a patio. [CHIP News 6/16/95] 10. AMNESTY APPROVED FOR PERU MILITARY On June 14, Peru's congress approved a sweeping amnesty for members of the military accused of crimes, ranging from coup attempts to torture and murder, committed since 1980. The vote in the 80-seat single-chamber legislature was 47 to 11. President Alberto Fujimori signed the bill the next day and had it published in the official daily, El Peruano; the amnesty took effect on June 16. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/15/95 from AFP, 6/16/95 from Notimex; El Daily News 6/15/95 from Reuter] Among those included in the amnesty are officers who allegedly attempted to stage a military coup in November 1992; several generals recently convicted for criticizing Fujimori's handling of a border war with Ecuador; and members of the Colina military intelligence group who abducted and murdered nine students and a professor from La Cantuta university in July of 1992. The amnesty also halts the military and civilian trials against the Colina group and inteliigence chief Gen. Julio Salazar Monroe for murdering 15 civilians in November of 1991. [ED-LP 6/15/95 from AFP] The amnesty will not cover soldiers convicted for drug trafficking, "terrorism" or high treason. [EDN 6/16/95 from Reuter] Relatives of the Cantuta victims and human rights activists demonstrated in the streets of Lima to protest the new amnesty law. [ED-LP 6/18/95 from AP; Diario Las Americas 6/17/95 from AFP] On June 15, the Pro-Human Rights Association (APRODEH) denounced that the amnesty will allow at least 500 soldiers and police responsible for human rights violations to go free. APRODEH representative Miguel Jugo said that according to government statistics released by Justice Minister Fernando Vega Santa Gadea at the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting last February, trials have been opened against 108 officers and 450 enlisted personnel for human rights violations. Of these, a total of 28 officers and 151 enlisted personnel have been convicted so far, leaving a considerable number of cases pending in military and civilian courts. [DLA 6/17/95 from AFP] 11. CUBA NEWS ROUNDUP... Cuban authorities have arrested US citizen Robert Vesco, a fugitive from US justice and resident in Cuba since 1983, on suspicion of being a "provocateur and agent for foreign special services." Cuba has hinted that it wants to hand Vesco over to US authorities, and the US is preparing to formally ask for his extradition. [New York Times 6/11/95]... Anti-Castro Cuban emigres from several US cities held a demonstration across from the White House on June 8 to protest the Clinton administration's Cuba immigration policy. The groups that organized the protest claimed the turnout was 5,000. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/9/95 from combined services]... Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino, archbishop of Havana, is on a visit to Puerto Rico and the US. He spent May 27 and 28 in Miami, then returned to Chicago where he is a special guest at the US Episcopal Conference. On June 17, Ortega was to visit New Jersey. [ED-LP 6/11/95] 12. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL SHOOTS PROTESTERS On June 12, at least 16 people were wounded--four of them by bullets, including a journalist--and over 100 were arrested when riot police attacked protesters at two separate demonstrations in the Dominican Republic. Demonstrators in Villa Altagracia, 40 km from the capital, were blocking roads and setting tires on fire to demand street repairs and the normalization of electricity and drinking water supplies. A 16-year old boy, Israel Reyes Pozo, remained in serious condition after being shot by individuals travelling in a Jeep owned by under-secretary of Sports Francisco de la Mota. On June 15, the daily El Siglo published a photo essay showing the government official shooting an automatic rifle at the Villa Altagracia protesters. Villa Altagracia community leaders Flora Carela, Valentina Carmona and Jose Corporan were arrested after the demonstration by army troops known as "Cimarrones." In front of the presidential palace, 12 people were wounded when police attacked a demonstration of 200 families demanding housing, led by their local parish priest. The priest, Rogelio Cruz, says the residents of the Cristo Rey neighborhood have been waiting 16 years for the government to provide the housing it promised them. In a separate incident in a different area of the capital, an 11-year old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting after protesters threw rocks at a passing car. [El Daily News 6/14/95, 6/16/95] The growing wave of strikes and protests has the government concerned. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/18/95 from AP] 13. IN OTHER NEWS... On June 22, Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and the country's National Assembly signed a pact that ends months of conflict between the two state powers over a series of constitutional reforms [see Updates #264-266, #274, #276]. The agreement was reached with the mediation of archbishop Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. On June 23, Chamorro fulfilled the commitment she made in the pact by ordering the publication of 66 amendments to the 202 articles of the Constitution. [Diario Las Americas 6/17/95 from AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 6/18/95 from AP]... A university student was wounded by police bullets during national worker and student protests on June 14 in Ecuador. The National Educators Union and the Unitary Workers Front (FUT) called the national mobilization to protest an increase in electricity and telephone rates announced by the government. Demonstrators put up barricades and battled police in Ecuador's major cities, and indigenous campesinos blocked roads in Riobamba. Health workers and judicial employees are also on strike and have threatened to begin hunger strikes. [El Daily News 6/15/95 from Reuter]... Uruguayan workers were to hold a 24- hour strike on June 16 to protest the new government's proposed reforms to the national social security system. The strike, called by the Workers Interunion Plenary-National Workers Convention (PIT-CNT), also includes in its platform demands relating to jobs, better wages, housing and education. Fueling the protest is public discontent over a tax adjustment that since April has increased the price of consumer goods and taken a bite out of salaries; the government has addressed that issue by suggesting that it may eliminate some taxes sooner than expected. [EDN 6/15/95 from Reuter]... Violent confrontations erupted on June 12 and 13 in Venezuela during student demonstrations; 57 people were arrested and one student lost a hand when a homemade bomb he was carrying exploded. Authorities are unclear of the reason for the protests, and students have reportedly given a variety of reasons when asked why they are demonstrating, including the economic crisis, government corruption and a lack of government compliance with agreements on student transportation. [ED-LP 6/15/95 from EFE] More protests took place on June 15 outside the Fermin Toro high school in Caracas. [DLA 6/17/95 from AFP]... An unknown assailant shot and wounded Argentine journalist Guillermo Cherashny as he headed for work on the morning of June 12. Cherashny, a columnist for Buenos Aires' Radio Libertad and the newspaper El Informador Publico, was shot twice in the lungs but was able to get to a hospital on his own. The Supreme Court recently gave him an 18-month suspended sentence for allegedly slandering Facundo Suarez, former head of the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE). President Carlos Saul Menem sent his personal physician, Alejandro Tfeli, to help with Cherashny's medical care. [ED-LP 6/13/95; NYT 6/14/95]... The air of insecurity continues in Haiti as the country prepares for June 25 legislative and municipal elections, the first vote since the US-UN military occupation began in September 1994. Incidents in Port-au-Prince include the murders of two businesspeople, Frantz Moussignac and Lesly Grimard, on June 6 and June 9 respectively, and of Dr. Wilfrid Figaro on June 9. Arsonists were probably behind the burning of a nursing school on June 4 in the southwestern city of Les Cayes. [Haiti Progres (NY) 6/14-20/95] 14. UPCOMING EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. NSN is DESPERATELY seeking plastic milk crates and hanging file folders (legal or letter size--we need both). Call 212-674-9499. 5th Meeting of Peoples of America & the Caribbean. Managua 7/14- 7/20. For registration info call Cuba Information Project 212- 227-3422. 6/22 THU, 7 PM - "School of Assassins" (US) and "La Flaca Alejandra" (Chile). Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th St. 212-875-5600. 6/23 FRI, 7:30 PM - "Burn!" with discussion. Brecht Forum and Haiti Anti-Intervention Committee. 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $5. Popcorn and beer! 212-242-4201. 6/24 SAT, 2 PM - Demo: Demand a New Trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Harlem State Office Bldg, 125th St & Lenox Av. 212-330-8029. 6/24 SAT, 5:30 PM - The Dyke March!!! Thousands of queer women take to the streets. Meet at Bryant Park (42nd St & 6th Ave). 6/24 SAT, 10 PM - Protest the holding of a Gay Pride dance on the warship Intrepid. W 46th St & 10th Ave. Organized by SHIP (Stop Having Intrepid Parties) Coalition. Call 212-642-8110. 6/25 SUN, Noon - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Etc. Pride March. Assemble at Columbus Circle (59th & 8th Ave). 6/27 TUE, 8 PM - Screening of work-in-progress on Zapatistas by Saul Landau & Haskell Wexler. Alliance Francaise, 22 E 60th St. 212-854-9578. 6/28 WED, 5:30 PM - March on Gracie Mansion Demanding AIDS Services. Meet at 77th St & Cherokee Pl (betw York & East End). Sponsored by City AIDS Actions/ACT UP. 212-774-4270. -- + 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 + >