WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #283, JULY 2, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Argentina: Cordoba Province Explodes in Protests 2. Mexico: Campesinos Massacred in Guerrero 3. Mexican Minister Fired As Crisis Deepens 4. NAFTA at Work: Mexico Imports US Torture Devices 5. Abstention at Least 50% in Chaotic Haitian Elections 6. Who Gains From Haitian Vote's "Imperfections"? 7. Protests in the Dominican Republic 8. Nicaragua Moves to Evict Costa Rican Settlers 9. Nicaragua Gets $1.5 Billion in Aid 10. Refugee Return Threatened in Guatemala 11. Nixon Nephew Detained in Cuba 12. Chile: General's Sentence Starts in Hospital 13. Other News: Uruguay, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Jamaica 14. Upcoming Events in the New York City Area 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, which distributes our email edition; 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 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. ARGENTINA: CORDOBA PROVINCE EXPLODES IN PROTESTS Dozens of people were injured and some 200 arrested in clashes between student protesters and police during worker demonstrations on June 22 and 23 in the north central Argentine province of Cordoba. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/25/95] Public employees were protesting an emergency law that would increase taxes, cut salaries and allow the bankrupt provincial government to pay its employees and vendors with bonds. [Financial Times (UK) 6/27/95] The federation that groups most of the Cordoba unions decided to postpone for 15 days a general strike originally scheduled for June 28; state employees instead held another demonstration that day to claim payment of wages owed to them since April. [El Daily News (NY) 6/29/95 from AP] More protests were held on June 29 by Cordoba's court, school and hospital employees demanding back pay; another mobilization was planned for June 30. In a separate incident, two supermarkets on the outskirts of the city were looted on June 29. [EDN 6/30/95 from AP] Public employee union leaders in Cordoba denied any connection with youth groups involved in the violent incidents of June 22 and 23. [EDN 6/26/95 from AP] Correspondent Stella Calloni writes in the Mexican daily La Jornada that many opposition forces suspect provocateurs of instigating the violence. Calloni mentions that suspicions have been increased by the recent presence of aggressive groups at other normally peaceful demonstrations of pensioners, workers and students. [LJ 6/25/95] According to federal and provincial officials the youths--college and high school students who belong to Marxist and Trotskyist groups--infiltrated the Cordoba workers' protests, broke the windows of stores and banks, set fires in the streets, threw stones at police, and looted the offices of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), which rules Cordoba province. (All but four of Argentina's 21 provinces are governed by the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party, which also controls the federal government.) [EDN 6/26/95 from AP] UCR leader and former president Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989) blamed the central government for Cordoba's financial crisis. Alfonsin pointed out that the federal government "just sent over 40 million pesos [dollars] to the [Peronist] governor of Tucuman," Ramon Ortega. The Tucuman government, affected by a financial crisis similar to Cordoba's, was using federal funds to pay late salaries to its employees, according to the independent news agency Diarios y Noticias. [EDN 6/26/95 from AP] But Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, architect of Argentina's neoliberal economic plan, blamed the crisis on the provincial government's failure to privatize its banks and electricity authorities, "as the other provinces did." [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/29/95 from AFP] Cordoba official Felipe Rodriguez announced on June 29 that a $150 million loan from the US bank Dillon Read was imminent. "We have advanced in the negotiations until they are practically complete," said Rodriguez. The meeting between Cordoba governor Eduardo Angeloz and the bank authorities occurred immediately after one where Angeloz, union leaders and cardinal Raul Primatesta met with Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem. After the first meeting, Angeloz said that the federal government had committed itself to help Cordoba seek financial assistance. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 7/1/95 from AFP] Metalworkers union leaders in Cordoba charge that more than 1,000 workers could be laid off imminently because of the crisis in Argentina's auto industry, and that the US defense contractor Lockheed--which runs an airplane factory in Cordoba--could lay off another 1,000. [LJ 6/25/95] 2. MEXICO: CAMPESINOS MASSACRED IN GUERRERO On June 28 Mexican police shot and killed at least 17 campesinos at a roadblock near the town of Coyuca de Benitez in the southwestern state of Guerrero. The campesinos were from the village of Aguas Blancas, about 36 km from the resort city of Acapulco; they were traveling in two farm trucks which carried 40 to 60 passengers each. Some of the campesinos were members of the Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS), which had been investigated previously for possible links to guerrilla groups. The OCSS members were going to a demonstration in the village of Atoyac de Alvarez; the rest were on their way to the farmers' market in Coyuca. According to the Guerrero attorney general's office, state judicial police stopped the two trucks as part of a routine inspection for weapons. One of the campesinos attacked the heavily armed police with a machete; this provoked a shootout between the police and the campesinos that resulted in the deaths of 17 campesinos and the wounding of four police and 16 campesinos. Police said they seized an AK-47 assault rife, a shotgun, a rifle and four pistols from the campesinos, and that one of the vehicles had been hijacked. The state produced an edited videotape purportedly confirming its version of the incident. [Reuter 6/28/95; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/30/95 from AFP; Diario Las Americas 7/1/95 from AFP; Washington Post 6/30/95] But Mexican human rights organizations, indigenous groups and the survivors themselves insist that a large group of 70 or more police ambushed the two trucks. The campesinos were armed only with "sticks and machetes," according to Marino Sanchez Flores, an OCSS leader, who said one police agent had shot some of the wounded in the head. Some victims were children. A doctor who said he attended the wounded told reporters he saw no evidence that the campesinos had guns, and a Washington Post reporter found no sign that the police had even searched the trucks for weapons. Survivors said they were searched briefly after the shooting stopped but were then allowed to leave; many of the wounded were treated at regional hospitals and then released without being questioned by authorities. Angry campesinos gathered around the coffins of 12 of the dead in the Coyuca plaza on June 29 demanding justice. Members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) seized the mayor's office; the mayor and other officials from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) reportedly fled. Three indigenous activists had been murdered in Guerrero earlier in the month: Perfecto Gonzalez Rufino and Alejandro Tenorio Perfecto on June 10 and Rey Flores Hernandez on June 18. All were members of the Guerrero 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Council, which asks for faxes of protest to Guerrero governor Ruben Figueroa Alcocer at 011-52-747-23072. [National Network of Human Rights Organizations (Mexico) release 6/29/95; Guerrero 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Council releases 6/29/95; Reuter 6/28/95; WP 6/30/95] 3. MEXICAN MINISTER FIRED AS CRISIS DEEPENS On June 28, a few hours after the Guerrero massacre, Governance Secretary Esteban Moctezuma Barragan abruptly offered his resignation. Generally the most powerful cabinet member, the Mexican governance secretary is in charge of such matters as security and the electoral process. No one seemed sure what caused the downfall of Moctezuma, an old friend and adviser of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. Over the previous month Mexico's political crisis had been exacerbated by matters that would be handled by Moctezuma's office: election scandals in Tabasco and Yucatan, the walkout of the two major opposition parties from talks with the government, the murder of Mexico City judge Abraham Polo Uscanga, the sudden expulsion of three foreign priests working in the southern state of Chiapas, and the slow pace of talks with the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) rebels, scheduled to resume on July 4. Moctezuma himself was suspected of leaking information on the "Tabascogate" scandal and of arranging the release of jailed oil workers union leader Joaquin ("La Quina") Hernandez Galicia [see Update #281]. Moctezuma's replacement is Emilio Chuayffet Chemor, governor of the central state of Mexico. Unlike Moctezuma, Chuayffet is considered close to conservative PRI factions. "He is a hardliner, but a polite hardliner," one PRI insider told Reuter. Saying that Zedillo's cabinet was the "weakest and most disconnected...for the last 70 years," PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo warned that the government "has two to three weeks to restart dialogues and solve problems." [Reuter 6/28/95; NYT 6/29/95; WP 6/30/95; Financial Times (UK) 6/30/95] 4. NAFTA AT WORK: MEXICO IMPORTS US TORTURE DEVICES Scandals continued to unfold even as the Mexican cabinet was changed. On June 28 the US-based Human Rights Watch/Americas released a report sharply criticizing the Mexican military's investigations into four incidents that occurred during the army's January 1994 offensive against the EZLN. The report's author, Jose Miguel Vivanco, said there was "a serious effort to exonerate Mexican soldiers from penal or criminal responsibility." The most striking case was the army's investigation into the deaths of 11 people whose bodies were found in a mass grave near the clinic in the small city of Ocosingo. Ignoring the testimony of 45 civilian witnesses, the military found that three died in crossfire between soldiers and Zapatistas and blamed the rest on one officer, 2nd Lt. Arturo Jimenez Morales. Jimenez was confronted with the charges in April 1994 at military headquarters in Mexico City. That night he allegedly committed suicide. "The whole story is incredible and quite childish," Vivanco said. [Los Angeles Times 6/29/95] Meanwhile, the moderately leftist Mexico City daily La Jornada reports that in 1992 the US approved 99 licenses allowing US firms to sell Mexico anti-riot equipment. Under this category the licenses permit the sale of such equipment as handcuffs, helmets, shotguns, cattle prods and what the licenses call "instruments especially designed for torture." Commerce Department spokespeople expressed surprise that firms had been given authorization to sell torture devices to Mexico. Mexico had apparently ordered the equipment in preparation for the 1994 elections; in contrast, only 33 licenses were issued for Mexico between 1980 and 1992. While the licenses do not necessarily mean that this equipment was actually sold to Mexico, Amnesty International reports that Mexico used electric shock equipment in cases of torture in 1994. [LJ 6/25/95, quotations retranslated from Spanish] 5. ABSTENTION AT LEAST 50% IN CHAOTIC HAITIAN ELECTIONS Haiti's frequently postponed legislative and municipal elections- -originally scheduled for December 1994--finally took place on June 25. More than 10,000 candidates were running for about 2,200 positions, including 18 of the 27 Senate seats, all 83 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, and posts on 133 municipal councils and 561 community boards. Twenty-eight parties and a number of independents participated. Official results were expected by July 4 at the earliest; runoff elections will be held on July 23. [Los Angeles Times 6/26/95; New York Times 6/26/95] Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) general secretary Jessie Chancy Manigat estimated that half of the 3.5 million registered voters cast their ballots. [Washington Post 6/27/95] Other observers put the participation rate even lower: an Organization of American States (OAS) observer said the figure might be 25%. [Haiti Progres (NY) 6/28-7/4/95, from WQXR (NY) 6/25/95] The many parties and independents generally divide into three main tendencies. The strongest is President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's populist Lavalas movement, which includes the Lavalas Political Organization (OPL), several splinter parties and independents like popular singer Manno Charlemagne, who ran for mayor of Port-au-Prince. The second main force is a pro-US centrist tendency, headed by the National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD), which provided the ballot space for Aristide in the 1990 presidential elections. Incumbent Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul ("K-Plim") ran for reelection on the FNCD line; he is expected to be the US-backed presidential candidate in the upcoming December presidential elections. The third main force is composed of rightwingers who supported the murderous military regime that kept Aristide in exile from 1991 to 1994. [Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI) 6/23/95; LAT 6/26/95] Some groups on the left of the Lavalas movement, such as the National Popular Assembly (APN), called on voters to boycott the elections, which they predicted would be a disaster [see Update #280]. The New York-based weekly Haiti Progres supported the boycott call. Major problems started on the night of June 23, two days before the elections, when the Limbe electoral office burned down, causing the postponement of voting in Limbe, Le Borgne and Dondon, three towns in the strongly pro-Aristide northern coastal region. The next day dozens of protesters attacked the home and office of rightwing incumbent deputy Duly Brutus, blaming him for the fire. The new police force beat the crowd with nightsticks while US and Pakistani soldiers from the United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUHA) provided logistical support. [HP 6/28-7/4/95] On election day itself most polling places opened hours late, and hundreds never opened at all. [HP 6/28-7/4/95 from Toronto Globe and Mail] Many voters had to spend more than six hours in line, despite the low turnout. Names of some candidates were left off the ballots, which were printed by a California firm. [LAT 6/26/95] The CEP's Manigat blamed the US firm for the shortage of ballots in some areas, but said that the CEP had made up for the problem by using up to 500,000 photocopied ballots. Electoral observers from political parties told the voters, many of them illiterate, how to fill out the complicated ballots. Both OPL and FNCD observers reportedly tried to influence the voting, and an argument between observers from the two parties at one Port-au- Prince polling place reached the point where the police had to be called. In the Carrefour neighborhood two armed individuals shot at an electoral official, Vieux Moise. [HP 6/28-7/4/95] As of June 26 balloting had still not taken place in areas with a total of 200,000 registered voters. [NYT 6/27/95] On the night of June 26 unidentified assailants shot and killed Henock Jean- Charles, an FNCD candidate for mayor of the southwestern town of Anse d'Hainault. [HP 6/28-7/4/95] By July 1 the Washington Post referred to the elections as "unraveling." [WP 7/1/95] 6. WHO GAINS FROM HAITIAN VOTE'S "IMPERFECTIONS"? A few days earlier the Washington Post had written in an editorial that the Haitian elections, "were, by any reasonable standard, a success." [WP 6/27/95] The New York Times admitted that the vote was "badly marred" but said "it would be better to move ahead, learning from this election's shortcomings." [NYT 6/28/95] In general, US political tendencies that supported the 1994 US intervention in Haiti automatically defended the elections. A US delegation led by pro-intervention TransAfrica president Randall Robinson called the vote "a success despite imperfections." Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), a delegation member, said that there were also "imperfections" in Newark's elections. [Haiti en Marche (Miami) 6/28-7/4/95] Brian Atwood, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), wrote that the election "was substantially valid" and better than previous elections. "Some confusion," he says, "is inevitable in this tiny country that has no real democratic tradition." [NYT 6/30/95] USAID's direct funding for the elections totaled $11.8 million. [HP 6/28-7/4/95] But Aristide's own culture minister, Jean-Claude Bajeux, admitted that this year's electoral process showed no improvement over the 1990 parliamentary and presidential elections, and was in fact "worse." [WP 6/27/95] And Aristide's opponents, from the US Republican Party to former Aristide supporter Mayor Paul, were quick to denounce the process. On June 29 16 of the 28 parties signed a petition calling for the vote to be annulled. [WP 7/1/95] The FNCD and right parties are implying that the Aristide government was responsible for the electoral breakdown and that the OPL and other Lavalas groups somehow benefited. But it is hard to see how the Lavalas candidates would benefit from the disruption of the elections they were expected to win easily--or how responsible the Aristide government is for elections paid for and largely run by the US. It is also unlikely that the FNCD and the rightist parties really want to hold the elections over. Haiti Progres reports that opposition leaders are just looking for "part of the cake," and that Brian Atwood has been negotiating with them. "So there will be the usual haggling, with some crumbs here and there so that a strong 'opposition' will emerge," the paper writes, "and the 'leaders' will give in, as they always have." [HP 6/28-7/4/95] 7. PROTESTS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Residents of the Guachupita neighborhood of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic held a 48-hour civic strike on June 29 to demand that the government find housing for 114 families who have been evicted from their homes. Eight people were wounded--three of them by birdshot--when police attacked the demonstrators. [El Daily News 6/30/95] At least 400 families who were evicted from several neighborhoods to make room for new avenues and the "500th Anniversary" expressway in the capital have been holding numerous protests in recent weeks. On the night of June 17, police beat and injured a number of Guachupita residents who were holding a street demonstration to press the government to follow through with its promise for new housing. Dozens of the Guachupita families have been living in a local Catholic church since their eviction six years ago. They were joined several weeks ago by other families in a protest occupation of that and another church. [EDN 6/21/95, 6/22/95; El Diario-La Prensa 6/19/95 from AFP, 6/20/95 from Notimex] On June 18 and 19, at least two people were injured by gunfire and 50 were arrested in 20 different communities in and near the north central province of Santiago; over the previous three weeks these communities had been protesting to demand radical improvements in basic public services. According to David Polanco, spokesperson of the Broad Front of Popular Struggle (FALPO), most of those arrested were dragged from their homes and beaten by police. [ED-LP 6/20/95 from Notimex] Later in the week, more than 100 demonstrators were arrested and many were beaten by police in the cities of Moca, Bonao and Cotui; in Moca, two protesters were shot and wounded by unidentified attackers. [EDN 6/21/95] Demonstrators in Bonao were also demanding that the Canadian mining company Falconbridge reduce its environmental pollution and provide more resources for the community. On June 23, police chief Maj. Gen. Luis Alberto Nunez ordered "an exhaustive investigation" into the previous day's police assault on a high school in Bonao. Six students were wounded by gunfire when a group of police officers entered the school building looking for demonstrators who had supposedly attacked one of their agents. [ED-LP 6/25/95 from EFE] Meanwhile, Dominican under-secretary of Sports Francisco de la Mota and two national police officers have been formally charged with firing at a crowd of demonstrators on June 13, seriously injuring 16-year old Israel Reyes Pozo [see Update #281]. [EDN 6/21/95] 8. NICARAGUA MOVES TO EVICT COSTA RICAN SETTLERS According to Nicaraguan military sources, at least 100 Nicaraguan army troops are patrolling an area near the Costa Rican border where hundreds of Costa Rican settlers are supposedly seeking to create an independent republic. "It is not a fighting action," said Nicaraguan army spokesperson Eduardo Medina. "That has been completely ruled out." The settlers are allegedly linked to a movement of thousands of Costa Ricans that are seeking approval from the United Nations (UN) to create the "Independent Republic of Airrecu, which would be located in a 213 square kilometer region of southern Nicaragua and northern Costa Rica. (Airrecu reportedly means "friendship" in the Maleku language, spoken by the indigenous people of the area.) Both governments have rejected the supposed request for independence. [Diario Las Americas 7/1/95 from EFE; El Daily News 6/29/95 from AP, 6/30/95 from Reuter] On June 29, the settlers--led by Costa Rican rancher Augusto Rodriguez--purportedly threatened to ask the UN to impose an arms embargo on Nicaragua if the Nicaraguan government insists on evicting them by force. But the Costa Rican settlers interviewed in the Nicaraguan press say they were deceived by Rodriguez and the other leaders, who had asked them to sign a letter which was supposed to be exposing the land problems in the region. [DLA 7/1/95 from EFE] According to the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA), the Costa Rican settlers have lived for 16 years in the same site, only to find themselves living in Nicaraguan territory after a new border demarcation between the two countries was completed last March. [DLA 7/1/95 from AFP] On a short visit to Nicaragua on June 26, Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres admitted that his country's Institute of Agrarian Development had handed over plots of Nicaraguan land "by mistake" to Costa Rican settlers, but that his government was trying to "fix" these mistakes "as quickly as possible." According to Reuter, the Institute granted 36 titles of ownership on Nicaraguan land to 36 Costa Rican families. Nicaragua's National Assembly recently approved a law prohibiting foreign citizens from obtaining Nicaraguan border territory, whether bought or by other means. [EDN 6/29/95 from AP, 6/30/95 from Reuter] CODEHUCA has asked the governments of Costa Rica and Nicaragua to respect the settlers' rights; the human rights organization urged the Costa Rican government to relocate the families quickly because the Nicaraguan army troops plan "to take material possession of the lands." On June 30 Nicaraguan foreign minister Ernesto Leal announced that he had told his Costa Rican counterpart, Fernando Naranjo, that Costa Rica must relocate the settlers within 10 days at the latest. [DLA 7/1/95 from AFP] 9. NICARAGUA GETS $1.5 BILLION IN AID On June 20, Nicaraguan officials said they were "extremely pleased" with the $1.5 billion in aid international donors pledged them through 1997 to promote social, political and economic development. Much of the funding will go toward balance- of-payments support; according to Finance Minister Emilio Pereira, Nicaragua imports $800 million in goods per year and exports $350 million worth. About 20% of the new funding will be used for infrastructure development and other public investments, said Pereira. The Nicaraguan delegation to the Paris meeting included union, bank and business representatives as well as diverse political forces. All had "an opportunity to convey their views," Lacayo said. [Inter Press Service 6/20/95] The Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) was represented on the official government mission by National Directorate member Victor Hugo Tinoco. Daniel Nunez, president of the Nicaraguan Farmers and Ranchers Union (UNAG) also participated. [Nicaragua Network (DC) Hotline 6/20/95, 6/27/95] 10. REFUGEE RETURN THREATENED IN GUATEMALA Five international representatives who were taken hostage on June 28 by members of a paramilitary Civil Self-Defense Patrol (PAC) in the Quiche jungle of northern Guatemala were released on the night of June 29. The five had gone ahead of a group of 177 Guatemalan refugees to meet with the PAC members, hoping to negotiate the peaceful return of the refugees to their village of San Antonio Tzeja. The five are US citizen Daniel Long of the World Council of Churches (WCC); US citizen Paula Worby, representing the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR); Canadian citizen Grahame Russell, representing the United Nations Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA); Brazilian citizen Rui Matsuda, representing MINUGUA; and French citizen Ann Marie Subervie, a nurse representing the Doctors of the World. The 39 refugee families had been living on the parish grounds in Cantabal since their return from Mexico on Apr. 20, because the local PAC, headed by military commissioner Raul Martinez, opposes their return. On June 27, PAC members attacked with machetes a group of San Antonio Tzeja residents who were walking out to welcome the refugees. The PAC and Martinez have been involved in at least four other violent incidents in the past few months. An arrest order for Martinez was issued on May 26 by a judge in Coban, but it has clearly not been carried out. Although the hostages have been released, the situation in San Antonio Tzeja remains tense. There are still 50 to 60 armed people in the village who oppose the return. The refugees are camped along the path leading to the village. The Guatemalan government has reportedly sent 40 police officers to the area to take control of the situation. The national police force is under the direction of the army. [National Coordinating Office on Refugees and Displaced of Guatemala (NCOORD) Urgent Action 6/29/95, 6/30/95; Lutheran Office for World Community Memo 6/30/95] Meanwhile, on June 27 Julio Luis Arango Escobar was forced to resign as special prosecutor in charge of the case of murdered guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez. Arango had previously received several death threats, and on June 22 a single bullet was fired at him while he worked in his office. US lawyer Jennifer Harbury plans to return to Guatemala during the first week of July to seek authorization to exhume the remains of Bamaca, her husband [see Update #281, #282]. [Press Release from the Law Offices of Jose Pertierra (Harbury's lawyer) 6/28/95] 11. NIXON NEPHEW DETAINED IN CUBA The Cuban government gave Donald Nixon, Jr.--nephew of former US president Richard Nixon--his passport back on July 1 and told him he is free to leave Cuba. Cuban authorities detained Nixon when they arrested fugitive US financier Robert Vesco earlier in June. Vesco is under indictment in the US for a $200,000 contribution to Richard Nixon's 1972 presidential campaign; Donald Nixon, Jr. has long had close ties to Vesco and even lived with him in Costa Rica for a while during the 1970s. Congressional aides said Nixon was in Cuba as part of an effort to work with Vesco to manufacture an anti-AIDS drug that the US has not approved for use. At a US State Department briefing on June 26, spokesperson Christine Shelly said she could not comment on whether Nixon's business dealings in Cuba violated the US embargo. [New York Times 7/2/95 from Reuter, 6/27/95; Washington Post 6/24/95] 12. CHILE: GENERAL'S SENTENCE STARTS IN HOSPITAL On June 29 retired general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda--the former chief of Chile's notorious secret police (DINA) who was sentenced to seven years in prison for planning the 1976 car bomb murder in Washington of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier [see Updates #278-282]--officially began to serve his prison term at the Naval Hospital of Talcahuano. In a resolution issued the previous day, Judge Adolfo Banados ordered the hospital to remove Navy personnel from Contreras' room and to allow Gendarmeria (prison police) to take over. Justice Minister Soledad Alvear, who made the public announcement, said that Gendarmeria physicians will take sole responsibility for evaluating Contreras' condition from now on, including deciding whether the former general will undergo surgery. Banados said yesterday he had not yet received results from cancer tests run on Contreras, but added, "the truth is, I suspect that at this point his condition is stable enough for him to be transferred [to prison]." [CHIP News 6/30/95] In Switzerland, meanwhile, socialist deputy Jean Ziegler has requested that Contreras be extradited to face trial for the disappearance and presumed murder of Swiss student Alexis Jaccard, who was kidnapped by DINA officials in 1977 from a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The extradition proposal is now under consideration by Switzerland's socialist majority parliament. [CHIP News 6/20/95] An Italian court that sentenced Contreras and retired general Raul Iturriaga on June 23 for planning a 1975 attack against former Chilean vice president Bernardo Leighton and his wife Ana Fresno [see Update #282] also ruled that the two retired officers must pay $600,000 in compensation costs to Fresno--who was left paralyzed by the attack--and $60,000 to the government of Chile. [Inter Press Service 6/23/95] Leighton died last January in Chile; Fresno still lives in Chile. [IPS 6/22/95] 13. IN OTHER NEWS... Workers in Uruguay held a two-hour strike on June 27 to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the coup d'etat that marked the start of a repressive 12-year military dictatorship. This was the third strike in Uruguay since President Julio Maria Sanguinetti took office on Mar. 1. Another partial strike took place on Apr. 6, and a 24-hour general strike was held on June 15 to protest the government's economic policies and its plans to cut social security benefits [see Update #281]. [El Daily News 6/28/95 from AP]... One June 30, Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera said he would soon restore the constitutional guarantees he suspended over a year ago. Caldera has said he would restore the suspended rights--which include freedom from arbitrary search or arrest and freedom of movement--after the legislature passes three new economic laws covering exchange mechanisms, consumer protection and financial emergencies. The last of the three, which regulates the banking sector, was passed on June 29 and is expected to take effect the following week. Caldera suspended freedoms on June 27, 1994, to respond to an economic crisis, round up political "subversives" and crack down on crime. [New York Times 7/1/95; Inter Press Service 6/26/95] Human rights lawyer Tarek Saab charges that in July and August of last year, security forces used the cover of the emergency measures to raid many poor areas of Caracas, search thousands of homes, and arrest and people designated "anti-social." [IPS 6/26/95]... In Bolivia, agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) have teamed up with the Bolivian police to patrol the area around the Chonchocoro high security prison near La Paz. The DEA action was prompted by rumors of a plan by Colombian drug mafias to break out several traffickers being held there, in order to prevent their extradition to the US. Bolivia and the US signed a new extradition treaty on June 27 which covers drug trafficking, terrorism, kidnapping and damages to the state. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/2/95 from Notimex]... On June 30 in Medellin, Colombia, chauffeur Humberto Munoz Castro was sentenced to 43 years and five months in prison for murdering soccer player Andres Escobar. Escobar was shot to death outside a Medellin restaurant on July 2 of last year, barely a week after accidentally scoring a goal against his own team in Colombia's losing World Cup match against the US on June 22 [see Updates #230, #231]. [ED-LP 7/2/95 from AFP]... On June 29, judges in Peru began a protest action to draw attention to their demand for a salary increase. The protest consists of working straight shifts of 16 hours, from 8 am to midnight. Previously the judges were protesting by having "permanent meetings" instead of working. Jose Garcia Villena, president of the National Association of Judges, said that the protest action is being observed by all the judges in the nation. Garcia added that according to Peruvian law, judges cannot earn less that 70% of what a congressperson earns. But this law is not observed by the government, said Garcia. [ED-LP 6/29/95 from EFE]... During the week of June 19, a year after they were charged, a British court acquitted police officers accused of manslaughter for the August 1993 killing of Jamaican immigrant Joy Gardner, who was facing deportation for passport law infractions [see Update #230]. Gardner died in her home after police handcuffed her hands and feet and gagged her with 30 feet of sticky tape, in front of her five-year old son. The court ruled that the police had used "reasonable force." [Inter Press Service 6/25/95] 14. UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE NEW YORK CITY AREA For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. MUMIA ABU-JAMAL CASE: Call Judge Albert Sabo (phone 215-686-5100; fax 215-563-1623) before July 12 to demand a stay of execution for Abu-Jamal, and to demand that Sabo recuse himself from the case. Sabo will make both decisions at a July 12 hearing. -Cuba Vive! International Youth Festival. Havana, 7/30-8/7. Discussions, music, 3 days in provinces staying w/Cuban families. $550. Cuba Information Project. 212-227-3422. 7/6 THU, 6:30 PM - Organizing Meeting for Oct. 14 Cuba Demonstration. Casa de las Americas, 104 W 14th St. National Network on Cuba. 212-227-3422. 7/6 THU, 6:30 PM - "Cocolos y Rockeros," Puerto Rico, plus shorts from Nicaragua & Costa Rica. At CUNY Grad Ctr 333 W 42nd St. Free. Sp w/subtitles. Videoteca del Sur. 212-334-5257. 7/6 THU, 7 PM - Planning meeting for July 22 Nicaragua Reunion. 339 Lafayette St., buzzer #11. NSN, 212-674-9499. 7/7 FRI, 6:30 PM - "La Herida de mi Ojo," Spain (about Cuba), plus shorts from Dominican Republic & Colombia. At CUNY Grad Ctr 333 W 42nd St. Free. Spanish w/subtitles. 212-334-5257. 7/8 SAT, 9 PM - Send-Off Party/Despedida for NYC Delegation to El Salvador. 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $5-15. 212-645-5230. 7/10 MON, 6 PM - Book Party & Poetry Slam for Mumia Abu-Jamal. $3. University of the Streets 130 E 7th St. 7/10 MON, 7:30 PM - Save Mumia Abu-Jamal Community Forum. Church of Gethsemane, 1012 8th Ave (at 10th St). 718-499-6704. 7/11 TUE, 6:30 PM - Forum on "Counterterrorism" Bill. Prof. David Cole (Georgetown U), Ron Daniels (Center for Constitutional Rights), Rev. Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley. Community Church of NY, 40 E 35th St. CCR & Community Church. 212-614-6464. 7/12 WED, 7:30 PM - Stop Privatization of Queens Hospitals. Meeting at Floyd Flake's Church School. Ctrl Queens CoC. 718-263-3130. -- + 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 + >