WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #284, JULY 9, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Guatemalans March Against Disappearances 2. Guatemala: Bamaca Exhumation Delayed, Unionist Raped 3. Mexico: Police Arrested for Guerrero Massacre 4. Mexican President Down, Stocks Up 5. Mexican Rebels Push National "Consultation" 6. Haiti: Runoffs Postponed, Police Trained in Missouri 7. Argentina: Peaceful Protest in Cordoba 8. Argentina: Right Wins Tucuman Governor Race 9. Elections in Dominica, Grenada & St. Kitts/Nevis 10. Colombia Cited for Murders of Unionists 11. Farmers Protest in Chile 12. In Other News: Venezuela & Brazil 13. Upcoming Events in the NYC Area & Beyond 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. GUATEMALANS MARCH AGAINST DISAPPEARANCES Some 5,000 Guatemalans marched to the National Palace on June 21 to commemorate the day in 1979 when 27 union leaders--the entire leadership of the National Workers Central (CNT)--were abducted from the union hall and disappeared. The protest was organized by the Mutual Support Group (GAM) and the Relatives of the Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA). Local media reports on the demonstration focused on the fact that about 40 protesters wore hoods and masks--in violation of a law passed recently by the Guatemalan Congress that prohibits the use of disguises in demonstrations. The Association of University Students has protested the anti-hood law, arguing that "there are not conditions in the country to freely exercise the right to protest." GAM activist Maria Yolanda Pichiya has not been seen since the June 21 demonstration and it is feared she has been disappeared. GAM also recently organized a march on Father's Day for children whose parents were disappeared. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #24, 6/28/95; Guatemalan Human Rights Commission/USA Human Rights Update 6/30/95] Also on June 21, some 5,000 employees of the government's Public Works department walked off the job to protest the department's planned privatization; the next day about 300 of them began an occupation of the department offices. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs 6/28/95] 2. GUATEMALA: BAMACA EXHUMATION DELAYED, UNIONIST RAPED Special Prosecutor Julio Arango Escobar is back in charge of investigating the torture and murder of former guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez. Arango had apparently resigned [see Update #283] because he felt the government was not supporting him in the prosecution of the case. [Press Release from the Law Offices of Jose Pertierra 7/2/95] On July 5 Arango accompanied Bamaca's widow, US lawyer Jennifer Harbury, to the court in Coatepeque to obtain an expert court order protecting their right to exhume for more than one day at the Cabanas military base, where Bamaca's body is thought to be buried. The judge signed the order, but the army's lawyer says he will appeal, thus delaying the exhumation for another week. Harbury is concerned that further delays will allow the bodies of hundreds of other people buried at the base to be moved. "The soldiers were already starting to plant fruit trees out there," she writes. [Letter from Jennifer Harbury 7/6/95] On May 17, unionist Flor de Maria Salguero de Laparra of the federation of food workers unions (FESTRAS) was forcibly taken off a bus, drugged, taken to a house, beaten and raped three times. Salguero, an organizer in Guatemala's maquiladora sector, has been receiving death threats at her home since late March. Salguero has been active in focusing international attention on worker rights violations in Guatemala, and last year she attended US congressional hearings on working conditions in Central America and met with striking textile workers in Pennsylvania whose jobs were being threatened by low wages and lack of unions in Guatemala. Faxes demanding a thorough investigation into the attack should be sent to President Ramiro de Leon Carpio (011- 502-2-537-542) and Labor Minister Gladys Morfin (011-502-2-513- 559, with a copy to the US/Guatemala Labor Education Project (312-262-6602). [US/GLEP Urgent Action Request 6/14/95] According to judiciary records, three to four bodies a day were found with signs of torture during the month of May 1995 in Guatemala; in the same month 195 violent deaths were reported. Interior Minister Carlos Reynoso Gil says that extrajudicial executions have increased by 40%. [GHRC/USA Human Rights Update 6/30/95] 3. MEXICO: POLICE ARRESTED FOR GUERRERO MASSACRE In a July 1 press conference Antonio Alcocer Salazar, attorney general of the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero, announced that two police officers and eight police agents had been arrested on homicide charges in connection with the killing of 17 campesinos three days before. The massacre occurred on June 28 when a group of campesinos were stopped at a police checkpoint near the Aguas Blancas ford, about 36 km from the resort city of Acapulco. [The campesinos were from the nearby mountains, not from Aguas Blancas itself as reported incorrectly in Update #283]. Some of the campesinos were on their way to the market at the town of Coyuca de Benitez, and others, members of the Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS), were going to a demonstration in the village of Atoyac de Alvarez. At the July 1 press conference attorney general Alcocer continued to deny the survivors' accusations that state judicial police had ambushed the victims; he said the OCSS had provoked the incident and that he was pressing charges against OCSS director Benigno Guzman Martinez. Despite the charges, Guzman Martinez was in Coyuca the same day leading a protest rally, together with Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, the 1994 presidential candidate of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and PRD member Maria de la Luz Nunez Ramos, municipal president (mayor) of Atoyac. (The PRD and the more radical OCSS have a history of disputes, and one of the charges against Guzman Martinez is that the OCSS held mayor Nunez Ramos captive against her will on May 18. The mayor says that the PRD and the OCSS now have an agreement to unite to bring the killers to justice.) After the PRD and OCSS leaders had left the rally, a group of campesinos attacked the Coyuca municipal building, taking a typewriter and burning part of the building. Coyuca mayor Jesus Herrera Velez, a former guerrilla now in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), reportedly left town on June 27, the evening before the massacre. [La Jornada (Mexico) 7/2/95] The Sol de Acapulco and the Mexico City daily Sol de Mexico published photos showing several unarmed corpses; other pictures, which the photographers say were taken minutes later, showed pistols in the same victims' hands. The photographers, the first media people on the scene, estimated that there were about 300 police in the area and said "the hills were black" with the agents' black uniforms. [LJ 7/2/95] At a PRD press conference in Mexico City on July 3, Atoyac mayor Nunez Ramos said that Guerrero governor Ruben Figueroa Alcocer had told her before the incident that he planned to stop the OCSS "any which way." After the massacre, she said, the governor told her: "They came for war and war is what they got. Are we the authority here or not?" PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo said there will be "no possibility for dialogue" with the government "if this is not cleared up and those responsible punished." The PRD and the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN) have been boycotting electoral reform talks with the government of Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. [Reuter 7/5/95] The Guerrero incident comes in the midst of what many Mexicans consider a sharp increase in repression. On July 2 some 3,500 indigenous demonstrators marched through the town of Yajalon in the southern state of Chiapas to demand the return of the parish priest, Loren Riebe. Riebe, a US citizen, was one of three foreign priests suddenly deported on June 23 [see Update #282]. In the last month, Chiapas police have arrested more than 200 campesinos occupying land they say they should get under the agrarian reform program. [Associated Press 7/4/95] In Oaxaca, another impoverished southern state, two masked youths shot at a van driven by Tehuantepec bishop Arturo Lona Reyes on June 29, leaving 10 bullet holes but missing the bishop. Lona Reyes told reporters that his "sin" was defending the human rights and land claims of indigenous Zoque people in the region. [LJ 7/2/95] Mexico City human rights advocates are protesting a new plan from Federal District (DF) regent (mayor) Oscar Espinosa Villarreal to fight the rising crime rate by stopping suspicious-looking people at checkpoints set up each night. [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol. 2, #37, 7/5/95] The Public Security Secretariat took reporters on a tour the evening of July 1 to show how well the measures were working. The reporters saw nothing in the Polanco neighborhood and at the Chapultepec subway stop, but at the Tlatelolco housing project they found that 16 youths had been arrested. Most turned out to be residents of the project; they told reporters they had been beaten--and in one case robbed--by the police. The youths were released for lack of evidence. [LJ 7/2/95] 4. MEXICAN PRESIDENT DOWN, STOCKS UP Mexico's political crisis has reached the point where even establishment figures are questioning the government's stability. "Can the president survive?" analyst Denise Dresser asked in the conservative opposition Mexico City daily Reforma on July 3. "Every week a new scandal breaks and every week the president seems less capable of dealing with it." [AP 7/5/95] [Dresser, who teaches at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) [New York Times 7/3/95], is a favorite source for the US media; see Update #281.] There is "ungovernability" in the country, says PRI federal deputy Oscar Levin Coppel, who is trying form a bloc of left-leaning deputies from his party with centrist deputies from the PRD. [LJ 7/2/95] "Even good news can turn bad," Associated Press remarks. The arrest of accused Mexican drug trafficker Hector Luis Palma Salazar ("El Guero") on June 22 near Guadalajara, Jalisco, seemed to show that Zedillo was winning the war against the drug cartels. But in fact Palma was captured only because he was injured when his private plane crashed; he was arrested at a police officer's home, where 33 federal judicial agents were guarding him. [AP 7/5/95] Opposition cartoonists had a field day, showing drug traffickers "raining" on prosecutors and the sky getting a medal for finally catching the long-sought fugitive. [LJ 7/2/95] Despite Mexico's political problems, US economic analysts continue to push for all of Latin America to follow Mexico as a model. Citibank's vice president for Latin American investments William Rhodes warns of the "danger" of letting the economic and political crisis in Mexico "stop the integration of capital markets" in the Americas. The 34 economy ministers of the hemisphere met in Denver, Colorado, on June 30 to follow up on the December 1994 "Summit of the Americas," which announced a plan to include all of Latin America in a free trade zone modeled on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the US. The ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the plan, with Chile slated to be the next NAFTA partner. [LJ 7/2/95] The meeting was followed by US media articles echoing the ministers' claim that the Mexican crisis hadn't hurt prospects for investment in Latin America. [NYT 7/4/95; Washington Post 7/4/95; Christian Science Monitor 7/6/95] On July 4 President Zedillo told reporters: "I believe it is very clear that the risk of financial collapse that our nation lived through during the first four months of the year has dissipated." (Mexico is now receiving the second half of a $20 billion credit line from the US; as with the first $10 billion, this loan will be used mostly to redeem tesobonos, the high-risk bonds held by many US investment houses.) The Mexican stock market responded to Zedillo's remarks by rising dramatically. [Los Angeles Times 7/7/95] Stocks jumped 5.58% on July 5, 4.20% on July 5 and 2.25% on July 6. [NYT 7/6/95, 7/7/95, 7/8/95] 5. MEXICAN REBELS PUSH NATIONAL "CONSULTATION" Negotiators for the Mexican federal government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) held their fourth round of peace talks in the Chiapaneco town of San Andres Larrainzar (or Sakamch'en de los Pobres) July 4-7. The two sides agreed, with reservations, on an agenda proposed by the National Mediation Commission (CONAI) for the negotiating process. Talks are to resume on July 24. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 7/8/95 from EFE] At the moment the rebels seem less interested in the talks than in their plan, announced on June 7, for a national "consultation," or plebiscite [see Update #280]. The consultation would ask Mexicans and international supporters to vote on the EZLN's future course, answering "yes," "no" or "don't know" to questions about the EZLN's basic 13 demands, the prospects for a broad opposition front, and whether EZLN should become an new independent political force or should join with other groups to form a new political force. In a June 20 communique EZLN spokesperson "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" clarified that the consultation would not decide when or whether the EZLN should give up its arms; the focus is much more on regrouping and revitalizing the opposition on a national level. [LJ 6/25/95] In a letter published on June 10, Marcos analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the current opposition. For example, the PRD "seems to combine all the disadvantages of a front and all the disadvantages of a political party... However, it can't be denied that the PRD has succeeded, at the cost of the lives of its people, in opening an important space for citizens' political participation. A good part of the small democratic space that exists in Mexico today is due to the PRD... Fragmented, fighting with itself, the left opposition [the PRD left and more radical groups] has the irrefutable honor of never having surrendered, of rising up again after each blow, of continuing to struggle (despite everyone and despite itself), and of thinking the revolution is necessary...and possible..." [LJ 6/10/95 (electronic edition), ellipses in original] "The principal worry of the state-party system is not the radicalism of the forces that oppose it, but the possibility of their unity." [LJ 6/11/95] The daily Reforma carried out an opinion poll in Mexico City based on the EZLN's questions. 77% or more agreed with the 13 demands, 45% felt the EZLN should become a new independent political force, and 29% thought it should unite with other forces to form a new organization. [Mexico Update Vol. 2, #35, 6/21/95] However, Marcos specified that the EZLN didn't want a poll but a "dialogue," with a period of discussion followed by formally organized voting. [LJ 6/25/95] On June 19 the Civic Alliance, an election monitoring group, agreed to the EZLN's request for it to organize the voting process. The Civic Alliance plans to hold the consultation in August with 10,000 voting tables (half in urban and half in rural areas); it expects about 3 million Mexicans to vote. [Special Bulletin Chiapas #14, 7/5/95 from Mexican Academy for Human Rights] [The group held a Feb. 26 plebiscite in which 631,193 people voted, with 80% rejecting the US bailout plan; see Update #266.] The EZLN is encouraging participation by supporters in other countries and has set up an International Liaison Commission including Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, president of the Democratic National Convention (CND). The National Commission for Democracy in Mexico, USA (NCDM, phone 915-532-8382, e-mail moonlight@igc.apc.org) is one of the US groups coordinating this effort. The coordinators plan to collect all the international ballots by July 31. [NCDM memo 7/5/95; International Liaison Commission letter 7/6/95] [We will try to provide ballots and instructions for Update subscribers with next week's mailing.] 6. HAITI: RUNOFFS POSTPONED, POLICE TRAINED IN MISSOURI On July 3 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced that results from the June 25 legislative and municipal elections would not be released until July 8. It is generally believed that supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's left-populist Lavalas movement won the majority of the races. In a July 3 communique the pro-US National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD) denounced the disorganization and irregularities in the voting process, which was largely financed by the US. The FNCD said it "will not accept the results, favorable or not..." Previously the FNCD had suggested that it would accept the results only if it won; apparently the party has decided that this is not a serious possibility. The word on the street is that even the FNCD's Port-au-Prince mayoral candidate, popular incumbent Evans Paul ("K-Plim"), has lost. Despite problems with his ballot line [see Update #282], pro-Aristide singer Manno Charlemagne is thought to have beaten Paul, who is considered the US favorite for the December presidential elections. US officials continue to maintain that the vote is legitimate, however. [Haiti Progres (New York) 7/5-11/95] On July 5 the CEP announced that the runoff races scheduled for July 23 would be postponed, leaving July 23 free for first-time voting in eight towns where unknown persons burned the ballots on June 23. National television gave Aug. 13 as the probable date for the runoffs. [New York Times 7/6/95 from AP] Under the Haitian Constitution, the elections should have been held in December 1994. On June 28 375 Haitian police cadets were flown to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, for a two-month training course. The Aristide government objected to the plan, just as it objected to the US plan to create a police force of 6,000 or more--about the same size as the old army. The Haitian government had wanted to keep the force at 3,000. "The official reason for the move [to Missouri] is the supposed lack of facilities in Haiti," the English-language Haitian biweekly Haiti Info notes, "although when the US troops invaded last fall, they quickly and easily erected hundreds of tent cities and concrete buildings for 20,000 people." [Haiti Info, Vol. 3, #19, 7/1/95; Haiti en Marche (Miami) 7/5-11/95; Sheffield, MA, Fellowship of Reconciliation action alert 7/7/95] Correction: Following our source, we wrote in Update #277 that the army the US left behind at the end of its 1915-34 occupation of Haiti was called the "Haitian Police Force" (Gendarmerie d'Haiti); it was actually called the "Haitian Guard" (Garde d'Haiti). [HP 7/5-11/95] 7. ARGENTINA: PEACEFUL PROTEST IN CORDOBA Surrounded by an extremely heavy police presence, on July 5 thousands of state employees and pensioners in the north central Argentine province of Cordoba held a general strike and peaceful protest march to demand back pay owed to them since April. The march ended three blocks from the provincial government headquarters, where protesters sang the national hymn and read a statement rejecting the privatization of the province's two government banks and other public services. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/6/95 from AFP, 7/5/95 from Notimex] The announcement on June 29 that Dillon Read & Co., a New York investment bank, had agreed to loan Cordoba $150 million had temporarily eased violent protests over unpaid wages [see Update #283]. But doubts about the loan's existence--and the failure of their back pay to materialize--led the Cordoba state workers to make plans on the night of July 3 for the strike and protest march held two days later. [ED-LP 7/6/95 from AFP] "We can't wait 15 more days," said Luis Bazan, leader of the workers of the provincial sanitation department. "If the money doesn't appear, everything goes rotten. It's that simple, that bad." [El Daily News (NY) 7/4/95 from Reuter, 7/5/95 from AP] A Cordoba official announced during the week of July 3 that Dillon Read had suspended talks with Cordoba's provincial government on the proposed $150 million global bond issue. Dillon Read admitted advising Cordoba on the bond placement but denied ever having agreed to lend the money. The province says it has opened talks with other foreign banks. [Wall Street Journal 7/7/95] On the night of July 4--just before the scheduled general strike and march--Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo said that Argentine banks were working to obtain a "bridge loan for $75 million" for Cordoba province. Cordoba governor Eduardo Angeloz claims that the foreign credit request is being delayed by bureaucratic matters, but that he is confident it will be granted, although he did not say when. [El Daily News 7/5/95 from AP] According to the daily Clarin, intelligence sources said that Cavallo could be behind Cordoba's failure to get international financing. Publicly, Cavallo has maintained an inflexible position on Cordoba's economic problems, warning Angeloz that the province will not receive any aid if the provincial government-- run by the opposition Radical Civic Union (UCR)--doesn't first privatize its banks and energy companies. [La Jornada 7/2/95] International organizations have conditioned funding on the privatization of at least 51% of the shares in Cordoba's provincial banks. Cordoba has been reluctant to sell off more than 50% of the bank shares to the private sector, because it considers the banks essential to provincial development. Likewise, the provincial government refuses to sell its energy company, EPEC, because it runs at a surplus. [EDN 7/4/95 from Reuter] With five months still left in his third term as governor of Cordoba, Angeloz announced in a televised speech that he will step down in a few weeks, handing his post over to Ramon Mestre, also of the UCR. Mestre won gubernatorial elections on May 14 but was not due to take office until December. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 7/8/95 from EFE] 8. ARGENTINA: RIGHT WINS TUCUMAN GOVERNOR RACE Retired general Antonio Domingo Bussi of the provincial rightwing party Republican Force won elections for governor held on July 2 in the small northern Argentine province of Tucuman. Preliminary unofficial projections gave Bussi 43% of the vote to 27.9% for the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, 22.3% for the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and 1.7% for the leftist coalition Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO). [El Daily News 7/4/95 from Reuter] In addition to choosing a governor on July 2, Tucuman's 760,000 eligible voters also elected a vice-governor, 40 provincial legislators, 19 mayors and a number of municipal council members, as well as 93 commissioners in rural areas. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/3/95 from AP] Peronist candidate Olijela del Valle Rivas charged that her party was ahead with 36.4% to Bussi's 32.5%, with 23.2% for the UCR's Rodolfo Campero. Del Valle also charged that opinion poll results showing a Bussi victory were broadcast before the voting booths had closed, in violation of electoral rules. If his victory is confirmed by the final results, Bussi is due to be sworn in on Dec. 10 as Tucuman's new governor. [EDN 7/4/95 from Reuter] Seven other provinces will hold elections before the end of this year, and the city of Buenos Aires will the first time directly elect its mayor and hold a plebiscite on its future legal status. [EDN 7/3/95 from AP] The Peronists staved off a Bussi victory in Tucuman four years ago by running the popular singer Ramon "Palito" Ortega for governor. But Ortega could not seek a second consecutive term since he was unable to change the provincial constitution to allow reelection. Ortega is seen as a possible contender to succeed President Carlos Saul Menem in the 1999 presidential elections. [EDN 7/3/95 from AP, 7/4/95 from Reuter] Bussi is accused of having directed the torture and disappearance of more than 500 people in a dirty war against the leftist opposition and a rural guerrilla movement during his stint as military governor of Tucuman in 1976 and 1977. Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato--who during the 1980s led the National Commision on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP)--called Bussi's election "a horror," and pointed out that if it wasn't for the "Punto Final" amnesty law, the former general would be in jail. Bussi responded that Sabato was abusing "the freedom of expression that cost the country so much blood." [ED-LP 7/4/95 & 7/6/95 from AFP] Meanwhile, Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem was sworn in for his second consecutive term on July 8. Constitutional changes that allowed his reelection also shortened the presidential term from six to four years and established the position of "cabinet chief," a kind of prime minister empowered by the constitution to "exercise the general administration of the country." The creation of this post--an attempt to reduce the president's powers--was one of the demands made by former president and UCR head Raul Alfonsin in exchange for his support of Menem's constitutional reforms. Menem's cabinet chief is his most trusted adviser, Eduardo Bauza. Eight other ministers will continue in their posts. [EDN 7/7/95 from AP; ED-LP 7/9/95 from EFE] 9. ELECTIONS IN DOMINICA, GRENADA & ST. KITTS/NEVIS Edison James was sworn in late in the week of June 12 as the new prime minister of Dominica, as Eugenia Charles stepped down from the post after 15 years. Charles, known as the "Iron Lady" of the Caribbean, attracted international attention in 1983 when she appeared beside US president Ronald Reagan, giving her support as he announced the US invasion of the neighboring Caribbean island of Grenada. According to preliminary results in the elections held June 12, James' United Workers party won 11 of 21 seats in the parliament; the remaining seats were split between the Freedom party that Charles founded 27 years ago and the Labour party. The Freedom party's loss at the latest elections is blamed on Charles' refusal to support new party leader Brian Alleyne. James's government will immediately have to tackle the national debt, which has risen from $32.5 million to $111 million over the years Charles has been in power. Dominica has a population of 71,000; its sole export crop is bananas. [Inter Press Service 6/13/95, 6/28/95; Financial Times (UK) 6/14/95] Keith Mitchell became the new prime minister of Grenada after his New National Party (NNP) won eight of a total 15 parliamentary seats in general elections held June 20, defeating the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The NNP won about 33% of the popular vote. Mitchell, a former Works Minister in the Herbert Blaize administration (1984-89), says his immediate task is to reduce taxes and tackle unemployment. The government says unemployment is at 18%; the opposition claims it is close to 30%. Mitchell has also prioritized the reactivation of state executions. No one has been executed in Grenada since 1976. Grenada has just ended a structural adjustment program--begun in 1991 during the Nicholas Brathwaite administration--which included drastic reductions in state spending. (Braithwaite resigned from politics earlier this year, leaving his deputy, George Brizan, to lead the NDC through the elections.) According to a recent government survey, the number of Grenadians living below the poverty line has doubled over the last eight years. Mitchell also intends to review Grenada's privatization program; he says he plans to buy back the Grenada Electricity Services (Grenlec) sold last year to a US company. [Inter Press Service 6/21/95] In St. Kitts-Nevis, a two-island nation with a population of 40,000, the Labor Party (SKNLP) won seven of the 11 seats in the federal parliament, ending 15 years of rule by the People's Action Movement (PAM), which won only one seat. Prime Minister Kennedy Simmonds acknowledged defeat early on July 4 and SKNLP leader Denzil Douglas was sworn in to replace him the same day. The elections were held more than three years ahead of schedule [see Update #252]; the country has been in political crisis since November 1993, when the PAM's electoral victory was contested by the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP). [Inter Press Service 7/4/95] 10. COLOMBIA CITED FOR MURDERS OF UNIONISTS On June 14, Human Rights Watch/Americas (HRW) and the International Labor Rights Education and Research Fund (ILRERF) filed petitions with the US Trade Representative (USTR) calling for a second review in three years of labor practices in Colombia. The petitions charge that hundreds of trade unionists have been killed, assaulted, or threatened for belonging to a union, participating in contract negotiations or trying to form union locals. In 1994, more than a quarter of Colombia's exports to the US entered duty-free under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. GSP benefits can be denied if the executive branch finds that the beneficiary country fails to meet internationally recognized labor rights standards. The ILRERF and the US trade union federation AFL-CIO submitted a similar petition in 1993, but the USTR declined to pursue it. In the new petition, ILRERF says that the situation faced by Colombian workers has "substantially deteriorated" since 1993. In 1994, 101 trade unionists in Colombia were killed for political reasons. Three out of every five union workers killed for political reasons in the world last year were Colombian, according to the Unified Workers Central, which represents about 60% of Colombia's unionized workers. In its petition, HRW cited "abundant and convincing evidence linking state agents and the paramilitary death squads often working as their allies or associates to the killings of trade unionists." Of 1,800 political killings of trade unionists since 1986, few if any have been thoroughly investigated and prosecuted, according to HRW. [Inter Press Service 6/15/95; HRW Press Release 6/16/95] Total homicides in Colombia during 1994 averaged 74 a day. [Peace Brigades Internationl Informacion Catorce Dias 6/19/95-7/2/95 from El Tiempo 6/28/95] 11. FARMERS PROTEST IN CHILE An estimated 23,000 Chilean farmers and farmworkers held a protest on July 5 in the rural community of San Carlos, about 500 miles south of Santiago, to demand government action on farming issues. National Agriculture Society (SNA) president Ernesto Correa listed low returns, high debt, reduced lands under cultivation, a stalled fruit export sector, increased foreign food imports, and job loss as key concerns of the farming sector. Correa warned that if the government does not take credible steps to address these concerns within 30 days, a series of farm strikes will be organized throughout the country. Farmers are also concerned about adverse effects when Chile joins the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR). [CHIP News 7/6/95] Planning for the demonstration was complicated by complaints from the National Campesino Commission (NCC) that the SNA was "forcing" poor rural campesinos to attend the demonstration. NCC president Eugenio Leon claims that in Orsorno farm owners hired five buses to transport farmworkers to San Carlos, threatening to fire any worker who failed to get on the bus. Leon added that "the interests of the SNA are not necessarily those of Chile's small farmers and campesinos." [CHIP News 7/3/95] Among the concrete measures demanded by the demonstrators are farm subsidies, duties on subsidized foreign agriculture products, and government intervention to stabilize the US dollar's exchange value. On July 3, just two days before the demonstration, Chile's Central Bank adopted two dollar stabilization measures, giving Chilean banks greater latitude in investing dollars abroad and imposing new restrictions on dollar investments entering the country. On the same day, Agriculture Minister Emiliano Ortega promised to promote legislation that would allow President Eduardo Frei to increase tariffs on foreign agriculture products from their current 11% level to as much as 30%. On July 6, the day after the demonstration, Ortega and Interior Minister Carlos Figueroa warned that implementing the farmers' demands "would bring an end to the free market economy." [CHIP News 7/4/95, 7/7/95] Meanwhile, at least 100 people protested in front of the presidential palace in Santiago against Chile's entry into NAFTA. Some of the demonstrators were arrested. [El Daily News 7/3/95 from AP] 12. IN OTHER NEWS... On July 6 Venezuelan president Rafael Caldera announced the restoration of six civil liberties that were suspended over a year ago. However, the decree stipulates that the guarantees will remain suspended in a militarized buffer zone on the Colombian and Brazilian borders where Venezuelan soldiers are trying to crack down on illegal mining, Colombian guerrillas and smuggling. [New York Times & Washington Post 7/7/95 from Reuter]... On July 3, a federal judge in Brazil suspended a contract with the Raytheon Company--a US arms manufacturer--to build a $1.4 billion radar system in the Amazon rainforest. The judge ruled that charges of tax fraud against the company's Brazilian partner were grounds to annul the contract. The government has 20 days to try to overturn the decision. [NYT 7/5/95 from AP] 13. UPCOMING EVENTS 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. NSN is DESPERATELY seeking plastic milk crates and hanging file folders (legal or letter size--we need both). Call 212-674-9499. !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. 7/13 THU, 7 PM - Queens New Party Social Get-Together. At home of M. Weissman & Bill Hagel. 59-15 47th Ave, #3C. 718-507-4467. 7/14 FRI, 6:30 PM - "Lucia," Cuba 1968 film. Viva Galeria, 445 W 50th St. $3, 2 for $5. Spanish w/subtitles. 212-245-7131. 7/15 SAT, 2:30 PM - Breaking the Blockade. 6 shorts on humanitarian efforts to end US embargo of Cuba. Viva Galeria, 445 W 50th St. $3, 2 for $5. Videos on sale. 6:30 PM - "Retrato de Teresa," Cuba 1979 film. 212-245-7131. 7/16 SUN, 1 PM - Radical Walking Tour of Central Park. Columbus Circle, Maine Monument. $6. 718-492-0069. 7/16 SUN, 2:30 PM - "Retrato de Teresa," Cuba 1979 film. Viva Galeria, 445 W 50th St. $3, or 2 for $5. Spanish w/subtitles. 212-245-7131. 7/17 MON, 7:30 PM - "Under Siege: Palestinians in the US Media." W/Rashid Khalidi. Paper Tiger TV on Manhattan Neighborhood Network ch 16; 7/19/WED, 7:30 PM Bronxnet ch 68; 10:30 PM Brooklyn Cable ch 34, ch 67; 7/20 THU, 10:30 AM Bronxnet ch 68; 4:30 PM Manhattan ch 17. 212-420-9045. 7/19 WED, 6:30 PM - "Plaff," Cuba 1988. Viva Galeria, 445 W 50th St. $3, 2 for $5. Spanish. 212-245-7131. 7/20 THU, 7 PM - CREED monthly meeting. At CISPES, 19 W 21st St, Rm 502. 212-645-5230. -- + 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 + >