WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #289, AUGUST 13, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Landless Peasants Massacred in Brazil 2. Four Dead in Panama General Strike 3. Police Beat Up Costa Rican Strikers 4. More Worker Protests in Argentina 5. Cubans March Against Embargo 6. Mexican Right Reelected in Baja 7. Can Mexican Plebiscite Unite the Left? 8. Mexico: Guerrillas in Guerrero? 9. Haiti: Will US Troops Leave in 1996? 10. In Other News: Bolivia, Peru & Panama 11. Upcoming Events in the NYC Area and 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 electronic edition; back issues are also available from 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. LANDLESS PEASANTS MASSACRED IN BRAZIL At least 32 people were killed in northern Brazil when 200 heavily-armed anti-riot troops of the militarized police violently evicted hundreds of landless rural workers on Aug. 9 from farmland they were occupying in the state of Rondonia, near the border with Bolivia. Two of those killed were police officers. The police were attempting to enforce a judicial eviction order issued by a local judge for the 40,000-acre Santa Helena farm, which belongs to an absentee landlord and was recently occupied by about 500 families (2,500 people). At least 53 squatters and 11 police officers were injured and 355 people were detained by police in a nearby town, a state government spokesman said. According to a report posted via email by the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBASE) and the National Campaign for Land Reform (CNRA), it is impossible to know how many died in the incident; there are over 200 wounded peasants in the nearby hospitals, and many others are lost in the bush. The report says that landowner Helio Pereira Moraes--who lives in Sao Paulo--acquired the land from INCRA (the Brazilian federal agency for land) through fraud, obtaining rights for eight properties of 2,000 hectares each, while he had a legal right to only one. [Reuter 8/10/95; IBASE & CNRA Report 8/10/95] Leaders of the Rondonia Rural Workers Federation (FETAGRO) say the death toll of the massacre is more likely to be around 70; this estimate is supported by the Landless Peasant Movement (MST) and the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). Leaders of the three organizations held a meeting on Aug. 10 in Rondonia's state capital, Porto Velho; they blamed the massacre on the National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), the justice system and the state government. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 8/12/95 from AFP] Radio reports said the squatters, armed only with machetes, sticks and knives, attacked about 100 police officers. Police claimed they opened fire in self-defense after shots were fired, the reports said. Television pictures showed a crowd of squatters, some of them with blackened faces, holding hoes and other tools and the charred remains of the huts torched by police. In July, several people were injured during a previous attempt to clear the squatters' camp. Migrant workers flocked to Rondonia in the 1980s, and thousands remain camped in various sites across the state waiting for land, said Olavo Nienow, a sociologist with the CPT in Porto Velho. "These people are fighting for their lives. The only thing they know is farming," said Nienow. The MST, a rural workers' organization which takes over unused estates to speed up official land reform, estimates that 10 million Brazilians need land, and that 46% of arable land belongs to 1% of landowners. [Reuter 8/10/95] Protest faxes can be sent to Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (55-61-226-7566) and Rondonia governor Valdir Raupp (55-69-224-3520), with copies to the CPT (55-69-223-1135). 2. FOUR DEAD IN PANAMA GENERAL STRIKE At least four people died and more than 300 were arrested in Panama on Aug. 4 as riot police used tear gas and birdshot against workers who were protesting changes to the country's labor code with a general strike and mobilization. At least seven protesters were injured and 12 police officers were hit with gunshot, hospital sources said. The Aug. 4 general strike against the labor reforms was led by the 25,000-strong United Union of Construction Workers (SUNTRACS) and supported by 49 unions representing nearly 90,000 workers. SUNTRACS secretary general Genaro Lopez called the strike "a success." Police cordoned off the Legislative Assembly, where deputies debating the proposed labor law reforms were scheduled to remain in session through the weekend. The protesters blocked traffic on the city's main roads and smashed the windows of vehicles trying to pass. Police said several civilians also opened fire on protesting workers as they sought to block traffic. Police Chief Oswaldo Fernandez said university worker Carlos Alberto Brown died after falling from a moving bus as strikers blocked traffic on the Trans-Isthmus highway. Officials said another man, Lorenzo Batista, died after being run over by a truck while protesting in the densely populated neighborhood of San Miguelito, a focus of the protests. Batista's colleagues set fire to the truck in retaliation. The bodies of Rufino Frias Cordoba and Peruvian citizen Luis Colke were also taken to hospitals from San Miguelito, both bearing gunshot wounds, hospital sources said. No details on how they were shot were immediately available. [Reuter 8/4/95] SUNTRACS spokesperson Saul Mendez said that two of the four people killed were construction workers. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/6/95 from AFP, Reuter, EFE, DPA] According to information from the Panamanian Grassroots Coordinating Committee for Human Rights (COPODEHUPA), the National Commission for Human Rights in Panama (CONADEHUPA) and the Panamanian Center for Social Training (CCS), many of the security forces involved in acts of repression against strikers were in civilian dress. The organizations also charge that the judge ignored due process and sentenced those arrested to 20 days in prison without any formal accusations or arrest orders and without a hearing. In the city of Colon, four workers were sentenced to 180 days by the local authorities. Messages protesting the repression against strikers and the unjust imprisonments can be faxed to the Legislative Assembly (507- 262-2344); Government and Justice Minister Raul Montenegro (507- 262-7877); and Labor Minister Mitchell Doens (507-225-4529). [Urgent Action from the Central American Commission for Human Rights (CODEHUCA) 8/7/95; El Daily News (NY) 8/8/95 from AP] Also on Aug. 4 some 2,000 banana workers of Chiriqui Land Company, Panamanian subsidiary of the US transnational Chiquita Brands, marched peacefully through the streets of Puerto Armuelles on the Pacific coast in Chiriqui province to protest the labor reforms. The union representing those workers and another 5,000 Chiriqui Land Company employees in Bocas del Toro province on the Caribbean coast announced on Aug. 4 that it would join the strike on Aug. 6. [LJ 8/6/95 from AFP, Reuter, EFE, DPA] On Aug. 7, another 30 demonstrators were arrested and four police officers were injured when riot police used tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators who had marched through Panama City to the Legislative Assembly to protest the labor reforms and demand the release of those arrested on Aug. 4. [EDN 8/9/95 from AP] Demonstrators responded to police with sticks, rocks and homemade bombs. The government ordered all schools closed, but was unable to prevent clashes between students and police at the University of Panama. [EDN 8/8/95 from AP] On Aug. 9, the controversial labor reforms passed a second hearing in the legislature with 37 votes to 33. A third and final vote on the bill was scheduled for Aug. 10. Later on Aug. 9, the General Federation of Panamanian Workers (CGTP), grouping 27 unions representing 45,000 workers ranging from school teachers to bus drivers, announced it was joining the strike. The Workers Confederation, representing 67 unions with a total of around 45,000 members, said it also would begin an extendable 48-hour work stoppage, according to secretary general Aniano Pinzon. [Reuter 8/9/95] Another three union federations representing about 55,000 workers were holding urgent sessions on Aug. 9, trying to decide whether or not to join the strike. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/10/95 from AFP] The five federations had previously negotiated a consensus settlement with the government and business sector in which they agreed to 62 of the 90 proposed labor reforms; the legislature then went ahead and approved the full packet of 90 reforms, prompting some of the federations to withdraw their support. [ED-LP 8/10/95 from AFP] The existing labor legislation dates back to 1971 and was drawn up under the populist dictatorship of Gen. Omar Torrijos. Perez' government wants to push through the proposed reforms in order to attract more foreign investment. [Reuter 8/9/95] The labor reforms are part of an aggressive structural adjustment program begun 10 months ago which includes the elimination of subsidies to industry and agriculture, changes in the education law, and privatization of the telephone and electrical energy services. [LJ 8/6/95 from AFP, Reuter, EFE, DPA] On Aug. 11, President Perez announced that his government had reached an agreement with five union federations, the private sector and the legislature to modify one of the 90 proposed amendments to the Labor Code. If it is ratified by the legislature, the modification would guarantee payment of lost wages for workers protected under the current legislation, in case of strikes or unjustified layoffs. [Diario Las Americas 8/12/95 from AFP] According to CGTP spokesperson Mariano Mena, the reduction of these payments had been the federation's primary objection to the labor reforms. [ED-LP 8/10/95 from AFP] 3. POLICE BEAT UP COSTA RICAN STRIKERS On Aug. 7, at least seven people were injured and eight arrested in San Jose, Costa Rica, when police attacked striking teachers and other state workers during a peaceful demonstration organized by the National Civic Committee. Some 100,000 people--or 200,000 according to the San Jose-based Committee for Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA)--participated in the protest, the largest in Costa Rica in 25 years. [El Daily News 8/9/95 from AP; El Diario-La Prensa 8/9/95 from AFP; CODEHUCA Urgent Action 8/8/95] The demonstrators began a peaceful vigil outside the Presidential Palace, CODEHUCA reports, but in the late afternoon, a group of people--identified by several witnesses as "provocateurs" who infiltrated the protest--began trying to knock down a gate on the presidential grounds. At around 7pm, a group of plainclothes police agents emerged from a vehicle or from the government building and began indiscriminately beating demonstrators with nightsticks. [CODEHUCA Urgent Action 8/8/95] One of those injured was a news photographer for the daily La Republica, who was hit by an object allegedly thrown by a demonstrator. Local media also reported that a photographer from the Police Information Center (CIP) was beaten by demonstrators. [EDN 8/9/95 from AP] Some 50,000 people also marched on the previous day, Aug. 6, to demand that the government agree to negotiate seriously. "The pact of the rich doesn't convince the Ticos [slang term for Costa Ricans]" read one teacher's sign. [ED-LP 8/8/95 from AP] Some 50,000 teachers have been on strike in Costa Rica since July 17 [see Updates #285-288], and a number of other unions have joined in to fight a pact between the country's two main political parties which opens the way for fast-track approval of a series of neoliberal economic reforms, including changes to the teachers' pension plan, the privatization of state services and industries, and the layoffs of state workers. The pact was signed in July of this year by President Jose Maria Figueres Ferrer for the ruling National Liberation Party (PLN) and by former president Rafael Angel Calderon for the opposition Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC). On Aug. 8, the day after the massive demonstration, three presidential pre-candidates--Luis Fishman of the PUSC, Jose Miguel Corrales of the PLN and leftist deputy Rodrigo Gutierrez of the Democratic Force--seized the political moment and held a press conference criticizing the pact and warning that continuation of the structural adjustment policies could result in social upheaval. [ED-LP 8/9/95 from AFP] Also on Aug. 8, five protesters began a nonviolent occupation of the central offices of the Inter-American Human Rights Court in San Jose. With the support of 28 women's organizations, the five are protesting the government's hardline stance against the teachers, which they believe is targeted at women, since 80% of the country's teachers are female. [Communique #4 of the Comite Civico Cantonal de San Ramon 8/8/95] In rank-and-file assemblies held on Aug. 9 in San Jose, Heredia and San Ramon, members of the teachers unions rejected a government proposal for negotiations to end their strike. The final decision on the government offer was to be made by the national delegates on Aug. 10. The government's proposal allowed for the negotiation of salary incentives and certain aspects of the retirement plan, but not the teachers' principal demand: the repeal of a pension law approved in July. [ED-LP 8/10/95 from AFP] The teachers unions were to present on Aug. 11 a counter- proposal to begin talks which would end the strike by Aug. 14, according to union leader Berny Alvarado. [Diario Las Americas 8/12/95 from EFE] In the meantime, official sources announced on Aug. 10 that judicial and administrative authorities have started separate investigations into the repression carried out by plainclothes police officers against demonstrators at the Aug. 7 protest. Public Security Minister Juan Diego Castro said that a specialized office under his command is investigating seven CIP officers allegedly linked to the violence of Aug. 7. Castro said the officers had acted "on their own account"; he categorically denied that the repression was authorized by any higher authority, but added that the investigations may include CIP director Rigoberto Mendez. The victims, some of whom were seriously injured, are meanwhile pursuing legal charges of their own against the CIP officers who punched, kicked and clubbed them. The Geneva-based United Nations Commission on Human Rights condemned the Aug. 7 police action as a "savage" attack "against defenseless people." Information Minister Florisabel Rodriguez was forced to explain the verbal support that President Figueres had given the police on Aug. 8, the day after the attack, when he told the press that police conduct had been "responsible" and "law-abiding" [civilista]. According to Rodriguez, Figueres was referring to police conduct throughout the teachers strike, and not specifically to the events of Aug. 7. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/11/95 from AFP] [Figueres is scheduled to speak at an environmental conference in New York City on Oct. 27; anyone interested in planning protest actions should contact the Nicaragua Solidarity Network at 212-674-9499.] 4. MORE WORKER PROTESTS IN ARGENTINA State employees of Argentina's Cordoba province held a general strike on Aug. 10 to demand back pay owed to them and to protest the neoliberal economic policies of Governor Ramon Mestre of the Radical Civic Union (UCR), the country's largest opposition party. Participation in the strike was nearly total. Transport in the provincial capital came to a halt after strikers set up barricades, threw stones at buses, and put nails in the roads. Some 8,000 police officers, with backup from two helicopters, were dispatched to keep the strikers under control during the main demonstration of the day. The strike was organized by three labor federations: the Movement of Organization and Social Action; the General Labor Federation (CGT)-Chacabuco; and the Cordoba branch of the Argentine Workers Federation. Worker protests in Cordoba this past June led to numerous arrests and injuries [see Update #283]. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/11/95 from AFP; El Daily News 8/11/95 from Reuter] Municipal workers in Monterrico, in the northern province of Jujuy, also protested over back pay on Aug. 10; the protesters used molotov cocktails to set fire to the city council offices and one worker was reportedly injured. City employees in Salta held a strike on Aug. 10 to demand back pay. In Entre Rios province, some 10,000 government workers protested on the same day against a law of economic emergency imposed by governor Mario Moine of the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party. The demonstrators burned Moine and Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem--also a Peronist--in effigy. [ED-LP 8/11/95 from AFP] The Armed Forces have warned the government that "high-intensity conflicts" are threatening stability in nine Argentine provinces, according to a report published by the Buenos Aires daily Clarin. The provinces listed as troublesome are San Juan, Salta, Jujuy, Tierra del Fuego and Cordoba. Eight other provinces--Buenos Aires, Rio Negro, Mendoza, Catamarca, La Rioja, Chaco, Entre Rios and Santiago del Estero--are listed as the sites of "medium- intensity" conflicts. Only six Argentine provinces are considered not in danger of social agitation. [EDN 8/7/95 from Reuter] After facing massive protests during the week of July 17 [see Update #287], the Peronist government of San Juan province avoided further conflicts by backing off from plans to reduce salaries by 30% and pay 20% of worker salaries in bonds. [EDN 8/7/95 from Reuter] The central committee of the CGT--dominated by unionists loyal to the government--decided on Aug. 9 to approve a national work stoppage and demonstration for Sept. 6. The decision was an attempt to neutralize the demands of some of the federation's more militant member unions, who were pushing for a general strike on Aug. 22. "It is not a strike, but rather a cessation of activities to allow workers to participate in what will be a large demonstration," said CGT leader Gerardo Martinez. The more combative unions agreed to accept the CGT's decision. [EDN 8/10/95 from AP] The resolution followed a violent confrontation between the two opposing factions within the federation that left at least two workers injured, though not seriously. The incident occurred when union members allied to the pro-government CGT leadership tried to prevent members of the truck drivers union, which opposes the government's economic policies and is critical of the CGT's pro-government stance, from entering the CGT building. [ED-LP 8/9/95 from AFP] 5. CUBANS MARCH AGAINST EMBARGO Despite torrential rains, some 500,000 Cubans--including Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz--took part in a demonstration on Aug. 5 on the Havana waterfront (the Malecon) to support Cuban sovereignty and protest the US embargo. Also participating in the march were some 1,130 solidarity activists from more than 67 nations taking part in the International Youth Festival "Cuba Vive" under way in Havana. The march, one of the biggest in recent years, was held exactly one year after riots erupted on the Malecon when police tried to impede people from stealing boats to flee the island [see Update #236]. The Union of Young Communists organized the march in part to commemorate the way in which the police and construction workers managed to quell those riots. This year, a massive show of military security was on hand to avoid any problems. [La Jornada 8/6/95 from AFP, Reuter, EFE, ANSA, Prensa Latina; El Diario-La Prensa 8/7/95 from AP; El Daily News 8/7/95 from Reuter; Radio Havana Cuba 8/4/95; Inter Press Service 8/7/95] The fact that the security included a mobile anti-aircraft unit pointing north from the Havana seafront suggests that any problems were anticipated to come not from within, but rather from outside Cuba--and most likely from Florida. The anti- aircraft unit has now been set up near the seafront; an officer stationed with the unit nodded in affirmation when asked whether it was intended to deter incursions like that of July 13, when Miami-based Cuban emigres led boats and small planes into Cuban waters to protest the sinking of a barge a year earlier by Cuban authorities [see Update #285]. [Financial Times (UK) 8/7/95] In fact, rightwing Cubans in Miami say they are planning another incursion for Sept. 2, directed at the coast facing the Varadero beach tourist center. The organizers of the flotilla are asking their supporters to loan rubber rafts with offboard motors for a surprise action, the details of which are being kept secret. The organizers say the flotilla will remain outside Cuban waters, though individual participants may decide on their own to cross into Cuban territory. Brothers to the Rescue director Jose Basulto, who is helping to organize the action, would not say whether his group's planes will enter Cuban airspace as they did on July 13. Basulto and coordinator Ramon Saul Sanchez of the so- called Democratic Movement traveled to New Jersey on Aug. 11 to get support for the flotilla from a coalition of rightwing Cuban emigres in that state. [Diario Las Americas 8/12/95] A car bomb exploded on Aug. 9 in Hialeah, Florida, in front of a building housing a company that sends packages to Cuba. No one was injured and there were no significant damages. [ED-LP 8/10/95 from Notimex] 6. MEXICAN RIGHT REELECTED IN BAJA Mexico's conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN) maintained its hold on the northwestern state of Baja California Norte in Aug. 6 state and local elections. Gubernatorial candidate federal senator Hector Teran Teran won the PAN its second consecutive six-year term when he defeated Francisco Perez Tejeda of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by about 52% to 42%. The PAN also won three of the four municipalities contested in the Aug. 6 vote and 12 of 15 posts in the state legislature. In 1989 current Baja governor Ernesto Ruffo Appel became the first opposition candidate since 1929 to take a state from the PRI, which has held most federal and local positions for the last 66 years. Some 75% of registered voters turned out for this year's balloting, despite a heat wave that drove temperatures up to 110xF in some places; this was one of the highest turnouts in state history. [Associated Press 8/7/95; El Daily News 8/8/95 from Reuter; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update, Vol.2, #42, 8/8/95 from La Jornada] In other Aug. 6 local races, the PAN scored a victory in the small central state of Aguascalientes, where the conservatives took the state capital, also named Aguascalientes. [EDN 8/8/95 from Reuter] The PAN and the PRI each won nine seats in the Aguascalientes legislature. The PRI won municipal races in three other states: Zacatecas, Oaxaca and Veracruz. The PAN came in second in the number of towns won in Zacatecas and Veracruz, but in Oaxaca, a southern state with a large campesino population, the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), took the number two spot with 30% to the PRI's 45%. Voter turnout was well below 50% in all three states. [Inter Press Service 8/7/95; Mexico Update 8/8/95 from LJ 8/7/95 and 8/8/95] So far this year the PRI has lost gubernatorial races to the PAN in Jalisco and Guanajuato; its only major victory, in Yucatan, brought denunciations of fraud from the PAN. The PRI campaigns have also been plagued by financial scandals. On June 9 the PRD produced documents indicating that the PRI had spent $70 million illegally in the state of Tabasco during the November 1994 gubernatorial race [see Update #281]. On Aug. 8 the New York Times revealed that former Aeromexico chair Gerard de Prevoisin declared in court documents in Texas that last year the company paid $8 million illegally to the PRI during the national presidential campaign of current president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. De Prevoisin headed the group that bought Aeromexico, Mexico's largest airline, when it was privatized under former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. He has been in hiding since Sept. 2, 1994, when it became clear the company was near bankruptcy. He was formally charged with fraud in December, and Aeromexico is suing him in Texas over a condominium he owns in Colorado; his declaration about the campaign contribution was made in court papers filed in April. [NYT 8/8/95] The PRI and Aeromexico deny the charges. [NYT 8/10/95] 7. CAN MEXICAN PLEBISCITE UNITE THE LEFT? The PRD is suffering from its own electoral scandal. On July 9 the party held a primary--the first in Mexican history--to select its gubernatorial candidate for Nov. 12 special elections in the southern state of Michoacan. The state, the PRD's stronghold, has had an interim, three-year PRI governor since 1992, when PRD fraud protests kept the PRI's Eduardo Villasenor Pena from starting his six-year term [see Update #287]. The PRD's 1992 candidate, Sen. Cristobal Arias Solis, won the primary easily with 95,000 votes out of 160,000 cast, but the runner-up, Roberto Robles Garnica, said that Arias' group had burned ballots and stuffed ballot boxes, practices usually associated with the PRI. The PRD's National Executive Committee (CEN) stepped in and declared Arias the winner. Arias and the CEN are calling for unity but Robles Garnica refuses to back the official slate. Michoacan was considered the only state the PRD had a good chance of winning this year. [Article by John Ross, 8/6/95, posted on NY Transfer; LJ 8/6/95] Arias supports the currents in the party that favor eventual resumption of negotiations with the government; Robles Garnica belongs to the group that opposes the electoral reform dialogue, which the PRD has boycotted since the spring. A national party congress, to be held Aug. 23-27 in Oaxtepec, Morelos, will confront this issue and could lead to a final split in the PRD, which was formed in 1989 by former PRI members and a number of independent leftist tendencies. [Ross article 8/6/95; Anderson Valley Advertiser (California) 8/4/95] Former PRD presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano is the best-known member of the anti-dialogue tendency. On Aug. 5 Cardenas and a group of "Cuauhtemistas" demanded that President Zedillo resign in response to the ongoing political and economic crisis; he would replaced by a "government of national salvation" open to all political and social forces, including the PRI and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). [LJ 8/6/95] PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo heads the pro-dialogue tendency. Although he doesn't reject the idea of a government of national salvation, in April he warned against the "adventurism" of those who want the Zedillo government to fall. There would be a "very high risk for the country [in] a break in the Constitutional order," he said, implying that rightwing elements might be the beneficiaries. [LJ 4/23/95] While the largest left party remains divided, the EZLN rebels seem determined to use an Aug. 27 grassroots plebiscite as a way of building unity among both political and non-party organizations on the left of the spectrum. On Aug. 9 EZLN spokesperson "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" used a video--shown on a large screen in Mexico City's Zocalo plaza, in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, and in various movie houses--to make his first public appearance since the government's Feb. 9 offensive. "Dialogue [with the government] isn't possible," Marcos said, urging people to vote in the plebiscite on six propositions about the country's direction and the EZLN's political course. "The question that is behind the other six," Marcos said, "is whether civil society can organize independently of both the government and the EZLN to create a national mobilization." With characteristic flippancy, Marcos introduced a beetle he said was "Durito," the fictitious leftist intellectual alter-ego who appears frequently in his writings, and a tarantula named "Chibo." Chibo represents the PRI, since "every time it meets someone of its own kind, it kills it"--a reference to the 1994 assassinations of two PRI leaders, which Marcos called a "settling of internal accounts." Different versions of the video ran from 30 to 80 minutes. [Reuter 8/9/95; El Diario-La Prensa 8/10/95 from EFE] The plebiscite has generated intense debates and has been the subject of television and radio programs. Mexican analysts Luis Hernandez and Luis Javier Garrido told Inter Press Service that the initiative for the referendum has revived the EZLN's national influence and encouraged unity on the left. The government is trying to play it down, according to Hernandez, "hoping it will be a failure." [IPS 8/4/95] Mexico's ability to build a just, dignified and democratic society depends on the plebiscite's success, according to National Women's Convention (CNM) director Eleonara Contreras. [LJ 8/6/95] 8. MEXICO: GUERRILLAS IN GUERRERO? On Aug. 8 the Mexican leftist weekly Proceso reported that military and security documents show at least seven clandestine guerrilla groups operating in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Unnamed sources told the magazine that the EZLN had sent trainers to the state in early 1994, including one called "Bernabe." [Reuter 8/9/95] Leaders of five Guerrero campesino organizations immediately denied that armed groups were present in the state, and charged that the military was using the reports to justify repression. [Mexico Update 8/8/95 from LJ 8/8/95] Leaders of the Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS) were already demanding the withdrawal of troops from various villages in the state's mountain. The OCSS also charged that government provocateurs appeared to be trying to organize their own campesino groups. [LJ 8/6/95] The state remains tense, following several massacres of campesinos in June and July; 19 of the victims were OCSS members [see Updates #283-285]. On Aug. 6 members of the Mixteca and Amuzgo indigenous groups took over the municipal government of Tlacoachistlahuaca and established a "Rebel Municipal Council," declaring the powers of the official council "dissolved." [Mexico Update 8/8/95] 9. HAITI: WILL US TROOPS LEAVE IN 1996? As of Aug. 7 Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) was set to go ahead with the long-postponed "partial elections" on Aug. 13. These are replacement elections for areas like Limbe where voters were unable to participate in the June 25 legislative and municipal balloting. The country's traditional political parties are apparently ready to accept the legitimacy of the June 25 vote, in which they were overwhelmed by the left-populist Lavalas movement of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The compromise follows Aristide's acceptance of a seven-point electoral reform plan presented by high-level US delegation on July 27 [see Update #288]. In another sign of agreement between Aristide and Washington, US ambassador William Swing and the rest of the diplomatic community attended the Aug. 4 inauguration of the popular singer Joseph Emmanuel (Manno) Charlemagne as mayor of Port-au-Prince. Various forces in the US, including the Carter Center and the New York Times, had tried to discount Charlemagne's 45% to 18% victory over the US favorite, incumbent mayor Evans Paul [see Update #288]. There is speculation that the US expects Charlemagne, better known for his anti-imperialist lyrics than for administrative talents, to prove unable to handle the job. The outgoing city administration made this job more difficult by taking everything with them; reportedly even the chairs and the typewriters were missing from City Hall as Charlemagne took office. [Haiti Progres (NY) 8/9-15/95] Other pressures may be building on the Lavalas government. Elements of the disbanded military seem to be regrouping. An Aug. 1 press conference announced the formation of the Assembly of Soldiers Retired Without Cause (RAMIRESM). A week later, US columnist Robert Novak paid a visit to the country. Novak is close to the right and to the military in both the US and Haiti. [HP 8/9-15/95] "Political murders...traceable to close associates of the Haitian president, have reached at least 80, while the US embassy looks the other way," he wrote, claiming his figures came from US military intelligence. [Washington Post 8/7/95] A later column says that "US military intelligence believes elements of the disbanded Haitian army have hoarded arms to attempt a takeover of the government" when the US-led United Nations military occupation ends next March. "I believe there will be a civil war--immediately," former senator Reynald Georges told Novak. "Prospective bloodshed leads prominent businessmen who deplored the US invasion to pray that American troops will not leave on schedule," Novak writes. [WP 8/10/95] The troop withdrawal is to take place when Aristide is replaced by a new president elected in December. Until the June 25 elections, the US had expected that the pro-US Evans Paul would be Aristide's successor [see Update #285]. 10. IN OTHER NEWS... Bolivian Governance Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain has confirmed that campesino coca-grower Juan Ortiz Diaz died during an operation by anti-drug police on Aug. 1 in Ayopaya in the Chapare region. Sanchez said the death will be investigated. Coca-growers union leader Evo Morales charges that anti-drug police troops killed Ortiz and stole money and belongings from local residents. [Diario Las Americas 8/12/95 from AFP]... Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was sworn in for a second five-year term on July 28 after making several changes in his cabinet. Efrain Goldenberg, who held the posts of prime minister and foreign minister, has been replaced as prime minister by Dante Cordova Blanco, former transport and communications minister. Cordova also becomes the education minister. Francisco Tudela Van Breugel Douglas, a specialist in international law, is the new foreign minister. The new labor minister is Sandro Fuentes Acurio, replacing Augusto Antoniolli. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 8/4/95 from IPS, DPA, AP, Reuter, Notimex, AFP; Financial Times 7/30/95]... In mid-July, a jury in Panama found former Panamanian military leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega not guilty of charges relating to the death of nine military officers who were killed after a military rebellion on Oct. 3, 1989, in what is known as the Albrook massacre. Noriega is currently serving 40 years in a US prison for drug trafficking. [DLA 7/15/95 from EFE] 11. UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE NYC AREA AND BEYOND For more information, call NSN at 212-674-9499. Events listed are not necessarily endorsed by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network. 8/17 THU, 7 PM - CREED monthly meeting. At CISPES, 19 W 21st St, Rm 502. 212-645-5230. 8/20 SUN, 10 AM-6 PM - Annual Brooklyn Environmental Fair. Join us at CREED booth. 7th Ave (1st & 9th Sts), Bkn. 212-674-9499. 8/20 SUN, 1 PM - Radical Walking Tour of Central Park. Columbus Circle, Maine Monument. $6. 718-492-0069. 8/22 TUE, 7 PM - CREED street theater prop-making party. 316 State St, Bkn. 212-227-7044 (days). -- + 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 + >