WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #291, AUGUST 27, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Tabascogate and Pesogate Swamp Mexico's Rulers 2. Mexican Protests: Street Vendors, Credit Card Holders, EZLN 3. Mexican Government Uses Good Cop-Bad Cop on Social Movement 4. Regional Summits: Caribbean Trade Bloc, Hemispheric Defense 5. 400 Haitian Refugees Caught, Constant Deportation Stalled 6. Pro-Maquiladora Bill in US Congress 7. Costa Rica: Police Fired for Attacking Strikers 8. Lula Resigns as Head of Brazil Workers Party 9. Colombia: More Violence in Uraba 10. Chile: Proposed Law Would End Human Rights Trials 11. Bolivia: 3 Campesinos Killed, Troop Action Halted 12. In Other News: Ecuador, Cuba & Guatemala 13. 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 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. TABASCOGATE AND PESOGATE SWAMP MEXICO'S RULERS On Aug. 19 Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) replaced its president, Maria de los Angeles Moreno Uriegas, with Labor Secretary Santiago Onate Laborde, who resigned his government post to assume the PRI presidency. Moreno is associated with the PRI's conservative wing; the party lost three out of four gubernatorial races during the eight and a half months that she was in power. Leaders from the main opposition parties--the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)--suggested that the PRI had brought in the more centrist Onate in order to reopen dialogue with the opposition. Onate's swearing-in ceremony included speeches from PRI leaders against the neoliberal economic policies the party has been following for the last 13 years. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/20/95; Associated Press 8/21/95] Moreno was the PRI's first woman president, and this too probably played a part in her downfall. On Aug. 8 a PRI labor leader had said in a speech: "[Moreno] is a lady, and my respects to the ladies. But I believe now there needs to be a man with lots of experience who can go to the assemblies of peasants, of workers and in the factories and the centers of higher learning." [Washington Post 8/20/95] Another factor is the state-of-the- union address which national president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon is to give on Sept. 1: Zedillo wants his party and his policies to look good in time for the speech. [Reuter 8/21/95] The shakeup was quickly followed by more bad news for the PRI. On the night of Aug. 20 the attorney general's office (PGR) announced that it would investigate charges raised by the PRD that the PRI illegally spent $70 million--about 60 times the legal limit--in the November 1994 gubernatorial race in the southeastern state of Tabasco. Last June losing PRD candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador presented the PGR with 16 boxes of ledgers, check stubs, invoices and receipts as evidence of illegal expenditures by winning candidate Roberto Mardrazo Pintado's campaign [see Update #281]. The PGR investigations found large transfers of cash through Tabasco PRI bank accounts for "similar amounts" to those described in the PRD's charges. Gov. Madrazo responded on Aug. 21 by filing a suit charging the PGR and Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon with interference in Tabasco's internal affairs. [Reuter 8/22/95; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/22/95 from AFP] [On Aug. 18 Madrazo announced that he had been kidnapped and beaten by police agents the night before as he was driving back to Tabasco alone from Mexico City. Lopez Obrador said he didn't believe Madrazo's story, which he thought was connected to internal fights in the PRI. [New York Times 8/20/95]] Aug. 20 brought still more bad news for the PRI. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report revealing that, as the lead story in the Washington Post put it the next day, "Mexican, not foreign, investors precipitated the spectacular crash of the Mexican peso [in December 1994] by staging a crushing, last-minute run on their own currency." The wealthiest Mexicans are generally close to the PRI leadership. [WP 8/21/95] Mexican economist Carlos Heredia, from the non- governmental organization Equipo Pueblo, notes that the leftist newsweekly Proceso had made similar charges on Jan. 2. The magazine said that Emilio Azcarraga, who runs the Televisa television giant, and Carlos Slim, who heads Telmex, the phone company, shifted their debts from dollars into pesos right before the devaluation. A week later, the magazine reported that Banamex head Roberto Hernandez had done the same. All three are cronies of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, whose term ended three weeks before the devaluation. [Heredia article posted on NY Transfer News Collective 8/24/95] But now even the billionaires seem to be turning against the party. On Feb. 23, 1993, then-president Salinas attended a meeting at which 25 of the richest Mexicans were asked to contribute $25 million each to the PRI. The donors apparently came through with the money [see Update #163]. Ousted PRI president Moreno tried a rerun of the event last June 27. Fifty potential donors were invited: 13 bothered to attend, and only three pledged to make some sort of contribution. [LJ 8/20/95] 2. MEXICAN PROTESTS: STREET VENDORS, CREDIT CARD HOLDERS, EZLN Social unrest continues over much of southern Mexico and in the capital: the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) still holds part of Chiapas, the southernmost state; Tabasco is in turmoil over the Tabascogate scandal; campesinos in the southwestern state of Guerrero are demanding Gov. Ruben Figueroa Alcocer's resignation because of a June 28 police massacre of 17 campesinos [see Update 290]. In Mexico City 11,000 bus drivers from the bankrupt Route 100 bus line have been protesting regularly ever since they were laid off in April. The union's leaders remain in jail on embezzlement charges. [LJ 8/20/95] Between 20 and 40 people were injured in Mexico City on Aug. 21 when street vendors fought police trying to remove them from the Historic Center neighborhood around the National Cathedral and the main plaza, the Zocalo; street vendor leader Guillermina Rico had to be given oxygen. Clashes resumed the next day, with at least nine injuries and six arrests; vendors told reporters: "We don't want to fight, we want to work." More fighting took place on Aug. 23. The vendors had agreed two years ago to relocate to special vending areas the city government provided, but the economic crisis that followed the peso devaluation has driven them back to the center. [Reuter 8/23/95; ED-LP 8/23/95 from AFP; Associated Press 8/24/95] Meanwhile, middle-class people hit by the crisis have formed a protest movement with at least 70 organizations. "Credit Card Holders of Mexico, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your debts" is the slogan of the National Association of Credit Card Users. The militant El Barzon ("the yoke") now claims 4.5 million members nationwide. With easy interest rates encouraging them to borrow freely before the devaluation, the middle-class protesters have been squeezed between high interest rates and loss of work since the crisis started. [Financial Times (UK) 8/24/95] The EZLN's "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" calls El Barzon "the most important social movement, in my way of thinking, of 1995," even though it "is not indigenous, nor working-class, nor political." [LJ 8/26/95, translation by National Commission for Democracy in Mexico (NCDM)] The unofficial plebiscite the EZLN called for in June is in part an effort to encourage this sort of "broader social participation that makes itself political...without having necessarily to go through the traditional forms of making politics." Marcos would consider the Aug. 27 grassroots referendum a success if it is "really national," with participation in a majority of the 32 states, and if the turnout is higher than in the "last two." [More than 600,000 people voted in an unofficial plebiscite in February on questions about the $53 billion debt bailout plan and former president Salinas' responsibility for the economic crisis. A later plebiscite on President Zedillo's economic plan drew about 300,000.] [LJ 8/25/95, NCDM translation; LJ 8/26/95] As of Aug. 19 Civic Alliance, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that has set up the voting procedure for this and the two previous plebiscites, expected about 1.5 million people to participate in the balloting, which concerns the EZLN's political direction. Civic Alliance had registered 6,466 polling places in more than 30 cities and 306 indigenous communities; in the indigenous communities the voting will start earlier and will be done through traditional assemblies. [Inter Press Service 8/19/95] Civic Alliance hoped to have nearly 10,000 polling places by Aug. 27. Based on past experience, the group expects between 135 and 170 voters at each location. [ED-LP 8/16/95 AFP] 3. MEXICAN GOVERNMENT USES GOOD COP-BAD COP ON SOCIAL MOVEMENT On Aug. 23 the Mexican government announced a $1.1 billion debt- relief plan that would hold interest rates to half the current rate for the next 13 months on parts of outstanding debts. [NYT 8/23/95] If this was an effort to defuse the growing middle-class protest movement, however, it seems to be unsuccessful. In interviews around Mexico City, Associated Press found no one who would express confidence in the plan. [AP 8/24/95] "This was a negotiation made entirely between the banks and the federal government," said El Barzon national legal coordinator Maximiano Barbosa. "At no point did they consult a debtor to see what the real problems are." [WP 8/25/95] But the government may be using other methods to break the growing social movements. On Aug. 21 eight patrol cars surrounded Lucha Castro, the El Barzon director in the northern state of Chihuahua, as she drove away from a meeting; they arrested her for a minor license plate violation, and then charged her with obstruction of justice during a demonstration. She is now free on bail. [Email alert from El Barzon, Solidarity and Defense of Human Rights Commission 8/22/95] Father David Fernandez Davalos, the director of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center (PRODH) in Mexico City, received a death threat by telephone on Aug. 17. Proceso had published an interview on Aug. 13 in which Fernandez blamed the growing repression in the country on the national security forces. PRODH is asking for a thorough investigation; faxes should go to Pres. Zedillo (011-525-271-1764) and Governance Secretary Emilio Chuayffet Chemor (011-525-546-5350) with copies to PRODH at 011-525-208-7547 or email: prodh@laneta.apc.org. [PRODH Action Alert 8/17/95] As of Aug. 24 members of a Pastors for Peace caravan to Chiapas were set to begin a liquid-only fast in the border town of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. On Aug. 21 the Mexican Finance Secretariat gave the caravan written permission to deliver humanitarian aid-- collected from 50 US cities and including school and medical supplies, Bibles and four vehicles--to the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas. The caravan entered Mexico at Reynosa on Aug. 22 but two days later Mexican Customs officials had still kept it from moving on. Protests can be faxed to Governance Secretary Chuayffet (see above) or Finance Secretary Guillermo Ortiz Martinez (011-525-669-0865) with copies to Pastors for Peace at 612-870-7109 or email: p4p@igc.apc.org. [Pastors for Peace Action Alert 8/24/95] In October the government and Congress will hold hearings to consider legislation regulating Mexico's thousands of NGOs. The category includes groups like Civic Alliance which the government considers opposition groups in disguise. [IPS 8/22/95] In other news, Radio Huayacocotla, a Veracruz shortwave station serving a rural indigenous audience in the North Sierra, was allowed to resume broadcasting on July 16. The government shut it down on Mar. 23, officially because of equipment problems [see Update #272 and 274]. Director Juan Antonio Vazquez thanks supporters who sent protests to the Governance Secretariat. The authorities have still not acted on Radio Huaya's longstanding request for an AM license. [Report from Radio Huaya 8/9/95] 4. REGIONAL SUMMITS: CARIBBEAN TRADE BLOC, HEMISPHERIC DEFENSE The Association of Caribbean States (ACS), a trading bloc joining Mexico, Central America, Colombia and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations with Haiti and the members of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), was formally launched in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, on Aug. 16. Officially the association will be the world's fourth largest common market, with 204 million people and an annual trade volume of $180 billion; in reality its members see it more as a way to prepare for the hemispheric free trade zone the US proposed at the Summit of the Americas in Miami last December. This "Free Trade Area of the Americas" is scheduled to go into effect in 2005. But the ACS showed some independence from Washington by admitting Cuba. [Financial Times 8/17/95; El Diario-La Prensa 8/18/95 from AFP and EFE] Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz was in attendance and used the occasion to meet with Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo and Jamaican prime minister Percival Patterson, also in attendance. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 8/19/95 from AFP] A month earlier, the US had hosted the first "American Defense Ministers' Summit," on July 25 and 26 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The defense meeting was a followup to the Summit of the Americas; invitations were extended to the defense ministers of 34 nations- -every country in the hemisphere except Cuba. Mexico refused to send its defense secretary, Gen. Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, and substituted the ambassador to Washington, Jesus Silva Herzog. [ED-LP 7/25/95 and 7/26/95 from Notimex] Although the summit was purportedly intended to increase cooperation among the various nations, senior officials in the Mexican foreign ministry saw it as an effort to increase US dominance over Latin American military establishments and to get around objections that might be raised in the Organization of American States (OAS) in cases like the US 1994 occupation of Haiti. The Mexican officials pointed to the Haiti action as a situation where the US wanted the participation of other countries, but under the command of the US military. Meanwhile, the Mexican attorney general's office (PGR) is working with the US Justice Department to create "elite groups" to carry out coordinated patrols along the US-Mexico border to detect drug and arms traffickers. [La Jornada 8/6/95] 5. 400 HAITIAN REFUGEES CAUGHT, CONSTANT DEPORTATION STALLED On Aug. 21 the US and Bahamian coast guards intercepted a 24- meter Haitian freighter about 25 km to the northeast of Nassau. The boat was carrying 406 Haitians attempting to flee their country. Two jumped overboard and drowned when they saw the coast guard approaching; three other passengers had already died on the dangerously overloaded boat, and three more were taken by helicopter to a Nassau hospital. The others were turned over to Bahamian immigration officials, who immediately repatriated them to Haiti. This was the largest group of Haitian refugees intercepted since a US military force returned President Jean- Bertrand Aristide to office in October 1994. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/22/95 from AP] Some of the people attempting to leave Haiti now had also fled during the 1991-94 military regime, when some 20,000 ended up in detention at the US Navy base at Guantanamo, Cuba. The refugees were persuaded to return after Aristide was restored to power, but many are disappointed with the lack of a government policy to reintegrate them into the economy. Some 700 met in Port-au-Prince the weekend of Aug. 12 to discuss their problems, and on Aug. 16 several dozen demonstrated at the National Palace. "If we don't get a response," said Augustin Richmond, "we're going to raise an American flag, get in some boats and head for the United States again." "We're victims," said a man from Carrefour. "We've been beaten and killed for President Aristide, but we have nothing." [Haiti Info Vol. 3, #22, 8/19/95; Inter Press Service 8/22/95] In contrast to other Haitian refugeee, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informer Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant is still in the US. Constant, who headed the rightwing Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRPAH), came to the US illegally last December and was arrested in Queens, New York, on May 10 [see Update #276]. Appearing before federal judge John Grossart in Baltimore on Aug. 25, Constant announced that he was running in the December presidential elections. Presidential candidates are exempt from the sort of deportation that the US State Department is ostensibly trying to carry out against Constant, who is considered responsible for the murder of hundreds or even thousands of Aristide supporters while the military was in power. [New York Times 8/26/95; Washington Post 8/26/95] In other news, final results show Aristide's Lavalas movement sweeping the Aug. 13 makeup elections, just as it did in the main June 25 municipal and legislative elections. The Organization of American States (OAS) observer mission put the turnout at about 33% of registered voters. [NYT 8/22/95 from AP] This is well below the official electoral council's 50% estimate and well above the 5% figure opposition parties gave [see Update #290]. 6. PRO-MAQUILADORA BILL IN US CONGRESS Rep. Philip Crane (R-IL) and Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) are sponsoring a bill in the US Congress that would give special trade benefits to clothing produced in the Central American and Caribbean maquiladora industries. Strongly supported by the US apparel industry, the Caribbean Basin Trade Security Act (HR 553/S 529) would over the next ten years provide trade benefits for clothing and some other products equal to the benefits provided under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Latin America Working Group (LAWG) notes that workers in the maquiladoras "face harsh working conditions [and] low wages, and as they seek to organize to defend their most basic rights, they are almost universally denied their fundamental right to organize. In many cases, they face dismissal, harassment and even death for attempting to form a union." LAWG and other groups are demanding that the bill be amended to add a workers' rights petitioning process and to deny the trade benefits to countries, industries or individual employers that violate international labor rights standards. The bill is scheduled to go to the House Ways and Means Committee on Sept. 7. Because of their seniority on the relevant committees, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY, 202-224-4451, 212-661-5150, fax not public) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, 202-225-4365, 212-927-5333, fax 202-225-0816) are especially important to contact. [LAWG Legislative Update 8/17/95] (Call 212-674-9499 if you are interested in leafleting and other educational work around this issue in New York City.) 7. COSTA RICA: POLICE FIRED FOR ATTACKING STRIKERS Costa Rican security minister Juan Diego Castro announced at an Aug. 20 press conference that four police agents have been fired from a special force known as the Center of Police Information (CIP) and will face trial for their "notorious excessive and irregular actions." The four were in plainclothes when they brutally attacked striking teachers during a peaceful demonstration in front of the presidential palace on Aug. 7 [see Update #289]. Castro added that another seven CIP agents-- including the CIP director--have been suspended and are still under investigation for the incident. According to Castro, the civilian-dressed CIP members only had orders to "watch, detect and identify" possible lawbreakers during the demonstration--not to intervene in the functions of the uniformed police. The teachers strike was called off on Aug. 18 after union leaders reached an agreement with the government [see Update #290]; teachers returned to work on Aug. 21. [El Daily News (NY) 8/21/95 from AP] On Aug. 22, President Jose Maria Figueres announced he was dissolving the CIP completely after receiving a report from Castro on the involvement of CIP members in the Aug. 7 violence. The CIP was created in 1994; its approximately 130 agents will be transferred to other positions in the police force. Costa Rica dissolved its army in 1948, but there are a total of about 7,500 agents in its police force. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/21/95 from AFP; EDN 8/23/95 from AP] Between 1946 and 1993, 2,325 Costa Rican officers graduated from the US Army School of the Americas including 23 in 1992 and 30 in 1993 [see Update #202]. In other news, some 70 people were injured in two separate incidents when riot police attacked protesters in two Costa Rican shantytowns who were demanding government services. According to the Costa Rican Red Cross, 50 people were injured early on Aug. 22 when police used tear gas to clear a roadblock set up by residents of Pavas, who were demanding drinking water services. The protesters responded with sticks and stones. The previous night dozens of people were injured when police waged a similar battle against residents of the La Carpio community, who were demanding a new road in their neighborhood. [EDN 8/24/95 from AP] Police reports blamed Nicaraguan and Salvadoran "agitators" for the protests; President Figueres confirmed that he had reports showing the protests were provoked more by "professional foreign agitators" than by Costa Ricans. [Diario Las Americas 8/26/95 from AFP] 8. LULA RESIGNS AS HEAD OF BRAZIL WORKERS PARTY Luis Inacio Lula da Silva announced his resignation as head of Brazil's leftist Workers Party (PT) on Aug. 21 at the PT's tenth national convention in Guarapari, in the state of Espirito Santo. Lula said he would not participate either in upcoming municipal elections or the next presidential elections. Lula was replaced by Sao Paulo moderate Jose Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, a former deputy and former general secretary of the party. Dirceu called for forging alliances with other leftist and center parties "to form a bloc to govern Brazil." The narrow vote--215 to 183--reflected the deep division between Dirceu's moderate wing and the more radical faction led by his rival, Hamilton Pereira. Many political observers say battles between the radicals and Lula hurt the PT during the 1994 elections. In accepting his new post, Dirceu said the party's major problems are the "lack of political unity, the leadership's being increasingly out of touch with the party rank and file, and a shrinking base of support for the PT." "We want answers to unemployment, misery, health and education, we want the party leadership to change its agenda from internal struggles to the needs of the community," said Dirceu. Lula said he plans to travel throughout Brazil as well as abroad, concentrating on encouraging public participation in politics. "I want to travel throughout Brazil to organize the people and awaken their awareness of citizenship," he said, emphasizing that he would not run for municipal office in next year's elections. "Politicians cannot say that they will never again compete for an office, but if it's up to me, I don't want to do it again." [Latin America Data Base Notisur from Agence France-Presse, Notimex] 9. COLOMBIA: MORE VIOLENCE IN URABA Another 11 people were murdered during the week of Aug. 14 as violence continued in the Colombian banana growing region of Uraba, located in the northern section of Antioquia department. Most of the victims were banana workers and demobilized guerrillas of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), now members of the Hope, Peace and Liberty (EPL) political party. According to police reports of one action, alleged guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) entered the Mapana farm, located between the towns of Turbo and Apartado, and killed five campesino banana workers and a union leader. In another action, armed people believed to be members of a paramilitary group murdered four people in Apartado, including a former Apartado councilperson and a rural workers union member. On the same day in Apartado a campesino was shot to death by an unidentified attacker at El Oasis farm. The latest crimes occurred a few hours after President Ernesto Samper visited Uraba to introduce special measures intended to reduce violence in the area. [La Jornada 8/20/95 from AP, AFP, IPS, EFE, DPA] In a statement on Aug. 14, a previously unknown paramilitary group called Commandos for a Popular Alternative claimed responsibility for the Aug. 12 massacre that left 18 people dead in the town of Chigorodo [see Update #290], saying it was in reprisal for the massacre of six people hours earlier by leftist guerrillas in Apartado. The Chigorodo attack was the worst in the Uraba region since Jan. 23, 1994, when masked attackers killed 35 people at an open-air dance in Apartado. [Reuter 8/16/95] On Aug. 24, the Colombian attorney general's office called 17 people to trial for the 1994 massacre, known as "La Chinita" for the name of the squatters neighborhood of Apartado where it occurred. Among those ordered to appear in court are former Apartado mayor Nelson Campo Nunez and Communist Party leader Jose Antonio Lopez Bula. The other 15 are alleged members of the Boliviarian Militias which operate in the Uraba area. [El Diario- La Prensa 8/25/95 from Notimex] Campos and Lopez--who have been imprisoned in Bogota's Modelo Prison since February 1994--are members of the leftist Patriotic Union (UP) who say they have been unjustly accused of planning the La Chinita massacre. In a letter from prison dated May 15, 1995, Campo and Lopez explain that one army witness who testified against them later recanted and testified under oath about how a number of other "witnesses" were prepared and paid by the army. This person's testimony was videotaped by an Apartado court official but was not even taken into consideration by the attorney general's office. [Colombia Support Network Action on Colombia Vol. 2, Nos. 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 1995] Murders in Uraba have been on the rise since May, after militants from several competing political movements came together in a consensus of local cooperation for peace. This consensus resulted in a statement by mayors of several towns in this part of Uraba-- backed by Apartado bishop Isaias Duarte Cancino--which said simply: "No To Violence; Respect the Consensus; Respect Civilians." [Colombia Support Network Urgent Action 5/23/95] Pope John Paul II has now ordered Bishop Duarte transferred from Apartado to head the archdiocese in the city of Cali. Antioquia governor Alvaro Uribe Velez says he will ask the Pope to reconsider the decision so that Duarte can continue his labor for peace in the region. Uribe told local radio stations he considers the Pope's decision inopportune. "Monsignor Isaias Duarte is the great leader of the teaching of peace not only in Uraba but in all of Antioquia," said Uribe. [Diario Las Americas 8/26/95 from EFE] [For more information contact the Colombia Support Network at PO Box 1505, Madison, WI 53701; phone 608-255-6554; fax 608-255- 6621; email csn@igc.apc.org.] 10. CHILE: PROPOSED LAW WOULD END HUMAN RIGHTS TRIALS Addressing the nation on radio and television on the night of Aug. 21, President Eduardo Frei outlined a proposed legislative package he hopes will restore greater civilian control over the military and resolve Chile's continuing conflicts over human rights issues through the revision of a 1978 amnesty law. Drafts of the three laws were sent to the Senate on Aug. 22, and congressional representatives opened discussion on the package on Aug. 23. The first bill calls for specially appointed civilian judges to expedite investigation of "disappearances"; after the remains of the victim are found, those responsible would then neither be tried nor sentenced. Cases where the remains of a victim cannot be located would be temporarily closed, subject to future reopening. Special immunity will be granted to anyone coming forward with information concerning the whereabouts of a disappeared person. The second bill would restore the president's power to order high-level military and police officers into retirement, a power that was eliminated by the Constitution issued in 1980 by then- dictator and current armed forces chief Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The third bill would end the military's voting parity on the National Security Council and change the make-up of the Constitutional Tribunal, which is still dominated by the military and former Pinochet officials. This same bill would also establish popular election of all legislators, thus eliminating the senators who are currently designated by the armed forces. [CHIP News 8/21/95, 8/22/95; Inter Press Service 8/22/95] Socialist Deputy Juan Pablo Letelier, son of slain diplomat Orlando Letelier, announced on Aug. 24 that the Socialist Party is completely behind the Frei initiative, even if it means that human rights violators will not necessarily end up in jail. "If justice cannot be done, at least let's have the truth about the whereabouts of the disappeared," said Letelier. But many are skeptical. "We do not know any of the details of the bill," Sola Sierra, head of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared, said on Aug. 24, "but if it fails to lead to the truth about the fate of every case involving the disappeared and fails to punish those responsible, it cannot be good for us." Seven young relatives of human rights victims chained themselves to window bars of the presidential palace La Moneda on Aug. 23 while 30 other protesters read a statement condemning the bill. The demonstration was rapidly dispersed when police came with clubs to arrest the participants. [CHIP News 8/25/95] 11. BOLIVIA: 3 CAMPESINOS KILLED, TROOP ACTION HALTED On Aug. 20, Bolivian governnance minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain announced the 48-hour suspension of police anti-drug operations in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba. Sanchez told the press that the suspension included the partial retreat of Mobile Rural Patrol Unit (UMOPAR) troops stationed in villages of the Chapare region and the Isiboro-Secure national park. According to Sanchez, "This measure has the objective of allowing the people of the San Gabriel, Tacopaya, Uncia and Laboca communities in Isiboro-Secure to voluntarily comply with the law prohibiting the cultivation of coca...and the manufacture of cocaine in those regions." Sanchez said that the people of these communities could also reach an agreement with the government, as other campesino groups have done, to peacefully eradicate their coca plantings-- though without any economic compensation. In the Chapare region, each grower received $2,500 per hectare of coca eradicated. The measure "is not an amnesty," explained Sanchez, "but rather a truce of the police operation in Isiboro-Secure, where cultivation of coca is prohibited by the laws and where the settlers must comply [with the laws] without the necessity of use of force, and to resolve the problems in accepting dialogue with the government." Representatives of campesino unions and of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) had called off talks with the government in Cochabamba early in the week of Aug. 14 after campesino coca grower Juan Ortiz Diaz was killed in a confrontation with an UMOPAR patrol on Aug. 8 [not on Aug. 1 as reported in Update #289]. The campesino leadership warned that it would not negotiate until the government explains the circumstances of Ortiz' death. Authorities had accused Ortiz of being a drug trafficker, but this accusation was dismissed after investigations by legislators and human rights organizations. Tensions increased on Aug. 18 when another campesino coca grower, 75-year old Jose Mejia, was killed in similar circumstances in Isiboro-Secure. Attempting to defend his coca crops, Mejia confronted an UMOPAR patrol with an ancient Mauser rifle, wounding one agent; Mejia was then himself shot down in a burst of machine gun fire, according to press reports from the area. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/21/95 from AFP] According to German Felipez, secretary general of the Federation of Coca Producers, Mejia was the third campesino to be killed in recent weeks while defending his coca crops. Armed with spears, axes and dynamite, the coca producers had set up guard at the edge of their lands to keep the anti-drug troops away. [La Jornada 8/20/95 from AP] 12. IN OTHER NEWS... Ecuadoran vice president Alberto Dahik, architect of his country's neoliberal economic program, is being investigated on embezzlement charges by the courts. Dahik has been accused of embezzling over $485,000 in state funds. [El Daily News 8/22/95 from Reuter] Dahik claims the funds were actually kept in secret state accounts and not embezzled. [EDN 8/25/95 from Reuter] Six political parties have requested a political trial which means that 48 of the 52 votes required by the constitution to censure and dismiss Dahik would be assured. [EDN 8/23/95 from Reuter]... Cuban foreign ministry spokesperson Rafael Dausa stated on Aug. 24 that his government will not allow the incursion into Cuban waters scheduled for Sept. 2 by rightwing emigres, who plan to protest in front of the main tourist beach at Varadero. "Cuba will act with firmness and decision against these attacks and will not be responsible for what happens to those who violate our airspace or waters," said Dausa. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/25/95 from AP] Cuban emigre Alina Fernandez Revuelta, a daughter of Cuban president Fidel Castro, announced that she intends to join the protest flotilla. [Diario las Americas 8/26/95]... As of Aug. 23, five hunger strikers from the Association of Dispersed Guatemalan Refugees (ARDIGUA) had been hospitalized in Guatemala City, and those remaining pledged to step up their protest by refusing liquids. The protesters began their strike on Aug. 14 to demand that the government provide credit to help them purchase land for a group of returning refugees [see Update #290]. [ARDIGUA Informative Bulletin 8/23/95] 13. 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. 8/31 THU, 12 noon - Vigil & prayer service against death penalty. At Bkln Supreme Ct at Court & Montague St. Silent march to Assump-tion Church (64 Middagh St). Pax Christi-NY, 212-420-0250. 9/3 SUN, 1 PM - Radical Walking Tour, Greenwich Village II. Meet at Village Cigars, 7th Ave & Christopher St. $6. 718-492-0069. 9/4 MON, 10 AM - Labor Day Parade. Local 802 has invited Same Boat Coalition & supporters to join contingent. At E 44th St (between 5th Ave & Vanderbilt); look for Same Boat float. DAILY PICKETS FOR WORKERS' RIGHTS. Latino Workers Ctr is sponsoring a picket line to demand minimum wage & overtime at Broad Deli, 105 Broad St (at Water St), 8-9:30 AM & 12 noon-2 PM. 212-473-3936. -- + 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 +