WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #293, SEPTEMBER 10, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. One Killed in Paraguay Land Protest 2. Brazil: More Land Protests, Massacre Survivors Attacked 3. Indigenous Argentines Protest for Land 4. General Strike in Argentina 5. Regional Vote Count Suspended in Argentina 6. Bolivia: University Students Protest Police Action 7. Another Coca Grower Killed in Bolivia 8. Dominican Police Attack Sugar Workers, One Killed 9. Mexican Rebels to Participate in National "Dialogue" 10. Mexican Protests: Bus Drivers and the Golf War 11. Privatization Protests Hit Haitian Government 12. Cuba: New Law Opens Up Foreign Investment 13. In Other News: Chile, Uruguay, Nicaragua & Peru 14. 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 electronicm 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. ONE KILLED IN PARAGUAY LAND PROTEST One campesino was killed and at least 20 others injured on Sept. 7 when Paraguayan police tried to evict 600 peasants from squatted land in the central province of San Pedro. One campesino was left in a coma. Four police agents sustained wounds from machetes; three campesinos were arrested. The confrontation began when the campesinos set up a roadblock to prevent a detachment of 200 police officers from entering the property. The campesinos took over the privately owned 8,000-hectare estate in August and refused to leave until the Rural Welfare Institute (IBR)--the state agency in charge of agrarian reform--grants them other land. Interior Minister Carlos Podesta told the press that 18-year old campesino squatter Pedro Jimenez died from a bullet wound in the head; Podesta denied that the shot was fired by security forces. According to Podesta, the police forces--who were sent into the area from the national capital, some 300 kilometers to the southwest--were only authorized to use tear gas and rubber bullets. [El Daily News (NY) 9/8/95 from Reuter; El Colombiano (Medellin) 9/8/95 from EFE] The Unitary Workers Federation (CUT) and the National Workers Federation (CNT) called urgent meetings of their leaderships to discuss a possible support strike in solidarity with the campesinos. [EDN 9/8/95 from Reuter] On Sept. 8 the campesinos reached an agreement with the government: they agreed to leave the invaded property while the country's parliament tackles the issue of its possible expropriation, a process that could take 44 days. The accord was worked out between campesino leaders, government authorities (including Agriculture and Livestock Minister Arsenio Vasconsellos) and San Pedro bishop Fernando Lugo. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 9/9/95 from EFE] 2. BRAZIL: MORE LAND PROTESTS, MASSACRE SURVIVORS ATTACKED On Aug. 27, some 3,000 Brazilian families began an occupation of abandoned farmland in Sao Paulo state. An 8 km-long caravan of trucks and tractors, organized by the Landless Peasant Movement (MST), tore down fences and moved onto three farms in the Pontal de Paranapanema region which they said belonged to the state but had been illegally taken over by large landowners who left them idle. The military police sent troops to the area, and the landowners said they would request the occupants' expulsion with a judicial order. Squatters who took over the same lands three years ago were evicted with such an order. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/27/95 from AFP, ANSA, DPA] Meanwhile, Brazil's main union federation, the United Workers Central (CUT), is providing protection in Sao Paulo for a survivor of the Aug. 9 police massacre of rural squatters at the Santa Elina farm in Rondonia state [see Updates #289, 290]. The survivor, Claudemir Ramos, told the daily Folha de Sao Paulo that military police tried to kill him in the hospital on Aug. 10 and again the next day after he was moved to a different hospital under protection of the civilian police. [El Daily News 8/21/95 from Reuter] Several other survivors have said they were beaten and mistreated by police after the massacre. One man said officers forced him to eat brains from a corpse. "We have two witnesses to that," said Luiz Claudio Garcia of the Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission (CPT). A spokesperson for Rondonia governor Valdir Raupp said there was no official estimate of the number of people still missing from the massacre. Church sources have suggested that some of the bodies may have been burned or removed from the area and dumped. Raupp fired the state police chief on Aug. 14 over the incident, which is under investigation by police, the federal Justice Ministry, a congressional human rights committee and human rights groups. [Reuter 8/15/95] Brazil's National Bishops Conference said in a statement that the Rondonia massacre "was wrapped with excesses of barbarity that make us ashamed as a nation." The statement, issued at the end of the bishops' semi-annual meeting, called for urgent measures to end "the growing climate of violence against labourers and Indians" in Brazil. [Reuter 8/25/95] 3. INDIGENOUS ARGENTINES PROTEST FOR LAND Some 500 Kolla indigenous people from the far northern Argentine province of Salta have been camping out in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires to demand that the government follow up on a promise to grant them land rights. In accordance with Law 24242, passed in 1993 to restore the historic rights of indigenous peoples, the government is supposed to deposit the sum of $822,000 for the purpose of returning 19,000 hectares of land in Salta to the Kolla. A protest by the Kolla last year in the capital won a government promise that the situation would be resolved before the end of 1995. But so far nothing has happened, and if the order isn't carried out by Oct. 6 of this year--two years after the law was imposed--the expropriation will be annulled. On Aug. 20 Interior Minister Carlos Corach promised to intercede to get the Economy Ministry to release the funds--which are not budgeted, suggesting that the government never intended to comply with the constitutional order. The lands in question were sold in 1930 by the state-owned Mortgage Bank to the San Martin sugar refinery and the San Andres and Santiago plantations, in the hands of the so-called "owners of Salta." The Supreme Court always ignored the claims of the Kolla, arguing that their community did not constitute a "judicial entity." As Kolla elders recall, "We [didn't even] exist and we still don't exist in this country." Indeed, most of the Argentine media has ignored the Kollas' protest. [La Jornada 9/3/95] 4. GENERAL STRIKE IN ARGENTINA Argentina's main labor federations held a 12-hour general strike on Sept. 6 to protest the country's growing unemployment rate, now officially at 18.6%--its highest ever--due to neoliberal economic austerity measures. The work stoppage was called by the General Labor Federation (CGT), which is supportive of the government [see Update #289]. [El Daily News 9/7/95 from Reuter, 9/8/95 from AP; Financial Times (UK) 9/6/95] Also participating were two dissident federations: the Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA), formed in 1992, and the Movement of Argentine Workers (MTA). [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 9/6/95 from AFP] The CTA and the MTA are made up primarily of public employees, transport workers and teachers; the CTA also seeks to represent all those marginalized from traditional unions, such as the unemployed, temporary workers, employees who lack social security and all those who are opposed to the ruling party. [Inter Press Service 9/5/95] Both the CTA and the MTA are critical of the CGT's cooperation with the government; they oppose neoliberal economic measures and demand a policy of greater confrontation with the government. [EDN 9/7/95 from Reuter] While the strike was not fully observed throughout the country, teachers were out in force and nearly all schools were closed. The strike was strongest in the provinces of Tucuman and Cordoba, where it was extended for 24 hours with about 80% observance. A number of people were arrested in the city of Tucuman for burning tires during a demonstration. The strike was fairly weak in Buenos Aires, and most businesses remained open. The CGT claimed some 100,000 people showed up for a strike demonstration in the congressional plaza of the capital, though police reported that the turnout was around 35,000. (There were 5,000 police stationed at the march; no incidents were reported.) In a half-hour speech, CGT secretary general Gerardo Martinez asked the government to call for a "concertacion"--a meeting to work out compromises between different sectors such as business, labor and government--to discuss "unemployment and the reactivation of productive sector." Martinez also suggested that "there have to be changes in the economic program," but he refrained from criticizing the government and did not suggest abandoning the neoliberal economic plan. Thousands of members of the dissident federations left the protest in the middle of a speech by Martinez. "It seems like nobody is to blame for what happens in the country," said one of the dissident leaders. [EDN 9/6/95 & 9/7/95 from Reuter, 9/8/95 from AP; El Colombiano 9/8/95 from AFP, EFE] "There is no serious confrontation between the CGT and the government," said President Carlos Saul Menem on Sept. 6. [EDN 9/7/95 from Reuter] "The [CGT] had no other option than to call a strike, because it was forced to by the people, who were shouting for it," economist Claudio Lozano, a member of the Association of State Workers, told Inter Press Service. According to Lozano, the CGT negotiates with the government in order to keep official economic policies from eroding its influence over workers. "The problem is not only subordination to the government, but also the union's role as a mechanism of social control," Lozano warned. This was only the second general strike held since Menem first took office in 1989; there were 13 held during the government of his predecessor, Raul Alfonsin (1983-89) of the Radical Civic Union (UCR). [IPS 9/5/95] 5. REGIONAL VOTE COUNT SUSPENDED IN ARGENTINA Provisional ballot counting in the Argentine province of Santa Fe was suspended on Sept. 4, the day after the voting took place [see Update #292]. Governor Carlos Reutemann announced on Sept. 4 that the slow process of counting ballots by hand would begin Sept. 6. The count could take around a month to complete. The delay was blamed on the failure of a computer system--contracted by the National Postal and Telegraph Company (ENCOTESA)--which broke down on the night of Sept. 2. [El Daily News 9/6/95 from AP; El Diario-La Prensa 9/7/95 from AFP] Economy minister Domingo Cavallo has hinted that sabotage may have prompted the system failure, and has defended his close ally, ENCOTESA chief Haroldo Grisanti. Argentine president Carlos Menem has denied that sabotage could have been involved, and has warned that ENCOTESA officials "will have to pay the consequences" for the failure. [ED-LP 9/7/95 from AFP] Santa Fe's electoral system allows parties to run multiple candidates for the same office; the candidate who has the most votes within the winning party is the winner. Because of this, there were over 390,000 total candidates in these elections--one of every five registered voters was a candidate to some kind of office. [La Jornada 9/3/95] With 20% of the vote counted before the tally was suspended, the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party (PJ) was in the lead in the race for governor--although these results came exclusively from Santa Fe's northern zone, where the PJ is strongest. Before the suspension was announced, three candidates for governor claimed they were leading the polls: Horacio Usandizaga of the left- leaning Santafesian Alliance; Hector Cavallero of the PJ; and PJ candidate Jorge Obeid, who was supported by Reutemann. Cavallero claimed the government was manipulating the figures by announcing that his Peronist rival Obeid was ahead. [EDN 9/6/95 from AP] Results released with 15% of the vote counted had shown 101,521 votes for Obeid against 35,336 for Cavallero and 56,221 for Usandizaga. Exit polls had shown the PJ with a much smaller lead, some 4 percentage points above the Alliance. [EDN 9/5/95 from Reuter] An opinion poll conducted before the elections in five Santa Fe cities by the Center for Public Opinion Studies (CEOP) had predicted that the Santafesian Alliance would win the governor's race with 42.5%, against 37.9% for the PJ. [EDN 8/28/95 from AP] Cavallero was expected to beat Obeid within the PJ. [LJ 9/3/95] The only two undisputed results were in the races for mayor of the cities of Santa Fe and Rosario. PJ candidate Horacio Rosseti won in the provincial capital, and socialist Hermes Binner of the Santafesian Alliance won by a wide margin in Rosario, Argentina's second-biggest city. [EDN 9/6/95 from AP] 6. BOLIVIA: UNIVERSITY STUDENTS PROTEST POLICE ACTION Despite the state of siege which has banned protests in Bolivia since mid-April, university students and teachers in the cities of Santa Cruz and La Paz held street demonstrations from Sept. 5 through Sept. 7. The uprising was in response to police intervention on the campus of Gabriel Rene Moreno University in Santa Cruz, where oil workers were holding a hunger strike in defiance of the state of siege. The university teachers and students consider the entry by police an attack on university autonomy and are demanding the resignation of Santa Cruz governor Julio Leigue, who authorized the police action. In support of the Santa Cruz protesters, students in La Paz joined in the call for Leigue's dismissal. Protesters are also demanding the repeal of two articles of the education reform law which "attack university autonomy," according to La Paz university rector Pablo Ramos. [El Diario-La Prensa 9/10/95 from AFP] [University autonomy-- including a ban on police or army intervention on campus--is a long-standing tradition in Latin America.] 7. ANOTHER COCA GROWER KILLED IN BOLIVIA On Sept. 2 Bolivia's governance ministry confirmed the death of another campesino coca grower during clashes with special anti- drug forces in the Chapare region. Coca growers leader Evo Morales said that 15 campesinos were injured and another 60 arrested in the confrontation, which began when more than 35 vehicles of elite police troops entered the zone in a new attempt to eradicate coca crops. [La Jornada 9/3/95 from EFE] The incident occurred only a few days after an Aug. 30 clash with police in Isiboro-Secure national park left one coca grower injured [see Update #292]. The latest police action also occurred just after US Drug Control Policy director Lee Brown announced in Washington on Aug. 31 that Bolivia must eradicate coca production "by force if necessary." Brown's remarks came after he returned from a tour through Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil. [Inter Press Service 8/31/95] At least four coca growers have been killed in clashes with police in the last two months [see Update #291]. "The government's aim is to make us angry and make the coca producers lose control, in order to break off the dialogue and thus carry out the eradication of coca without obstacles," said rural leader Juan de la Cruz Villca. Another leader of the coca producers, William Condori, said "self-defense committees" organized by coca producers in the region are prepared "to keep out anti-narcotics police who have once again committed abuses." [IPS 8/30/95] 8. DOMINICAN POLICE ATTACK SUGAR WORKERS, ONE KILLED One 52-year old woman was killed and at least ten people were injured when police used tear gas and birdshot to repress labor protests at the state-owned Ozama sugar production facility in the sugar workers' community of San Luis, just outside Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Ramona Osorio died from the effects of the tear gas, it was reported on Sept. 7. Some 50 protesters were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and blocking traffic. San Luis residents said many were arrested when they tried to get their children away to safety. The demonstrations began on Sept. 5; the workers were demanding payment of six weeks' worth of overdue back wages and protesting the company's plan for massive layoffs at the facility. According to the correspondent for New York's El Daily News, San Luis residents were also protesting the bad condition of the streets in their community and the constant electricity blackouts. [El Diario-La Prensa 9/8/95 from AFP; El Daily News 9/7/95] The State Sugar Council (CEA) is laying off 12,700 of its 18,000 workers for a two-month period while it organizes its finances, CEA director Juan Hernandez Kunhardt announced. The next sugar harvest begins in November, but the current harvest is not yet complete and will not reach even 75% of its predicted output of 360,000 metric tons of sugar. [Diario Las Americas 9/9/95 from EFE] 9. MEXICAN REBELS TO PARTICIPATE IN NATIONAL "DIALOGUE" On Sept. 3 Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) was to receive the final results of a grassroots plebiscite held on Aug. 27 to let Mexicans vote on the group's political direction. [La Jornada 9/3/95] According to the final report of the Civic Alliance, an election monitoring group which organized the voting, 1,088,094 Mexicans cast ballots in the plebiscite, 923,045 at 8,245 voting tables and 165,049 in traditional assemblies held in 1,570 indigenous communities. The voters overwhelmingly endorsed the EZLN's principal demands; a narrow majority (52.6%) called for the rebels to form an independent political force rather than join with existing groups. [Undated Civic Alliance Final Report on World Wide Web] The total is somewhat lower than the Civic Alliance's earlier estimate of 1.2 million voters [see Update #292]. A special plebiscite will be held on Sept. 13 for Mexicans under 18, and people outside Mexico will be able to send in their ballots until then. [Elliott Young from Mexico 9/6/95, posted on New York Transfer] While officially playing down the plebiscite, less than a week after the voting the Mexican government gave in to a key Zapatista demand for the rebels to be included in discussions between the main political parties on national issues. Previously the government had insisted that negotiations with the EZLN would only cover issues relating to the southern state of Chiapas, where the Zapatistas are based. On Sept. 2 President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon accepted recommendations from the Commission for Concord and Pacification in Chiapas (COCOPA) for including the rebels in the broader talks; COCOPA is a multi- party group set up by the federal Congress to promote negotiations between the government and the EZLN. [LJ 9/3/95] The center-left opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which had been boycotting the national dialogue, had made a similar proposal during its national convention at the end of August [see Update #292]. The more limited talks between the rebels and the government resumed, as scheduled, on Sept. 5 in the town of San Andres Larrainzar (or San Andres Sakamch'en de los Pobres), north of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas. The current round seemed more productive than the previous five sessions of the talks, which began in April. On Sept. 7 COCOPA and the EZLN delegation issued a joint communique agreeing that the government's offer for national dialogue was a step forward. [COCOPA-EZLN Communique 9/7/95, posted on NY Transfer; Associated Press 9/8/95] On Sept. 8 the government and the EZLN agreed to a 42-point agenda for further talks, including detailed negotiations on indigenous rights and local issues in Chiapas. The sixth round was to continue on Sept. 9. If the agreement holds up, the indigenous rights negotiations may start as early as Sept. 15. [Reuter 9/9/95] Inter Press Service reports that Asian and European corporations plan to invest $10 billion in 10 "macro-projects" in Chiapas once the conflict is settled. These would include maquiladoras, waste processing plants and cultivation of the African palm, according to Miguel Guadarrama, president of the Chiapas Business Center. The EZLN's "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" has said that such projects would destroy the indigenous culture and subject Chiapas to a new process of exploitation; he implied that the government was planning to exterminate the EZLN in order to clear the way for the investment plans. [IPS 8/31/95] 10. MEXICAN PROTESTS: BUS DRIVERS AND THE GOLF WAR Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo gave his first state-of-the- nation report on Sept. 1. He said that Mexicans had seen the worst of the economic crisis that began three weeks after he took office last December, and that government spending would increase in the second half of the year. The Mexican stock market responded on Sept. 4 by jumping 2.9%. [New York Times 9/3/95, 9/5/95; Financial Times 9/5/95] Confident that the government's balance of payments problems had been resolved, officials indicated on Aug. 30 that Mexico would stop drawing down credit from an emergency $37.8 billion bailout fund the US and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put together in February. [IPS 8/30/95] But the economic crisis and the austerity program the government imposed last March continue to damage Mexican society. The Mexico City attorney general's office reports that crime in the capital has risen 26% since the crisis started, with most of the increase in burglaries, car theft and muggings. Four out of every ten crimes are committed by first-time offenders, according to a government survey. [Washington Post 9/7/95] Mexico City experiences almost daily protests from the 12,000 former employees of the Route 100 bus line, which the city shut down abruptly on Apr. 8. The drivers refuse to accept a severance pay offer. On Aug. 15 their union, the Route 100 Urban Passenger Auto Transport Workers Union (SUTAUR 100), put out a call for international solidarity. Specifically, the union was looking for donations to cover school supplies for members' children when school reopened on Aug. 28. (Money can be sent to Banamex branch 566, account 76078-5, in the name of Emilio Krieger and Jesus Gonzalez Schmal. Messages of solidarity can be sent to the union via email at cleta@mail.internet.com.mx or fiambre@nodo50.gn.apc.org) [SUTAUR 100 Communique 8/15/95, posted on NY Transfer] Unionists have gone door to door in the capital to ask for donations. The campaign started the week of Aug. 21 in the middle-class Polanco neighborhood, where residents gave the union members school supplies and cash; some local art dealers even contributed sculptures and paintings to be used in a raffle. [LJ 8/27/95] SUTAUR 100 national recording secretary Jorge Cuellar Valdez is taking the union's case to the US with a Sept. 13-21 tour of the San Francisco area, where there are efforts to privatize the San Francisco Municipal Transit system. (He will appear on KPFA radio [94.1 FM] at 5 PM on Sept. 14 and at 8:30 AM on Sept. 15, and on Viacom 53 TV on Sept. 21 at 8 PM. For more information, call 415-641-4440.) [Ruta 100 Bus Drivers Tour Committee Press Release 9/9/95] Meanwhile, the Mexico City government has reportedly offered to give SUTAUR 100 one of the 10 companies to be produced when the bus line is privatized. The union might accept the deal if the city can guarantee 6,000 jobs and some income sharing for the remaining 6,000 union members; the current offer would only provide 1,800 jobs. [LJ 9/3/95] The spirit of protest has even spread to Tepoztlan, Morelos, a precolonial village a few miles south of Mexico City which is best known as an artists' hangout. The villagers, mostly indigenous Nahuas, joined with local ecologists to oppose the Grupo KS corporation's plan to build a private golf course and country club complex on an archeological site in the nearly Tepozteco National Park. Florida's GTE Corporation also plans to construct a $30 million computer center in the area. Protesters seized the town hall on Aug. 24. On Sept. 3, as construction on the golf course started, 3,000 of Tepoztlan's 13,000 residents, many armed with machetes, massed at the main plaza for a protest. Six or seven local officials were held hostage for 40 hours, and some 200 state riot police sent to stop the protest were run out of town. [AP 9/3/95, 9/7/95; Reuter 9/3/95; NYT 9/6/95; WP 9/9/95] On Sept. 8 Mexico's environmental attorney general Antonio Azuela de la Cueva announced that the building project would be temporarily suspended due to violations of zoning restrictions. [NYT 9/10/95] 11. PRIVATIZATION PROTESTS HIT HAITIAN GOVERNMENT The government of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has now apparently settled many of the problems coming out of the chaotic June 25 local and legislative elections. After several postponements, the runoffs are scheduled for Sept. 17, and many centrist and rightwing candidates will run despite boycotts by their parties, which lost overwhelmingly in the first round to Aristide's Lavalas movement. About 20 candidates from the centrist National Front for Change and Democracy (FNCD) are expected to run, along with three from the rightwing National Progressive Revolutionary Party (PANPRA). [Haiti Progres (NY) 9/8-12/95] After a visit in August by US under secretary of state Strobe Talbott, Aristide reportedly agreed to withdraw his own candidates from some races and to offer the opposition parties cabinet posts in exchange for their recognition of the elections as legitimate. [New York Times 8/30/95] Right after the opposition parties first questioned the June elections, the New York-based leftist weekly Haiti Progres predicted that "there will be the usual haggling, with some crumbs here and there so that a strong `opposition' will emerge, and the `leaders' will give in, as they always have" [see Update #283]. But the Aristide government now faces trouble from the left. In a report on Aug. 14 Prime Minister Smarck Michel announced that his government would proceed with a full-fledged structural adjustment program (SAP), as required by the international lending institutions. "We know that in all countries SAPs cause damage," Michel said, but "we have something that makes us different from the other countries, because three years of the coup d'etat already did 60% of the adjustment." Michel was referring to the damage done to the economy by the 1991-1994 military regime and by an international embargo ostensibly meant to bring the coup government down. Michel officially announced that the state's flour mill and cement company, shut during military rule, would now reopen in preparation for their privatization. [Haiti Info Vol. 3, #22, 8/19/95] The announcement was followed by what the Miami-based pro- Aristide weekly Haiti en Marche calls an "anti-privatization wind blowing...through the capital." For example, on Aug. 29 a commentator on Television Nationale d'Haiti called privatization "a poison" which "the Haitian people must mobilize [against] to keep from passing." [HEM 9/6-12/95] In the middle of August students at the State University of Haiti (UEH) began organizing against a symposium sponsored by the Education Ministry; the students considered this a first step in a campaign to privatize the UEH. The symposium was postponed and the university's provisional council resigned after a demonstration on Aug. 28. On Sept. 2 Finance Minister Marie Michele Rey threatened to resign because she has been attacked as the prime mover behind the privatization plan. She insisted that the program was forced on her by the government's agreement to the so-called Paris Plan in August 1994 [Update #242]. President Aristide was brought out on Aug. 24 to give his support, for the first time in recent months, to the SAPs. He explained that "the state does not have enough money to make a series of businesses work," and so has to sell them. But he admitted that the similar programs had brought protests in other countries, and said that "what happened in Costa Rica does not happen in Haiti." [Haiti Info Vol. 3, #23, 9/2/95] [Costa Rican unionists mobilized in July and August against privatization plans; see Updates #285-290.] Aristide's efforts were not enough for the international lending institutions, which felt the government was wavering. Prime Minister Michel flew to Washington on Sept. 6 to reassure the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB), which have been stalling on the delivery of about $1 billion in foreign aid. [Financial Times 9/7/95] In other news, it now appears that about 100 Haitians attempting to flee their country died on a small freighter that was intercepted off the Bahamas on Aug. 20 or 21. The Bahamian and US coast guards found 406 people on the boat [see Update #291], but apparently there had been 500 passengers when the voyage started. Some died earlier of suffocation or hunger during the four-day voyage; others were thrown overboard by the crew when the vessel began leaking. Haitian officials, who have arrested the 16 smugglers, say this was the worst single incident in the history of the trade in Haitian refugees. [El Daily News 9/7/95 from Reuter; El Diario-La Prensa 9/8/9 from AP; NYT 9/7/95 from Reuter] 12. CUBA: NEW LAW OPENS UP FOREIGN INVESTMENT After two days of heated debate, on Sept. 5 Cuba's National Assembly passed a controversial new law that allows foreign investors access to all economic sectors except defense, health care and education. The law allows foreigners to fully own businesses in Cuba, either privately or in the form of public stock companies. Under the previous 1982 law governing foreign investment, only in exceptional cases could foreign companies own more than 49%. The new law still requires the government to give case-by-case approval to each project, but the red tape has been reduced; the recently-created Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation must reply to investment proposals within 60 days. Only wholly owned ventures or those worth more than $10 million must be approved by the council of state. The new law also allows the creation of free trade zones and maquiladoras where foreign companies can produce and warehouse goods for export. But apart from exceptional cases, foreign investors will still have to go through a government-run hiring hall and will be prohibited from directly contracting with and paying wages to Cuban workers. In addition, the law permits the ownership of offices, housing for foreigners and other buildings, though it does not address the question of land ownership. The law does not exclude Cuban emigres from investing in Cuba. [New York Times 9/7/95; Wall Street Journal 9/5/95; Financial Times 9/7/95; Washington Post 9/6/95] One issue raised by the legislation is that investment is now allowed in principle to Cubans living abroad, but not to Cubans living in Cuba. Assembly president Ricardo Alarcon said there had been much discussion on this issue, but he pointed out that this particular law addressed only foreign investment. [FT 9/7/95] Meanwhile, former political prisoner Indamiro Restano has returned to Havana after an extended trip in Europe and has formed the "Cuban Bureau of Independent Journalists" (BPIC), which he will seek to legalize. Restano will head the organization, which he says is independent, non-governmental, and has so far received only a small contribution from the Lillian Hellman foundation. [Diario Las Americas 9/9/95 from EFE] Restano, a social democrat, was imprisoned in Cuba from December 1991 until June 1 of this year [see Update #279]. 13. IN OTHER NEWS... On Aug. 7 a federal judge in Miami sentenced Edward Johnson, a salesperson for Teledyne Industries, to three years and five months for his involvement in the corporation's sale of zirconium to Chilean arms manufacturer Carlos Cardoen for use in cluster bombs delivered to Iraq during the 1980s. Johnson is the only employee convicted in the deal, which reportedly included the Reagan administration's CIA director, William Casey. Teledyne paid $11.5 million in fines and penalties after pleading guilty last January. The US has made no effort to extradite Cardoen from Chile. [New York Times 8/8/95]... Leftists in Uruguay held a demonstration on Aug. 24 to mark the first anniversary of police brutality that last year left one protester dead, over 50 injured and many arrested. Last year's demonstrations unsuccessfully sought to prevent the Uruguayan government's extradition of three Basque nationalists to Spain [see Update #239]. Among those taking part in this year's commemorative vigil were relatives of people who were abducted and disappeared during Uruguay's military dictatorship (1973-84). [El Daily News 8/28/95 from Reuter] The march was called by the Assembly for Human Rights; the left-leaning Frente Amplio political coalition declined to participate, as did the country's main union federation, the Inter-Union Workers Plenary-National Workers Convention (PIT- CNT). [EDN 8/22/95 from AP]... Former Nicaraguan president and current secretary general of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) Daniel Ortega has warned that recent bombings at Catholic schools and churches in Nicaragua "are a provocation clearly directed...to prepare eventual attacks against Sandinistas." Ortega also charged that the Sandinista leadership is being unjustly blamed for the bombings. [EDN 8/25/95 from AP] According to Nicaraguan Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, the bombings and threats are intended to "desensitize" public opinion, in order to prepare people for assassination attempts against political leaders. [Diario Las Americas 8/26/95 from Noticiero Nicaraguense]... On Sept. 8, Peru's congress approved the legalization of various birth control and sterilization methods, including vasectomy and tubal ligation. The measure passed amid heated debate and against stiff opposition from the Catholic Church. The measure does not include abortion. [El Diario-La Prensa 9/10/95 from AFP; DLA 9/9/95 from AFP] 14. 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. 9/16 SAT, 1 PM - Radical Walking Tour, Greenwich Village I. Meet at Washington Sq Arch. $6. 718-492-0069. 9/16 SAT, 7 PM - Report-back from Cuba Lives Int'l Youth Festival. Casa de las Americas, 104 W 14th St. 212-675-2584. 9/16 SAT, 9 PM - Dance/Baile, Latin music w/DJ Power Serge. At Brecht Forum, 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $5. Colombia Multi-Media Project, 212-802-7209. 9/17 SUN, 12:30 PM - Fiesta Nicaragua. Luncheon/Auction/Crafts Fair. Benedictine Grange, 49 Dorethy Rd, W Redding, CT. $15. Connecticut Quest for Peace. 203-371-5783. 9/17 SUN, 6 PM - Forum: One Year After US Invasion of Haiti. Church of the Evangel, Bedford Ave between Winthrop & Hawthorne, Bkn. Haiti Anti-Intervention Cmt (HAIC). 212-592-3612. 9/18 MON, 7:30 PM - "NAFTA: A Three Way Tie for Last." Paper Tiger TV on Manhattan Neighborhood Network ch 16; 9/20 WED, 10:30 PM Brooklyn Cable ch 34, ch 67; 9/21 THU, 4:30 PM Manhattan ch 17; 9:30 PM Bronxnet ch 68. 9/23 SAT, 5 PM at Printed Matter Bookstore, 77 Wooster St. 212-420-9045. * -- + 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 + >