WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #300, OCTOBER 29, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Protests Grow as State of Siege is Lifted in Bolivia 2. Mexico: Peso Plunges as "Rebel Leader" Arrested 3. Behind the Latest Mexican Crisis 4. New Prime Minister Named in Haiti 5. Salvadorans March Against Layoffs 6. Salvadoran Campesinos Seize Lands 7. Three Killed in Honduran Land Clash 8. Ex-President Reburied in Guatemala 9. Chilean General Jailed, Rebels Protest Light Sentence 10. Chilean Communists Win Union, Student Elections 11. Protests Continue in Argentine Provinces 12. US Firms Pay Off Treasury to Do Business With Cuba 13. Venezuelan Ex-President's Trial Nears End 14. Venezuelan Army Tortures Border Residents 15. Nicaragua Gets a New Vice President 16. Mystery Virus Hits Nicaragua 17. In Other News: Counter-Terrorism, Ecuador & Colombia 18. Upcoming Events in the NYC Area and Beyond ISSN#: 1068-5332. 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Send us a copy of any publication where we are cited or reprinted. We also welcome your comments and ideas: send them to us at the street address above or via e-mail to nicanet@blythe.org. * 1. PROTESTS GROW AS STATE OF SIEGE IS LIFTED IN BOLIVIA The state of siege in Bolivia that was imposed on Apr. 18 by President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada and extended on July 18 ended officially on Oct. 16. The administration claims that the 6-month state of siege accomplished its two main objectives: to impose a climate of social peace, and to allow the privatization program to move forward. According to government spokesperson Hugo San Martin, the state of siege allowed the privatization of six major public enterprises to get off the ground, and the government now hopes to complete the sale of all government monopolies by the first quarter of 1996. Immediately after the state of siege was lifted, worker protests- -which had continued during the previous six months despite the restrictions--erupted again, with major demonstrations by teachers, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) and coca growers breaking out in the capital and in rural areas. On Oct. 20, police used tear gas to dispel a demonstration in La Paz by protesting teachers, who responded by throwing rocks and bottles. One person was reported injured and several demonstrators were arrested during the exchange. University students held a protest on Oct. 23 to demand that the government reinstate $20.5 million in cuts to state universities. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 10/27/95 from Inter Press Service, Reuter, Notimex, Agence France-Presse] On Oct. 26, the COB leadership decided in a meeting to plan a series of strikes and marches to protest privatizations, educational reform, and the high cost of living. "We are primarily against the privatization of state enterprises, especially [the state oil company] Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB)," said COB secretary general Oscar Salas Moya. The COB considers turning the YPFB over to foreign investors a loss of sovereignty since it is a "strategic resource" and highly profitable. So far this year authorities have transferred to US consortiums 50% of the shares of the state electricity and telecommunications companies and the state airline Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB). Also slated to be sold are the railroads and Metalurgica Vinto. The COB also opposes administration plans to raise the retirement age from 55 to 65, pointing out that the average life expectancy of Bolivians is 60 years of age, according to United Nations statistics. [LADB Notisur 10/27/95 from IPS, Reuter, Notimex, AFP; El Daily News (NY) 10/27/95 from AP] The COB kicked off its protest campaign with a demonstration attended by about 10,000 people in La Paz on Oct. 27. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 10/28/95 from AFP] 2. MEXICO: PESO PLUNGES AS "REBEL LEADER" ARRESTED The latest round of negotiations between Mexico's federal government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) went so smoothly that the two sides wrapped up the session on Oct. 22, two days ahead of schedule. The talks, which began on Oct. 18, consisted of six concurrent "tables" (workshops or working groups) which met in San Cristobal de las Casas and in the nearby town of San Andres Larrainzar (or San Andres Sakamch'en) in the southeastern state of Chiapas. With 308 advisers invited by the rebels and 188 by the government, the working groups discussed various aspects of indigenous rights and autonomy. Phase two of the talks was scheduled to start on Nov. 14. Meanwhile, in Mexico City, the two leading opposition parties, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the center-left Party of the Democratic (PRD), agreed to resume talks on political reform with the government and the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on Oct. 24. The opposition parties walked out of these talks last spring. [Associated Press 10/22/95; Reuter 10/22/95; Inter Press Service 10/23/95] A 6.3-magnitude earthquake shook Chiapas the night of Oct. 20, damaging homes and buildings and causing at least two deaths. A woman died of a heart attack in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez, as she fled her home, while a child died in the town of Huixtla from injuries she sustained when a wall collapsed. [AP 10/21/95; La Jornada (Mexico) 10/22/95] The earthquake, the third major quake in Mexico since September, did nothing to dampen the optimism at the peace talks. "The document under discussion was so good we made the earth shake," joked Raul Jardon, one of the EZLN advisers. [AP 10/20/95] But an arrest in Mexico City the evening of Oct. 21 shattered the good mood. According to the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, six vehicles with some 40 police agents in plain clothes stopped Fernando Yanez Munoz at about 7:30 PM as he was driving with two friends, Laura Natalia Garcia Hernandez and her brother Fernando Abraham Garcia Hernandez. The three were blindfolded and taken to the Federal District (DF) Attorney General's office; they were questioned, stripped naked, photographed and fingerprinted. They spent the next day in the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR); on Oct. 23 the two Garcias were released. [Human Rights in Mexico Daily Information Service 10/23/95] The PGR waited until Oct. 23--after the peace talks had ended--to announce the arrests. The PGR identified Yanez as "Commander German," the "maximum leader" of the EZLN; the government had issued a warrant for his arrest on Feb. 8 when it launched a short-lived military offensive against the Zapatistas. Yanez was charged with possession of an AK-47 automatic rifle, a pistol and cartridges. (According to the police he also had a gram of cocaine; this was not included in the formal charge.) Yanez and the Garcias denied having either weapons or drugs in the car. While imprisoned in the Reclusorio Oriente (East Prison), Yanez told reporters that he lives in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, and works as an architect. He had been part of the defunct guerrilla National Liberation Armed Forces (FLN) in the 1970s, he said, but "I have no links to the EZLN, though it would be an honor for me." "I think [people in the government] are trying to set the peace talks back or suspend them," he said, "because they've realized they aren't going to be able to come through with the things they promised at the working groups." [Reuter 10/23/95; IPS 10/24/95; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update, Vol 2, #52, 10/24/95; New York Times 10/25/95] On Oct. 25 EZLN spokesperson "Major Moises" told reporters in La Realidad, Chiapas, that the rebels had gone on "red alert." While saying he didn't know whether Yanez was an EZLN member, Moises charged that the government was breaking a special Mar. 11 amnesty suspending all arrest warrants against the rebels for the duration of the talks. "We don't expect anything from the government," he said, "because they have already betrayed us. This is the second time Zedillo has done this," he added, referring to the February offensive ordered by President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon after offering peace talks. "Right now it is doubtful whether we can return to the second phase of the talks." [Reuter 10/25/95; El Daily News (NY) 10/27/95 from wire services; Mexico Update 10/24/95] The renewed tensions added to nervousness about the economy, driving stocks down. The peso fell by 5.03% on Oct. 26, closing at 7.2 to the US dollar. [Reuter 10/26/95; NYT 10/27/95] "As always after economic sneezing in Mexico," the British Independent writes, "stock markets from Buenos Aires to Wall caught colds." The peso's fall contributed to an 85-point plunge in the Dow Jones industrial average on Oct. 26; the index recovered to close down by 49.86 points. The US dollar, which had been gaining against the German mark earlier in the day, fell back after the peso's plunge. [Independent 10/28/95; Reuter 10/26/95; NYT 10/27/95] On Oct. 27 the PGR abruptly dropped all charges against Yanez. "They arrested me for political reasons," Yanez told reporters as he was leaving the prison, accompanied by Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, a PRD federal deputy and the president of the pro-EZLN Democratic National Convention (CND), "and I suppose they got me out for political reasons." [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 10/29/95 from AP] "After Thursday's economic damage," the Independent writes, referring to the Oct. 26 run on the peso, "the government apparently decided releasing [Yanez] was worth the price." [Independent 10/28/95] 3. BEHIND THE LATEST MEXICAN CRISIS US journalist John Ross reports from Mexico City that "[d]oubts about whether [President Zedillo] has been consulted on the surprising twists and turns of events in Chiapas trouble many Mexicans." Ross notes that Zedillo was in New York for the United Nations' 50th anniversary celebrations when Yanez was arrested. Zedillo has spent much of the month out of the country, first in Washington for a meeting with US president Bill Clinton, then in Argentina for the Ibero-American Summit, while elections and peace talks were under way in Chiapas. [John Ross 10/25/95] The Yanez case was handled entirely by the PGR, which is headed by PAN member Antonio Lozano Gracia, the first opposition party member to hold an important cabinet post in the PRI's 66-year history. According to the New York Times, the powerful Governance Secretariat (interior ministry) learned of the arrest only after the news had already been leaked to the press. Unnamed "judicial officials" scoffed at the police agents' story that they had stopped Yanez because he was driving a Volkswagen through Mexico City with an AK-47 sticking out the window. "The episode...appeared to reveal unhealed divisions within the government...over the peace negotiations with the Zapatista rebels," the Times writes. [NYT 10/25/95 and 10/28/95] The Yanez arrest was not the only problem for the peso. The markets were also responding to bad news about the Mexican economy. Inflation rose to 1.1% for the first two weeks of the months (about 30% annually), a much higher rate than the government had projected. [NYT 10/27/95] Between Oct. 6 and Oct. 13 foreign reserves fell by $1.034 billion to $13.758 billion; of this, 95% is borrowed money. Mexico may have to go back on its promise not to use the balance of the bailout package (about $7.5 billion) the US made available last February. Mexican economist Carlos Heredia blames the government's 10-month old austerity policies for the new crisis. "This will happen again," Heredia says, "if only because Zedillo will not budge from his current strategy, which in and of itself guarantees instability." [Mexico Update 10/24/95; Equipo Pueblo press release 10/27/95] The peso's fall was not the only pressure the US dollar got from a partner in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which makes Mexico, the US and Canada into one large free-trade zone. The Toronto stock market fell 2.77% on Oct. 23 in response to fears that separatist forces might win in an Oct. 30 referendum on making Quebec independent from Canada [see Update #299]. [NYT 10/24/95] 4. NEW PRIME MINISTER NAMED IN HAITI On Oct. 23 Fritz Robert St. Paul, the president of the Haitian Chamber of Deputies, said that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had nominated Foreign Minister Claudette Werleigh to serve as prime minister. Werleigh will replace Smarck Michel, who resigned on Oct. 16. The nomination is expected to be approved by the parliament, where Aristide's supporters hold an overwhelming majority. [New York Times 10/23/95 from AP] The new prime minister worked as the Caribbean coordinator for the Catholic relief agency Caritas from 1975 to 1987. She was the social affairs minister during the interim 1990 presidency of Ertha Pascal Trouillot, and the chief of Prime Minister Rene Preval's cabinet before Aristide's overthrow in 1991. After the coup, she worked in the US on the board of directors of the liberal Washington Office on Haiti. Werleigh is considered unlikely to be as independent of Aristide as Michel was on the unpopular neoliberal policies demanded by international lending institutions. Michel aggressively pushed the policies, notably a plan to privatize nine state enterprises; Aristide generally avoided associating himself with this plan publicly. But Werleigh can do little to oppose the neoliberal programs, which must be implemented if Haiti is to receive a $1.2 billion international loan package. [Haiti en Marche (Miami) 10/25-31/95, some from AHP] Due to a typographical error, Update #299 incorrectly gave September 1995 as the beginning of the multinational occupation of Haiti; the occupation began in September 1994. UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali's plan to keep the occupation forces in Haiti past the official February 1996 deadline has received support from the US human rights community. Human Rights Watch/Americas and the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees (NCHR) say that "the presence of international forces in Haiti...has been a key component of the Aristide government's ability to initiate changes." They "urge the gradual withdrawal of international forces." [HRW/A & NCHR Press release 10/14/95] 5. SALVADORANS MARCH AGAINST LAYOFFS Some 5,000 state workers marched on Oct. 23 in El Salvador to protest a law establishing 15,000 layoffs in the state sector. The marchers left from a park in central San Salvador and ended up in front of the Supreme Court, where they asked the judges to declare the new law unconstitutional. The law was passed by the legislative assembly on Oct. 12 [see Update #298] but has not yet been signed by President Armando Calderon Sol, although he was the one who promoted it. The law would allow those responsible for the state institutions to determine which employees are to be laid off. Workers fear the layoffs will be used to eliminate the strong state sector unions through removal of union members. Workers have proposed the creation of a bipartisan commission made up of government and union representatives to reform the new law or draw up a different one. [El Daily News 10/24/95 from Reuter; El Diario-La Prensa 10/24/95 from AP; Flor de Izote Foundation Weekly Report Vol. 6, #40, 10/16-23/95] After three weeks in jail, 15 members of the Salvadoran Social Security Institute Workers Union (STISSS) were released from Mariona prison on Oct. 2. Judge Salvador Castillo of the First Criminal Court declared that the workers had been wrongly arrested and imprisoned, and that there was insufficient evidence for charges of aggravated damage and initiating disturbances in a public place. According to Castillo, the original judge in the case made a hasty and illegal decision in jailing the fifteen. The National Civilian Police (PNC) had detained the workers after violently attacking their strike [see Update #295]. According to one health professional, "The only reason that the STISSS workers were released was because of international solidarity." STISSS says it will sue the PNC for violating the strikers' rights. [El Salvador Watch #43, 11/95] 6. SALVADORAN CAMPESINOS SEIZE LANDS As of Oct. 25, hundreds of campesinos armed with machetes, sticks and stones were continuing to occupy some 26 rural properties in the departments of Sonsonate, Ahuachapan and La Libertad, in central and western El Salvador. Campesinos began the occupations on Oct. 22 to demand that the government provide them with land, in accordance with the provisions of the Special Agrarian Law of 1991. The law provides that properties over a certain size are to be parceled out to landless families. Agents of the National Civilian Police (PNC) were sent to the occupied areas immediately, and anti-riot police backups were in place by Oct. 25, on alert and ready to evict the protesters. The Prosecutor's Office for the Defense of Human Rights sent observers to supervise the police intervention. "We are not here as usurpers, but rather as interveners, asking in the name of all the campesinos in the country that they give us the parcels of land they promised us," said Rodolfo de Paz, one of the leaders of the Democratic Campesino Organization (ADC), which organized the occupations. "We are concerned," said Marcos Salazar, another ADC leader, "because in the rescheduling of the [peace] accords the land distributions were not taken into consideration, and the timeline that was originally set ends on Oct. 31." Salazar added that at a meeting with representatives of the United Nations Observer Mission for El Salvador (MINUSAL), which oversees the peace accords, the government delegates refused to execute the measure. The ADC planned to hold a protest march in San Salvador on Oct. 26 and has a larger demonstration set for Oct. 31 to press their demands. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/25/95 & 10/26/95 from AFP] 7. THREE KILLED IN HONDURAN LAND CLASH Three campesinos were killed, six were wounded and four disappeared on Oct. 24 when military troops tried to evict a group of rural workers in northern Honduras. One police officer was also beaten, and four campesinos were arrested. The campesinos said they were sowing seed in the fields when they were attacked by a military group trying to remove them from 90 hectares that the government had planned for the cultivation of improved seed. "The soldiers and police fired without provokation against unarmed campesinos as they were trying to renew their occupation of the fields and dialogue with the authorities," the National Federation of Rural Workers (CNTC) said in a communique. "We want to blame the National Agrarian Institute and the ministry of Natural Resources for this massacre," the communique added. Regional police commander Col. Wilfredo Urtecho told Associated Press that "hundreds of CNTC members walked a kilometer to surround and attack with machetes and fists a small wooden house where 25 soldiers were eating; the soldiers used their weapons to defend themselves." Urtecho added that earlier the campesinos had briefly kidnapped a government civilian guard and cut off his ears with a machete; they also stole grains from the storehouses and work tools from the Agriculture Ministry, and damaged the tires of a parked private vehicle, he said. According to Urtecho, the military unit protects 90 hectares in Guaymas which are cultivated by government employees. The campesinos initially invaded the land last May; Urtecho claims that the army peacefully evicted them by court order on Oct. 18. The CNTC called Urtecho a liar. Agriculture Minister Ramon Villeda Bermudez denied any involvement on the part of the Agriculture Ministry and told the attorney general's office to investigate the deaths. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/25/95 from AP; El Daily News 10/25/95 from Reuter] Reyes Rodriguez Arevalo, a long-time and prominent leader of another campesino organization, the National Association of Campesinos of Honduras (ANACH), was ambushed and murdered by unknown attackers in El Higo, Cortes department, during the week of Oct. 23. Rodriguez was traveling in his vehicle, accompanied by his daughter, when four people stopped them on the highway and shot Rodriguez point blank. Under Rodriguez' leadership, which ended 10 years ago, ANACH was the principal campesino organization in Honduras and an important factor in pressuring for agrarian reform. [Diario Las Americas 10/28/95 from AFP] Indigenous Hondurans charged on Oct. 12 that armed helicopters were flying over their communities in an effort to end their demands for better services. Salvador Zuniga, coordinator of the Committee of Indigenous and Popular Organizations (COPIN) said he verified that an armed helicopter flew over and landed in several villages in Intibuca department, near the Salvadoran border, on Oct. 4. Zuniga was participating in an indigenous pilgrimage that arrived in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 11 for a series of Oct. 12 actions commemorating the 503 years of indigenous struggle that followed Christopher Columbus' landing in the Americas. [ED-LP 10/13/95 from AFP] 8. EX-PRESIDENT REBURIED IN GUATEMALA On Oct. 19, the body of former leftist president Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was exhumed, cremated and returned to Guatemala for a presidential burial. Arbenz drowned in his bathtub in 1971 while living in exile in Mexico; he was buried in El Salvador, his wife's native country. Arbenz's reburial in Guatemala was requested by the state-run University of San Carlos (USAC); on Oct. 18 USAC awarded Arbenz with a posthumous honorary degree. In 1954, after Arbenz was driven from office in a coup organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the army stripped him down to his underpants at the airport before sending him into exile. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #41, 10/26/95; San Francisco Chronicle 10/20/95; "Informe Semanal" #43; El Daily News 10/23/95 from AP] This time, Arbenz' ashes were greeted at the airport with full military honors and taken to the USAC museum, where cadets of the army's notorious Polytechnic School were blocked from entering. Later, accompanied by hundreds of students, Arbenz' coffin was transported to the Presidential Palace where army cadets waited to carry it in. But to chants of "murderous army out of power," the students carried the coffin straight past the cadets, and before stunned guards could close the gates, streamed into the palace. "The same army that forced Arbenz from the palace, has no right to carry him in again," explained student leaders. The next day, Oct. 20, thousands paid homage to Arbenz on the 51st anniversary of the 1944 "October revolution" that overthrew a repressive regime and began what is known as the "decade of spring," a time of progressive political and economic reform. (Arbenz was elected in the middle of this period, in 1951.) To the cries of "Jacobo lives, the struggle continues!" and under a rain of blood-red carnations, it was again the students who carried Arbenz's coffin from the presidential palace, by request of Arbenz's widow, Maria Cristina Vilanona de Arbenz. Led by returned refugees who had marched from their communities to protest the Xaman massacre [see Updates #297, #298], a lively crowd of thousands of workers, students, Mayas, homemakers, office workers, merchants and politicians accompanied Arbenz to the cemetery. Candidates for the New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG) carried the coffin for the final stretch into the cemetery, where Arbenz was buried. The crowd prevented the army from delivering its funeral prayer by chanting and singing the national anthem. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #41, 10/26/95; Communique of the FDNG 10/21/95] Britain has lifted a ban on sales of military equipment to Guatemala. According to an article in the British daily Independent, the British government sees the possibility of important sales of arms and counter-insurgency equipment in a large market which has for years been supplied from Israel. [Independent 10/13/95] Britain is also training Guatemalan military personnel. British troops were involved in training a Guatemalan contingent drawn from the Kaibiles--a force known for its persistent human rights violations--to take part in the multinational occupation force in Haiti. The troops involved in the massacre at Xaman were also Kaibiles. [Independent 10/28/95] 9. CHILEAN GENERAL JAILED, REBELS PROTEST LIGHT SENTENCE After five months of delaying imprisonment, retired Chilean general Manuel Contreras Sepulveda was transferred to Santiago from the Talcahuano Naval Hospital near Concepcion amid elaborate military maneuvers and police operations that lasted through the day. Contreras was then brought to the Punta Peuco prison at 1:40 am on Oct. 21. Contreras, former chief of the secret police (DINA) under the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, was sentenced in December 1993 to seven years in prison for masterminding the 1976 car bomb murder in Washington of Chilean former foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his US aide, Ronni Moffitt; the sentence was upheld by Chile's Supreme Court on May 30 of this year. Though the long-awaited transfer was widely covered by Chilean media, no one actually saw Contreras enter the prison: it is presumed that he was traveling in a white van without windows; when the van entered the prison grounds, military guards turned strong spotlights toward the press, impeding filming or photographs. The government refused to give any details of the transfer operation for security reasons, but Justice Minister Soledad Alvear confirmed Contreras' imprisonment. Alvear said Contreras was examined by doctors upon his arrival at the prison and was determined to be in good health. [CHIP News 10/23/95] The Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), an armed leftist revolutionary group, took control of a Santiago radio station late on the night of Oct. 21 to broadcast its displeasure with President Frei's government and to call for harsher punishment for Contreras. According to police reports, four masked, armed men forced their way into the offices of Radio Nina, which is owned by a retired army colonel, tied up station personnel and then broadcast a 20-minute message. No one was injured. At the same moment, two small dynamite explosions occurred at an office of the far-right National Renovation (RN) party and at provincial government offices in Maipo, south of the capital. Damage was minor and no one was injured. Two people who identified themselves as FPMR militants also attacked a private home in the La Cisterna community. A third explosive attack was foiled by a guard at the muncicipal building of Central Station, who threw the explosive in a bucket of water. The radio station assault marks the first public appearance of the FPMR in recent years. The revolutionary group was formed in 1983; in 1985 it carried out an assassination attempt against then-dictator Pinochet in Cajon del Maipo which left five bodyguards dead and Pinochet with minor cuts on his hand. [CHIP News 10/23/95; El Diario-La Prensa 10/23/95 from AFP; El Daily News 10/26/95 from Reuter] 10. CHILEAN COMMUNISTS WIN UNION, STUDENT ELECTIONS Communist Party activist Jorge Pavez was elected to the board of directors of Chile's national teachers union with over 14,000 votes--four times as many as the second place Socialist candidate and five times as many as incumbent union president Osvaldo Verdugo, a Christian Democrat. Pavez was also the top votegetter in union elections in 1992, but the new board of directors did not choose him to head the union; this time, he is almost assured of becoming president because of his overwhelming mandate, plus the fact that five other Communists were among the top fifteen votegetters and that Socialist candidate Carlos Vasquez is supporting his candidacy. (The top 15 will elect the president and the seven-member board of directors.) Verdugo was seen by union members as being too accomodating to the government. Education Minister Sergio Molina blamed Pavez' victory on teachers "lack of information," to which union leader Jaime Gajardo said: "The teachers are very well informed of the rights they lost due to the reforms of the Teachers' Statute and our deteriorated working conditions." [CHIP News 10/16/95] The Communist Party also won elections held on Oct. 24 for leadership to rebuild the University of Chile Student Federation (FECH), dismantled two years ago. The list of communist activists and independent leftists led by candidate Rodrigo Roca won 35% of the student vote; the Christian Democrats won 20.8% while the rightist list won 13.6% of the vote. Voter turnout was unusually high--48% of the student body. Roca will be president of the new transitional student union until May 1996. The positions of vice- president and secretary general will be held by socialist Danilo Nunez and Christian Democrat Eugenio Ravinet respectively. Roca said that the aim of the new union will be to democratize the University of Chile. [CHIP 10/25/95] The Communist Party victories in the FECH and Teachers Union elections have sparked intense debate about the party's resurgence. Communist Party president Gladys Marin said her party's recent wins signal that a popular movement was emerging and looking for the changes that were promised but never delivered by the ruling Concertacion coalition. [CHIP 10/26/95] The Socialist and Communist Parties may join forces for next year's elections for a new board of the Central Union of Workers (CUT), said Socialist Arturo Martinez, the CUT vice president. Martinez said if a candidate list composed of Christian Democrats, Socialists, Radicals and Communists was not possible, his party would look toward the Communists as a way to assure an electoral triumph. Martinez said with the election of six Communists to the board of the Teachers' Union--the largest union affiliated to the CUT--the Communist, Christian Democrat and Socialist Parties now each have 15 delegates to the CUT elections. Next April, the 45 delegates will elect a new CUT board, presently headed by Christian Democrat Manuel Bustos. This year two other labor organizations will carry out elections for a new board of directors: the National Federation of Health Workers and the Miners Confederation, both currently headed by Communists. If the Communist Party increases its number of board members in these and other unions, it proportionally will have a higher number of delegates to the CUT elections, favoring a leftist candidate. Newly elected Teachers Union president Pavez-- who is a possible candidate for the CUT presidency--said his party was prepared to win in the CUT elections. In related news, the government decided to suspend a "Productive Development Forum" planned for Nov. 3-5 after the CUT declined to participate. The forum, composed of labor, business and government representatives, was created in 1994 by the government of current president Eduardo Frei; it is supposed to meet yearly. Although it has no formal powers, the gathering gives advice to the government. CUT leaders said the union decided to withdraw from this year's meeting because the government was more concerned with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and with protecting business interests than with workers' needs. [CHIP News 10/27/95] 11. PROTESTS CONTINUE IN ARGENTINA Demonstrations by state workers are continuing in a number of Argentine provinces [see Updates #295, #297]. On Oct. 10 in the city of General Roca in Rio Negro province, a group of workers burned part of the municipal building at the end of a protest march against the structural adjustment measures being planned by the Radical Civic Union (UCR), which rules Rio Negro. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against the demonstrators; seven people were arrested. [EDN 10/11/95 from Reuter] And on Oct. 10 in Tucuman, 10 people were injured and at least five arrested in protests by some 300 retirees and state workers against the possible transfer of the pension system to national jurisdiction. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets and attack dogs to remove demonstrators from in front of the provincial legislature building, where legislators were debating the measure. The protesters had earlier attacked and damaged the local government building and reportedly were trying to knock down the gates in front of the legislature. Tucuman legislators are also discussing the economic reforms which have been agreed upon in negotiations between local leaders of the ruling Justicialist Party (PJ) and the rightwing Republican Force, which takes over the provincial government on Oct. 29. [EDN 10/11/95 from Reuter] Six people were hurt on Oct. 25 in Mendoza province when nearly 10,000 demonstrators gathered to protest structural adjustment measures. State workers also held street demonstrations in Cordoba province on Oct. 25 to demand overdue back pay. In Salta on Oct. 25 and 26, police used tear gas to disperse some 200 municipal workers who were trying to break into the mayor's office to demand his resignation and the payment of their overdue back wages. The demonstrators also tried unsuccessfully to burn the building. In Jujuy on Oct. 26, state workers clashed with police on the second day of a three-day strike. Demonstrators burned the door of a residence of the provincial economy minister, and threw rocks at a casino and a provincial bank. [El Daily News 10/27/95 from AP] After the Jujuy protests, local opposition leader Carlos Santillan proposed "a plan of national struggle, a new federal march to demonstrate to [President Carlos Saul] Menem and [Economy Minister Domingo] Cavallo about the consequences of the adjustment that they are applying in the provinces." The central government has been pressuring provincial governors to adjust their economies through layoffs and privatization, warning that they must improve their finances because they will no longer be receiving any federal aid. [EDN 10/27/95 from AP] On Oct. 10, Jorge Obeid of the ruling PJ was declared winner of the Sept. 3 elections for governor in Santa Fe province with 48% of the vote. Because of computer problems and charges of fraud, the official results were delayed and a recount was done by hand [see Update #292, #293]. After provincial elections held this year from May 14 through October in all but one of Argentina's 23 provinces, the PJ controls 14 provincial governments--the same number it controlled before these elections--while the Radical Civic Union (UCR) now controls five (up from four) and various provincial parties control the other four (down from five). (Jose Estabillo of the Popular Fuegian Movement (MPF) was reelected in Tierra del Fuego, where voting took place Sept. 24--see Update #297.) The only remaining election in Argentina during 1995 is the Buenos Aires mayoral race, for which the date has not yet been set. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 10/20/95 from Inter Press Service, Reuter, Agence France-Presse] [Note: in Update #277, we reported that of the 14 governorships contested in elections held May 14, the PJ won nine and the UCR won five. It now appears that the PJ won ten and the UCR four in that round of balloting. The PJ won four more governorships and the UCR one more in September and October--see Updates #297, #299.] 12. US FIRMS PAY OFF TREASURY TO DO BUSINESS WITH CUBA The US Treasury Department said on Oct. 24 that US pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co. has paid a fine of $127,500 for doing business with Cuba. Other US companies that have recently paid fines for doing business with Cuba were NationsBank ($24,938); AT&T Corp. ($12,700); Citibank ($7,125); CoreStates Bank in Philadelphia; and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya's New York branch. The US prohibits companies from doing business with Cuba. Offenders face penalties of up to $1 million. The Treasury Department said it accepted a lesser settlement from Merck because of the company's "high level of cooperation" in bringing its violations to the department's attention. Merck's violation stemmed from a 1993 trip to Cuba by Merck scientists, at the request of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The scientists evaluated Cuban manufacturing practices, including vaccine production. According to United Press International, the Treasury Department said Merck contracted with a Cuban laboratory for testing services. The Treasury Department called Merck's violations "inadvertent and technical." [UPI 10/24/95; USA Today 10/25/95 from wire services] Sherritt, Inc.--a Canadian mining company which has been blacklisted by the US for its joint ventures with Cuba in nickel and oil [see Update supplement on Cuba 10/23/95]--announced it will invest another $500 million in other sectors of the Cuban economy, according to the Cuban foreign ministry. Ministry spokesperson Miguel Alfonso said the announcement was made by Sherritt president Ian Delaney on Oct. 25 at an economic round table held in Havana. [Diario Las Americas 10/28/95 from AFP] 13. VENEZUELAN EX-PRESIDENT'S TRIAL NEARS END On Oct. 5, Venezuela's supreme court began the final phase in its corruption trial of former president Carlos Andres Perez. In his final hearing, Perez reiterated his innocence, while prosecutors urged the court to jail Perez for at least three years--and preferably 10--for alleged misuse of $17 million in public funds. Perez was impeached in May 1993; his trial began in November of last year. The charges against Perez, his former interior minister Alejandro Izaguirre and three other senior members of his administration are based on the illegal routing in early 1989 of $17 million in secret Interior Ministry funds to the Presidency Secretariat and the subsequent use of those funds in April of 1990 to send a police mission to Nicaragua to provide personal protection for Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro [see Update #254]. The Supreme Court estimates that the final judgement in Perez' case will probably come in late December or mid-January. The current administration of President Rafael Caldera is meanwhile preparing new charges against Perez for diverting government funds to his personal bank accounts. Those charges focus on a $25,000 a month apartment Perez still maintains in Manhattan's Sutton Place, where his mistress Cecilia Matos lives with their two children. In the meantime, Perez is under house arrest at his hilltop mansion in Caracas and welcomes correspondence. His email address, as reported in the Washington Post, is 73050.2251@compuserve.com. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/6/95 from Notimex; New York Times 10/6/95; WP 9/27/95] 14. VENEZUELAN ARMY TORTURES BORDER RESIDENTS The Support Network for Justice and Peace, a Venezuelan non- governmental human rights organization, has documented the cases of 19 campesinos who were beaten, hung, temporarily suffocated, threatened with death, sexually abused and/or subjected to mock executions in the town of Guasdualito near the Colombian border. The Network has accused Venezuela's security forces--the militarized National Guard, the Judicial Technical Police (PTJ) and the political police (DISIP)--of torturing the campesinos in their search for guerrillas of Colombia's National Liberation Army (ELN) who allegedly kidnapped Guasdualito mayor Jesus Rojas on July 8. As of Sept. 5, Rojas had not been found. "It seems that Cararabo was not a good enough example," Network spokesperson Juan Navarrete told Inter Press Service, referring to human rights abuses that occurred near the Colombian border in March [see Update #267]. According to the Catholic Church in nearby Puerto Ayacucho, one area resident was killed and 23 others tortured in the military crackdown around Cararabo that took place after a Feb. 26 attack by ELN guerrillas on the Cararabo border outpost left eight Venezuelan marines dead. After President Rafael Caldera ordered the Defense Ministry to investigate the Cararabo violations, Defense Minister Moises Orozco filed charges against three navy officers and offered apologies to the victims. But the border area is still militarized, and since July 17 the Support Network has received charges of new violations carried out by troops in the army's theatre of operations around Guasdualito. "The police do not investigate to arrest, but arrest in order to investigate," explained Navarrete. "That always leads to torture, to obtain confessions--even false ones--under the principle that all detainees are enemies." Navarrete said the Guasdualito case has been presented to international human rights organizations, as well as to the Defense Ministry, which has not yet responded. [Inter Press Service 9/5/95] 15. NICARAGUA GETS A NEW VICE PRESIDENT On Oct. 22, Nicaragua's National Assembly designated deputy Julia Mena of the Independent Liberal Party (PLI) to replace Virgilio Godoy Reyes--leader of the PLI--as vice president of the country. President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro had proposed Conservative deputy Fernando Zelaya for the post, but Mena's candidacy was supported by 44 deputies from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) and the Christian Democratic Union. Deputies of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC) and the Conservative parties, including Zelaya, walked out before the vote. President Chamorro met with Mena later in the week and told her she would be given specific functions. Godoy, who was never given official functions or an office as vice president, resigned his post on Oct. 19 so that he can register as a candidate for president in the 1996 elections. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/23/95 from AFP, 10/24/95 from EFE; Diario Las Americas 10/28/95 from EFE]... Deputy Miriam Arguello of the Popular Conservative Alliance has also announced her candidacy for the presidency in 1996. [El Daily News 10/25/95 from Reuter] In other news, FSLN National Directorate member and founder Tomas Borge was unharmed when unknown attackers shot at his residence from a vehicle on Oct. 24, police announced. Two of the bullets hit the house. Police say they will investigate. [Inter Press Service 10/24/95] 16. MYSTERY VIRUS HITS NICARAGUA At least 12 Nicaraguans have died and nearly 1,000 have been infected in the first 10 days since a mysterious virus was discovered in the municipality of Achuapa in Leon department. A health emergency has been declared and the area has been quarantined; two specialists from Cuba and two from the US have arrived in Nicaragua to help with the investigations. The virus shows symptoms like hemorrhagic dengue but the dengue virus does not show up in clinical tests and none of the aedes aegypti mosquitos that carry dengue have been found in the area. Local journalistic sources claim the number of deaths is far greater than the official count, and that the epidemic has spread to other municipalities in Leon, Chinandega and Esteli departments. Dengue, hemorrhagic dengue and cholera have all resurged this year in Nicaragua and throughout Central America. [Diario Las Americas 10/28/95 from EFE] Dengue, equine encephalitis and related viral diseases have also struck Colombia and Venezuela recently, killing at least dozens and perhaps hundreds of people. [New York Times 10/26/95] 17. IN OTHER NEWS... In an Oct. 19 press conference US president Bill Clinton complained that Congress has still not passed the bipartisan counterterrorism bill, which penalizes both immigrants and US citizens for association with foreign groups the president designates as "terrorist." "It's been six months since the Oklahoma City bombing...[and] they still haven't passed the bill," he said. "They haven't even scheduled it for a final vote." The Washington Post notes that the bill has been held up by a few legislators from both Democratic and Republican parties with "deep moral convictions concerning individual rights and government power." [WP 10/23/95]... Workers at Ecuador's state oil company, Petroecuador, began the second day of an incremental open-ended strike on Oct. 24 as they prepared to meet with President Sixto Duran-Ballen. The strike began with a shutdown in the administrative sector and will be stepped up to include maintenance and operations if the meeting with Duran-Ballen fails to bring results, said Marcelo Roman, president of the Federation of Ecuadoran Oil Workers (FETRAPEC). The oil workers began protest actions three weeks before starting the strike; they are demanding the firing of Energy Minister Galo Abril, the suspension of the bidding process for the expansion of the national oil pipeline, and a halt to the privatization of the oil sector. Electricity workers have said they may join the strike. [El Daily News 10/24/95 & 10/25/95 from Reuter; El Diario-La Prensa 10/24/95 from EFE]... Over 350 prisoners began a hunger strike on Oct. 25 in the Garcia Moreno prison in Quito, Ecuador, to demand the removal of the prison psychologist and the repeal of a law that prohibits those accused of drug trafficking from being granted bail. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/27/95 from EFE]... The United Nations (UN) will create an international observer commission for the violence-plagued banana-growing region of Uraba in Colombia, diplomatic sources announced on Oct. 26. The commission will be made up of representatives of the UN Human Rights Commission, the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights, the British-based international group Alert, and the Netherlands- based religious pacifist organization Pax Christi. The International Committee of the Red Cross will give logistical and technical support. The details of the observer group have already been discussed in a meeting at UN Human Rights Commission headquarters in Geneva; the group will be set up within a month [El Diario-La Prensa 10/27/95 from Notimex], and is scheduled to function for a maximum of one year. Plans for the international observer commission are credited to Apartado mayor Gloria Isabel Cuartas Montoya and Antioquia governor Alvaro Uribe Velez, who went to Europe on Oct. 1 with a representative from the Colombian government to seek support for the project. [El Tiempo (Colombia) 9/28/95] 18. 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. 11/2 THU, 2 PM - "Keep Patients First--Save Our Health." Rally to stop Medicare and Medicaid cuts. 23rd St & 5th Ave. 11/4 SAT - 1995 Work-A-Thon. Work in NYC on community projects, raise contributions for community projects in El Salvador. CISPES, Action for Community Empowerment (ACE) & Latino Workers Center. Participate or sponsor, 212-645-5230. 11/4 SAT, 9:30 AM - Truck packing & shipment of humanitarian aid to Nicaragua. New Canaan Methodist Church, New Canaan, CT. Connecticut Quest for Peace. 203-371-5783. 11/4 SAT, 12:30 PM - Communications technology workshop, w/Richard Perez (BoricuaNet), Mona Jimenez (Media Alliance), Omar Wasow (NY On-Line) & others. At Goddard Riverside Community Ctr, Columbus Ave & 88th St. FREE, but preregister at 212-366-6900 x339. Access for All. 11/4 SAT, 1 PM - Radical Walking Tour, Lower East Side I. Meet across street from 175 East B'way. $6. 718-492-0069. 11/6 MON, 10 AM - Black Solidarity Day: International Day of Education on Mumia Abu-Jamal Case, w/march in Philadelphia. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, 212-281-4973. 11/6 MON, 6 PM - March to tell Clinton to veto medical & welfare cuts. Columbus Circle (59th & 8th Ave), march to 6:30 PM rally at Sheraton Hotel (7th Ave & W 53rd St). Bring candles. GMHC, Housing Works & many others. 212-741-8535. 11/7 TUE, 7:30 PM - Forum w/Guatemalan indigenous leader Catarina Castro Ixcotoyac. Ch of St Paul & St Andrew, W 86th & West End Ave. Bring warm clothing to support church homeless shelter. CNICA & NY Guatemala Support Group. 11/9 THU, 4 PM - Commemoration of 1991 Dili Massacre in East Timor. 777 UN PLaza (1st Ave & 44th St). ETAN/NY, 718-788-6071. 11/10 FRI, 8 PM, 11/11 SAT, 9 AM, 11/12 SUN, 9 AM - Globalization conference. Carlos Heredia (Mexico), Ralph Nader, Jeremy Rifkin, others. $6-50/day, $20-100/all events. 212-226-7171. -- ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 For more info, e-mail accounts@blythe.org, or gopher://ursula.blythe.org/11/NY-Transfer-News/ =================================================================