WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #305, DECEMBER 3, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Ecuadorans Vote "11 Times No" 2. Did US Pay Rebels to Kill Marines in El Salvador? 3. Clinton's Cuba Adviser Investigated on CIA Guatemala Leak 4. US Pressures Haiti, 47 Drown 5. Haiti: More US Links to Death Squads 6. More Mysteries in Haitian "Rioting" 7. Phone Privatization Signed in Nicaragua 8. Mexico: Congress Considers Trial for Ex-President 9. Women's Cooperative Attacked in Southern Mexico 10. New & Old Rebels Resurface in Bolivia 11. Workers Protest Argentine Economy 12. Peru Rebels Surrender After Battle 13. Chile: Pinochet, Protests, Prisoners 14. In Other News: Venezuela & Brazil 15. Upcoming Events in the NYC Area and Beyond ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A one-year subscription (52 issues) is $25. 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ECUADORANS VOTE "11 TIMES NO" In a referendum held Nov. 26, Ecuadoran voters rejected eleven proposed reforms to the country's 1979 constitution. While official results have not yet been announced, according to the respected private polling firm Cedatos, "no" took 51.4% of the vote overall, while "yes" took 40.4% and null and blank votes totalled 8.2%. Pre-referendum polls had showed all 11 questions likely to win approval. Most voters cast a blanket "no" or "yes" vote covering all 11 questions--despite considerable popular support for some of the proposed reforms, such as those concerning decentralization of government. Grassroots groups had urged people to vote "11 times no" [see Update #304]. Of all the questions, the one rejected most broadly would have removed the requirement that all workers be affiliated with the national Social Security Institute (IESS), allowing them to sign up with private insurance carriers. Among other consequences, passage of this measure would have had a serious impact on Ecuador's large indigenous population, since contributions from city workers help fund Social Security benefits, including health care, for more than one million indigenous people. Duran-Ballen has promised to honor the results of the referendum, and is even threatening to veto three reforms passed by Congress in the period between the convocation of the referendum and the vote itself. The three reforms are similar to some of the measures defeated in the referendum, including a prohibition against public service strikes, administrative decentralization, and the reformulation of the constitutional court. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/1/95 from Notimex, Reuter, La Jornada, Latin American Information Agency (ALAI), AFP, Hoy (Quito); ALAI 11/27/95; El Diario-La Prensa 11/27/95 from AFP] 2. DID US PAY REBELS TO KILL MARINES IN EL SALVADOR? At a Nov. 30 press conference, US senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) charged that the US government paid two alleged leftist rebels for intelligence information and helped them enter the US after they participated in the 1985 killing of four US marines and two US businesspeople in El Salvador. Shelby identified Gilberto Osorio and Salvadoran national Pedro Alvarez Andrade as the masterminds behind the June 19, 1985 attack on a cafe in San Salvador's Zona Rosa district that left the six US nationals and seven Salvadorans dead. One of seven assailants died in the attack; three more were convicted and imprisoned in El Salvador. Andrade was later freed under an amnesty for rebels. The Mardoqueo Cruz unit of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) claimed responsibility for the attack. "There exists substantial evidence that suggests that the US government paid these known murderers in exchange for intelligence information," Shelby announced. The senator declined to say where the evidence came from: "It's secret information and I can't reveal the sources," he said. Shelby is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; he said he had participated in private hearings on the case with representatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and officials of the State and Justice Departments. Shelby said both Osorio and Alvarez are living in the US even though the US government had evidence they helped plan the attack. Osorio, a US national of Salvadoran origin who is now living near San Francisco, was allowed back into the US for "`humanitarian' reasons," Shelby charged in a letter to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. In the letter, co-signed by committee chair Arlen Specter (R-PA) and vice-chair Robert Kerrey (D-NE), the committee asked Christopher to order the State Department Inspector General to begin an in-depth investigation of the case and to decide whether it is appropriate to begin deportation proceedings. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/1/95 from AFP (some quotes retranslated from Spanish); Reuter 11/30/95] 3. CLINTON'S CUBA ADVISER INVESTIGATED ON CIA GUATEMALA LEAK Richard Nuccio, US president Bill Clinton's special adviser on Cuba, is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly giving classified CIA information on Guatemala to US Rep. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ). Last March, Torricelli revealed that a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA's payroll was linked to the 1992 murder of imprisoned Guatemalan rebel Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, who was married to US lawyer Jennifer Harbury [see Update #269]. Torricelli did not name his sources at the time, but in April he told the Washington Post his information came "from members of Clinton's own administration who wanted to communicate with [Clinton] as soon as they could, and as boldly as they could." Nuccio, a former aide to Torricelli, was named senior adviser to the assistant secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, handling Guatemala matters, after Clinton took office in 1993; he was still in that post in April of this year, when Torricelli made his statements. At the time, Nuccio was authorized to have information about the CIA's activities in Guatemala, and Torricelli, as a member of the intelligence panel, was entitled to receive it, according to unnamed administration sources cited by the Washington Post. "The problem is that no one approved passing such information to Torricelli," one source said. In May, Nuccio was appointed a special adviser on Cuba, reporting to Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher. [WP 11/30/95] The Justice Department's investigation of Nuccio was revealed just two weeks after the State Department Inspector General confiscated Nuccio's safe and several of his files, said a Justice Department source. Inspector General spokesperson Linda Topping confirmed that her office expedited the affair to the Justice Department, even though it had not concluded its own investigation. "This continues to be a very open investigation," said Topping. According to Topping, the investigation that began several weeks ago seeks to establish whether Nuccio was the source of the leak and to determine if any federal law had been violated. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/30/95 from AFP; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 12/2/95 from EFE] State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns said on Dec. 1 that Nuccio has not been suspended or separated from his responsibilities, nor has his authorization to receive classified information been revoked. [DLA 12/2/95 from EFE] In New York on Nov. 29 it was reported to French news agency Agence France Presse that Nuccio had cancelled a talk on Cuban-US relations which he had been scheduled to deliver the next day at a business lunch arranged by the Council of the Americas. No official reason was given for the cancellation. [ED-LP 11/30/95 from AFP] Nuccio had met with Harbury in Guatemala City on Oct. 27, 1994, as Harbury entered the 17th day of a hunger strike to demand information about her husband [see Update #248]. 4. US PRESSURES HAITI, 47 DROWN In the issue appearing on Nov. 28, the Creole-language Haitian weekly Libete carried President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's categorical denial that he was planning to stay in office after his term ends next February. "I'm leaving on Feb. 7," he said in an interview with the paper, which is published by a pro- Liberation Theology priest, Farther Jean-Yves Urfie. On several occasions in November President Aristide had suggested that he sympathized with those of his supporters who wanted him to remain in office for three extra years; this would be to make up for the three years he spent in exile after a 1991 military coup. An unnamed Haitian official told Reuter news service that Aristide had simply been trying to move the debate off the streets and into an organized framework, but that it had gone "further than he had expected." The US government and media had made a major issue out of the possibility that Aristide would remain in power. Aristide and US national security adviser Anthony Lake spent three hours in special talks on Nov. 23. The Montreal daily La Presse reports that Aristide assured Lake that he was leaving office on schedule. The president has in fact been more or less openly grooming his friend and former prime minister Rene Preval as his candidate in the Dec. 17 presidential elections. [Haiti Progres (NY) 11/29-12/5/95, some from Reuter and La Presse] On Nov. 25 at least 47 Haitians were reported drowned when a sailboat capsized off the northwestern coast, apparently in an attempt to reach the US. The US Coast intercepted a freighter carrying 516 Haitians on Nov. 24 and another with 578 passengers on Nov. 26. The US captured 1,102 boat people in November; only 867 were intercepted in the first 10 months of the year. US embassy spokesperson Stanley Schrager attributed the sudden increase to worsening economic conditions and the end of the hurricane season. The US returned the intercepted boat people to Port-au-Prince, over protests by the Haitian government. Until this year the US had used a treaty signed by former dictator Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier to justify repatriating Haitians found in international waters; the Aristide government let it lapse in October 1994 [see Update #271]. [Washington Post 11/29/95; New York Times 11/30/95] 5. HAITI: MORE US LINKS TO DEATH SQUADS The Haitian government was reportedly upset about revelations in the Nov. 26 Washington Post that the US government knew of a possible rightwing plot to destabilize the December elections [see Update #304]. Haitian officials say the US never passed this intelligence on to them. Haitian officials have learned that on the night of Nov. 7 a US embassy political officer paid a visit to Gen. Prosper Avril, who held power briefly during the late 1980s. The visit came just hours after the assassination of parliamentary deputy Jean Hubert Feuille, presumably by a rightist hit squad, and just hours before the police raided Avril's home to arrest him on conspiracy charges. Avril escaped to the Colombian embassy, where he was given political asylum. The US denies that it had warned Avril. "If they are still meeting with Avril, who else are they meeting with and protecting?" an unnamed Haitian official asked the Washington Post. "What are we supposed to think...? What would you think?" [WP 11/29/95] Columnist James Ridgeway wrote in the Nov. 29 Village Voice that the Feuille assassination may have been planned in Avril's house. [Voice 12/5/95] On Nov. 28 the New York Times reported that the US government was still holding 150,000 pages of documents it seized from the Haitian military and the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), a rightwing paramilitary group, at the beginning of the US-United Nations military occupation of Haiti in September and October 1994. Inter Press Service reported on the documents this October; the US said then that the Defense Department was "reviewing" their "classification status," noting that they were in French [see Update #298]. A US official now explains that the documents are being held because they "might be used to target people." The Pentagon says the documents belonged to the Haitian military, not the Haitian government, and became US property when the US military seized them. Haitian officials want them back, and suggest that they may contain material that would embarrass US intelligence agencies. [NYT 11/28/95] One ongoing embarrassment for the US is FRAPH head Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant, now jailed in Maryland while he fights an effort to deport him to Haiti. The popular "60 Minutes" television program is scheduled to broadcast a taped interview on Dec. 3 in which Constant confirms earlier reports that he worked for the CIA from 1991 to 1994. "I was meeting with the CIA on a regular basis," he says. "They knew exactly what I was doing." FRAPH is accused of raping, torturing and murdering hundreds of Haitian activists and their family members. Constant says the CIA station chief gave him a walkie-talkie, $700 in cash each month, and a code name, "Gamal." [NYT 12/3/95] The link did not end when the occupation began, according to James Ridgeway. Last winter The Resister, an underground publication by a rightwing group in the US Special Forces (Green Berets), reported that Green Berets stationed in Haiti had met with FRAPH personnel and told them to go underground or take "long vacations." "[W]e informed them about the plans and timetables for weapons confiscation and told them how to disappear their functional firearms while keeping broken and otherwise useless weapons available to sell during the weapons buy-back program...we established an escape line to help FAd'H [Armed Forces of Haiti], ex-attaches [rightwing auxiliary police] and ex-FRAPH members under threat of arrest from the communists reach relative safety in the Dominican Republic." The Green Berets waged "a clandestine offensive against the Lavalas [the pro-Aristide movement]...which in our operational areas managed to drive at least the leadership back underground." [Voice 12/5/95] New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes that "[j]ust a couple of months ago" US administration officials were citing the Haiti occupation as a successful intervention and a model for US operations in Bosnia Herzegovina. "Think Haiti," they would say. [NYT 12/3/95] Now intervention supporters are more cautious. "Haiti is only a kind of spring training for the complications that intervention in Bosnia would generate," the Washington Post writes. [WP 11/28/95] But in a nationally televised address on Nov. 27, US president Bill Clinton again used Haiti to promote the Bosnia operation: "From Iraq to Haiti...we have stood up for peace and freedom because it's in our interest to do so and because it is the right thing to do." [NYT 11/28/95] 6. MORE MYSTERIES IN HAITIAN "RIOTING" There is still no clear account of what happened in Port-au- Prince in a Nov. 23 incident that left as many as seven people dead [see Update #304]. Early in the morning six-year-old Vania Thermidor was shot and killed as she rode a bus to school in the huge Cite Soleil neighborhood. Most witnesses reported that a member of the US-trained Haitian National Police shot her accidentally while during an altercation with the bus driver, although some witnesses blame a passerby or a "provocateur." An angry crowd then protested at a local police station, peacefully by some accounts. Shooting erupted, killing at least one elderly woman. The National Police agents fled and were replaced by members of an interim police force that operated between the beginning of the occupation and the summer of 1995. Several more people were then shot. Some witnesses blame all the shootings on the interim police, who were recruited from the disbanded Haitian military. Others blame at least some of the deaths on a group of heavily armed men known as the "Red Army." Some Cite Soleil residents say these are actually rightists who have terrorized the neighborhood for several months. Free Radio Berkeley's Stephen Dunifer says that Aristide's private secretary blamed the incident on "provocateurs." UN Mission in Haiti (MINUHA) troops reportedly stood by and did nothing during the incident. [Haiti Info 11/25/95; HP 11/29-12/5/95; Stephen Dunifer 11/30/95] The National Police was involved in three more shootings on Nov. 29, according to Reuter. Police agents fired on a crowd of protesters in the southwestern town of Miragoane, wounding three. In Port-au-Prince an off-duty officer fired at a bus driver, and another officer accidentally killed a bystander while he was cleaning his gun. "This is a series of incidents and it shows the [National Police] is getting a little too trigger happy," a foreign official told Reuter. On Nov. 30 National Police head Adrian Rameau was dismissed; Lt. Col. Fourel Celestin will replace him. [Reuter 11/30/95] 7. PHONE PRIVATIZATION SIGNED IN NICARAGUA On Nov. 28, Nicaragua's National Assembly approved a legislation package governing the privatization of the national telecommunications and mail company (Telcor) and the stability of property rights. Under the terms of the bill, the government can sell up to 40% of the shares in Telcor--or 50% if necessary--over a period of no less than six months. Telcor workers can purchase 10% of the shares, and will receive another 1% as a donation. The state's share of the company is never to be less than 39%. With the funds from the stock sales, the government intends to revalue the compensation bonds offered to some 5,000 Nicaraguans and foreigners whose properties were confiscated under the Sandinista administration. [Diario Las Americas 2/2/95 from AFP] According to the executive branch, some $1.5 million from the Telcor sale will go toward the construction of a new building for the National Assembly. [Nicaragua Network (DC) Hotline 11/27/95] The property legislation guarantees stability for the beneficiaries of rural and urban land reform and is designed to speed up the granting of land titles in those sectors; it also covers correction of abuses and return of properties in cases where such action is necessary. Finance Minister Emilio Pereira explained that there are some 227,000 families who benefited from land reform and 6,000 who had land confiscated from them during the Sandinista government. [DLA 2/2/95 from AFP] One controversial article of the property bill would reportedly invalidate agrarian reform titles for individuals and cooperatives within the city limits of Managua. Over 50 cooperatives could be affected and many believe the lands will be turned over to developers for construction of luxury housing. [Nicanet Hotline 11/27/95] Ariel Solorzano Marin, president of the rightwing Association of the Confiscated, told Associated Press that the law "is a juridical aberration that neither favors nor protects in any way" the people he represents. "We are mortal enemies of this law," said Solorzano. He urged President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro to veto the law, which he called a "national shame." [El Diario-La Prensa 11/29/95 from AP] Former president and Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) leader Daniel Ortega also urged Chamorro to veto the bill. [Nicanet Hotline 11/27/95] As of Nov. 28, Telcor workers were still maintaining their sitdown strike [see Update #304] to protest the privatization bill, despite the fact that the government declared their job action illegal. [ED-LP 11/29/95 from AP] Demonstrators also burned tires in front of TELCOR offices in Managua. Police were sent to protect TELCOR installations and army chief Gen. Joaquin Cuadra said troops would be used as needed to protect telecommunications equipment. According to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), army troops were sent to the Nejapa TELCOR station in Managua; CENIDH called the use of the army a violation of the Constitution. [Nicanet Hotline 11/27/95] Despite opposition from across the political spectrum, President Chamorro signed the bill into law on Nov. 29 in a ceremony attended by diplomats from the US, Spain, Japan, France, China and other countries, as well as by Assembly president Luis Humberto Guzman and represent-atives of the Catholic Church, the army, the police and government ministers. Speaking to the press after the ceremony, US Ambassador John Maisto called the bill's approval "a show of maturity." [DLA 12/2/95 from AFP] In other news, the Nicaraguan government declared a state of emergency on Nov. 28 as seismic activity increased within the Cerro Negro volcano; two days later civil defense workers began to evacuate some 6,000 people from the area. The volcano began a slow eruption process on Nov. 19 and has been dumping ash on the nearby cities of Leon and Corinto. [DLA 12/2/95 from EFE; NYT 12/1/95 from AP; ED-LP 11/21/95 from AP] 8. MEXICO: CONGRESS CONSIDERS TRIAL FOR EX-PRESIDENT On Dec. 1 the Mexican Senate sent the Chamber of Deputies a petition asking for a political trial of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president from 1988 to 1994. The petition, introduced by Sen. Felix Salgado Macedonio of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), comes in the midst of a growing corruption scandal centered on Salinas' family. On the same day, the PRD's Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano asked for an additional trial charging the former president with "treason" in the loss of $12.5 billion from the national patrimony through the privatization of the giant national phone company, Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex) during his administration. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/3/95 from AP] Salinas, from the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), defeated Cardenas in the 1988 election; many Mexicans think he won through massive fraud. Swiss authorities arrested Salinas' sister-in-law, Paulina Castanon Rios Zertuche, on Nov. 15 as she was using forged powers of attorney to withdraw some of the $84 million her husband, Raul Salinas de Gortari, had deposited since the 1980s in three accounts under the name of Juan Guillermo Gomez [see Update #304]. Raul Salinas is in prison facing charges of masterminding the September 1994 assassination of his former brother-in-law, PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Salinas and Castanon are said to have at least six other bank accounts in Europe and at least 39 properties in Mexico. [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol. 2, #50, 11/28/95] On Nov. 26 Carlos Salinas faxed news organizations a statement expressing "amazement" that his brother had so much money. "During my presidency, I knew nothing about this," Salinas said. "If he committed violations, he should be firmly punished by the competent authorities." [New York Times 11/27/95] "It is absurd that he should ask us to believe he didn't know," PRD president Porfirio Munoz Ledo said. "Salinas was not just manipulative as president but a control freak, he listened to wiretaps, he is a pathological case, a case of political leadership taken to delirium." [Reuter 11/27/95] The former president's statement gave no indication where he was; he is said to be living in Montreal, but the Mexico City daily La Jornada reports that he was in New York on the weekend of Nov. 25, following a visit to Cuba. [LJ 11/26/95] Mexican authorities are also investigating Adriana Salinas de Gortari and her current husband, Luis Yanez, who are reported to have secured fraudulent loans through the Credit Union of the Valley of Mexico. Adriana Salinas is Raul and Carlos' sister, and was married for a while to Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, whose murder Raul is accused of masterminding. [Wall Street Journal 12/1/95] Raul Salinas' known holdings far exceed anything he could have saved from the income he reported during the 1980s and 1990s. The Mexico City daily Reforma called him an example to Mexicans, who are being urged by the government to save more, despite a devastating recession. Reforma calculates that in the early 1990s Raul Salinas saved 500 times as much as he made. [Mexico Update 11/28/95] Meanwhile, the Mexican stock market has rallied in the midst of the scandal, soaring 21.55% in the two weeks ending Nov. 29, when it rose 4%. The peso has stabilized, settling at around 7.5 to the dollar. [NYT 11/30/95] The peso suffered a 19% fall between September and early November; many Mexicans blamed this on speculative maneuvers engineered by Carlos Salinas [see Update #302]. 9. WOMEN'S COOPERATIVE ATTACKED IN SOUTHERN MEXICO On the morning of Nov. 30 members of a women's weaving cooperative in San Cristobal de las Casas, in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, found that their office had been ransacked during the night. Several files were stolen, along with a typewriter, a sewing machine, a phone and some cash; the phone line was cut. The cooperative, J'Pas Joloviletic, gathers and sells products from indigenous women throughout the Chiapas Highlands. Cooperative president Lorenza Gomez Gonzalez and consultant Yolanda Castro have received phoned death threats in the past, and undercover police have harassed cooperative members. The US-based group Global Exchange is asking Chiapas authorities to investigate the incident thoroughly. Faxes can be sent to: Chiapas governor Lic. Julio Cesar Ruiz Ferro, 011-52-961-20-917; Chiapas secretary of state Lic. Eraclio Zepeda Ramos, 011-52-961- 32-458; Chiapas attorney general Lic. Jorge Enrique Hernandez Aguilar, 011-52-961-65-374; copies to Global Exchange International Peace Center, 011-52-967-864-84. [Global Exchange Action Alert 12/1/95] 10. NEW & OLD REBELS RESURFACE IN BOLIVIA On Nov. 22 Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada ordered troops to find the site where Argentine-born guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara was buried, and exhume the remains to give them a "Catholic burial." Guevara was executed on October 9, 1967, a day after he was captured by Bolivian troops. Local newspaper La Razon and the New York Times both recently quoted retired Bolivian general Mario Vargas Salinas--considered the only living witness to the burial--as saying Guevara's body was buried in a mass grave on a landing strip in Vallegrande, in the foothills of the eastern Nancahuazu mountains where Guevara had his base. [Reuter 11/23/95] Asked by Bartolome Mitre, director of Argentine daily La Nacion, about the circumstances under which Vargas told New York Times reporter Jon Lee Anderson about Guevara's body, President Sanchez replied: "The rumor that the military has given me is that the US journalist sat down with [Vargas] in a bar and managed to extract the truth between whiskey and whiskey." [El Diario-La Prensa 11/27/95 from AP] Havana doctor Aleida Guevara, one of Che's daughters, told a Buenos Aires radio station that her father's wish was to be buried wherever he died: 'Wherever a man falls, there he stays," she remembered he used to say. Vallegrande mayor Hoover Cabrera said the city wants to build a memorial for Guevara and will ask the family to allow residents "the honor" of keeping the grave in Vallegrande. A presidential commission has been formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding Guevara's death and to coordinate efforts to locate the body; the commission announced on Nov. 30 that it believed it had found the burial site and would begin digging on Dec. 1. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/1/95 from NYT, Inter Press Service, UPI, AFP, Reuter; IPS 11/23/95; Reuter 11/23/95, 11/30/95] Marianela Ferriol, alternate spokeswoman of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, said the Cuban government had not received any official communication on the location of Guevara's remains. [Daily Cuban News from Havana/Ministry of Foreign Relations 11/24/95] "Although I don't have details, I am suspicious, because any declaration about 'Che' is good publicity for whoever makes it," said Canet Sanchez Guevara, the oldest grandchild of the legendary guerrilla leader, in Cuba. [IPS 11/27/95] Che is especially popular among youth, and that publicity may be geared toward helping President Sanchez and his allies gain support for municipal elections scheduled for Dec. 3 in Bolivia. The municipal elections are the first to occur under the reformed constitution, which among other changes lowers the voting age from 21 to 18. The constitutional reforms also grant much greater economic and political power to municipal authorities. [ED-LP 11/29/95 from EFE] Meanwhile, Bolivian police say the Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army (EGTK), formed in 1991, has reappeared. The EGTK was thought defunct after its leadership was arrested in April 1992 [see Update #116]. Police commander Col. Arturo Farfan said the reorganized faction has been doing assaults on country roads and robberies against currency traders on the streets of La Paz. Two alleged EGTK members were arrested on Oct. 13 in connection with the shooting of two police officers. [El Daily News (NY) 11/1/95 from Reuter] The EGTK and the Nestor Paz Zamora Commission (CNPZ) claimed responsibility in two communiques for the Nov. 1 kidnapping of businessman Samuel Doria Medina; the rebels demanded their imprisoned comrades be freed in exchange for Doria's release. [ED-LP 11/8/95 from AFP] [On Dec. 5, 1990, three CNPZ members and their hostage were killed in a police operation designed to free the hostage, business executive Jorge Lonsdale-- see Update #45.] 11. WORKERS PROTEST ARGENTINE ECONOMY On Nov. 18, the Argentine Congress approved a request by President Carlos Saul Menem for an 18-month state of economic emergency that grants the president discretionary powers to cut state entities, raise taxes and push ahead with privatizations. Argentina's economy is in crisis, with a public debt of $86.787 billion and a fiscal deficit of $2.6 billion. [La Jornada 11/19/95 from AP, AFP, DPA] Several thousand workers from across Argentina arrived in Buenos Aires on Nov. 20 for a rally in the Plaza de Mayo to protest the government's neoliberal economic policies and the unemployment they have caused. Many of the marchers from outlying provinces began their trek to the capital during the weekend of Nov. 18. The protest was called by the Movement of Argentine Workers (MTA), the Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA) and the Classist Current (CC). The largest union federation, the General Confederation of Workers (CGT)--affiliated with the ruling party- -refused to participate, although even it has taken an increasingly confrontational stance against the government's economic policies. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/21/95 from AFP] In the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy, labor and civic groups held a 24-hour strike on Dec. 1 to demand the payment of back salaries and to protest the insolvency of provincial government bonds. Businesses and factories were closed during the strike, and all activity in government offices was shut down. The protest was especially significant because all the province's social sectors--not only the unions--participated. [Diario Las Americas 12/2/95 from AFP] 12. PERU REBELS SURRENDER AFTER BATTLE Some 25 rebels from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) surrendered on Dec. 1 after a 10-hour battle with police and army troops in the southeastern Lima neighorhood of La Molina that left five rebels and four police agents dead. The rebels, armed with FAL rifles, grenades, and other light and heavy weaponry, held off some 500 troops of the police, army, navy and air force, as well as night guards from the neighborhood; the government forces had backup from a helicopter, four army tanks, a navy amphibious vehicle, and armored units of the Division of Special Operations (DOES). The surrender was negotiated between the rebels and Gen. Carlos Dominguez, chief of the National Directorate Against Terrorism (DINCOTE), with the mediation of a priest, a local TV journalist, a government attorney and a representative of the Red Cross. Among those surrendering was Miguel (or Wenceslao) Rincon Rincon, considered the number two leader of the MRTA, sought by security forces since he took up arms in 1984. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/3/95 from Notimex; Diario Las Americas 12/2/95 from AFP] President Alberto Fujimori announced on Dec. 1 that government forces had arrested a Panamanian woman and a US woman who had served as liaisons for the MRTA. [ED-LP 12/3/95 from AFP] 13. CHILE: PINOCHET, PROTESTS, PRISONERS At least two people were arrested on Nov. 25 when police cracked down on demonstrators in Chile protesting the birthday of former dictator and current army chief Gen. Augusto Pinochet. "Pinochet- -the corpses aren't celebrating your birthday," said a banner carried by a few hundred marchers who burned the general in effigy. On the same day, some 1,800 Pinochet supporters paid $150 each to attend a birthday dinner for him in Santiago; the funds are to go to the Augusto Pinochet Foundation, which provides university scholarships for children of soldiers. Dinners honoring Pinochet were held in 19 other cities throughout Chile. [La Jornada 11/26/95; Reuter 11/25/95] The folkloric musical group Telar, which had been invited to perform at the birthday dinner in the town of Rancagua, was thrown out after performing the song La Partida by famed Chilean folksinger Victor Jara. Jara was arrested, tortured and murdered in the first days of Pinochet's September 1973 military coup. [ED-LP 11/29/95 from AP] In other Chile news, a group of between seven and 20 inmates at the Valparaiso prison took five prison guards hostage on Nov. 30 after a massive escape attempt failed. The prisoners later released two of the guards, who were transported to hospitals for treatment of gunshot wounds and shock. The prisoners are demanding that several prison problems be resolved and that their negotiations with prison officials and Valparaiso bishop Jorge Medina be televised. Witnesses outside the 900-inmate prison could hear periodic gunfire and said several fires had been lit inside. The prisoners are reportedly in possession of four firearms. [CHIP News 12/1/95; DLA 12/2/95 from AFP] 14. IN OTHER NEWS... Venezuelans go to the polls Dec. 3 to elect 22 state governors, 330 mayors and thousands of municipal and district councilors from about 200,000 candidates. Experts predict a record 60% of voters will abstain. "Politicians have no credibility in Venezuela," said Lila Morillo, a well-known pop singer who is running for mayor in Brion; another singer, Mirla Castellanos, is running for mayor of Baruta. Irene Saez, who was Miss Universe in 1981, is expected to be reelected as mayor of the affluent municipality of Chacao. [San Francisco Examiner (electronic version) 12/2/95, partly from Reuter]... Hundreds of thousands of people marched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Nov. 28 to protest violence and crime in their city. March organizers focused on two main goals: basic services for slum residents, including water, sewage treatment and health programs; and a cleanup of corruption in the police department. [NYT 11/29/95] 15. 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. 12/7 THU, 4 PM - East Timor protest at Indonesian Consulate, 325 E 38th St. East Timor Action Network/NY, 718-788-6071. 12/8 FRI, 6:30 PM - Forum w/Alberto Montano, Cuban AIDS Project. At A Room of Our Own Bookshop, 444 9th St (at 7th Ave), Park Slope. Grassroots Queers/NYC. Call Johann, 718-789-9643. 12/9 SAT, 2:30 PM - Noam Chomsky on East Timor, human rights & US foreign policy. Miller Theater, Columbia Univ. 718-788-6071. 12/9 SAT, 8 PM - CISPES fundraising dance. At Brecht Forum, 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. Human-i-Tees & CISPES, 212-645-5230. 12/10 SUN, 10:30 AM - CREED subway theater. Call 718-349-3148. 12/11 MON, 12 NOON - Protest attacks on Salvadoran unionists & ex-combatants. Call NY CISPES 212-645-5230. ================================================================= 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/ =================================================================