Received: from nyxfer.blythe.org (root@nyxfer.blythe.org [199.170.132.3]) by mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu (8.6.12/8.5) with SMTP id XAA92217; Sun, 10 Dec 1995 23:43:17 -0600 Message-Id: From: nyt@nyxfer.blythe.org (NY Transfer News Collective) Subject: Weekly Update on the Americas #306 12/10/95 To: central-america@nyxfer.blythe.org (nyt ca) Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 00:11:47 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #306, DECEMBER 10, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. UN Worker Murdered in Guatemala 2. Mexicans Reject Economic "Reform" 3. US Guards Mexico Border as Corruption Scandal Widens 4. Salvadoran Government Closes Community Radio Stations 5. US Activist Arrested in Peru 6. Did Peru Rebels Plot Congress Takeover? 7. Haiti: Aristide Assassination Plot? 8. More Brazilian Officials Canned in Raytheon Scandal 9. Honduras: US Appeals Court Upholds Trafficker's Conviction 10. Child Killed in Bolivian Coca Raid 11. High Abstention, Protests in Venezuelan Municipal Vote 12. Puerto Rican Formally Renounces US Citizenship 13. In Other News: Argentina, Brazil & correction on Ecuador 14. 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. Subscriptions to the electronic edition are delivered directly to your email address by our distributor, NY Transfer News. To subscribe, send your email 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. For more information about electronic subscriptions, contact NY Transfer at nyt@blythe.org. For a subscription to the print edition (via first class mail), please send check or money order for $25 payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network at 339 Lafayette St., New York, New York 10012. The email and print versions of the Weekly News Update are identical in content. Back issues and source materials are available on request. (Many of our source materials are accessed through NY Transfer; back issues are also available on NY Transfer's OnLine Library.) If you are accessing this Update for free on electronic newsgroups, we would appreciate any financial support you can contribute. We are a small, all-volunteer organization funded solely through subscriptions and contributions. Please also help spread the word about the Update. 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UN WORKER MURDERED IN GUATEMALA Mexican national Lucina Cardenas Ramirez was abducted on Nov. 27 in the western Guatemalan province of San Marcos; after several days of searching her tortured corpse was found on Dec. 2 partially buried, with three bullets in the back, near San Martin Sacatepequez in neighboring Quetzaltenango province. Autopsy results showed that Cardenas was alive and conscious between the evening of Nov. 27 when she was abducted and the likely time of her death, late on Nov. 30 or early on Dec. 1. The autopsy also showed that she was probably raped as well as tortured. Mexican Embassy spokesperson Francisco Hernandez Samano said the form of Cardenas' abduction and death indicates the crime is politically motivated. Cardenas had lived in Guatemala since 1992, working for the United Nations (UN) as an adviser organizing the Salcaja craft cooperative in the Ixil zone, sponsored and supported initially by the World Labor Organization of the UN and the Dutch government. This project spawned an independent cooperative called Trama. Cardenas had been receiving death threats since 1993, and in 1994 she and two other women who worked with her in the Trama cooperative received a death threat from the "Direct Action Urban Command." The threats ceased termporarily when Cardenas was granted some protection from the Mexican Consulate in Quetzaltenango, but they began again about two months ago. According to her friends, Cardenas had finally decided to leave Guatemala and was driving back from Mexico with a truck to pack her belongings when she was abducted. With her in the vehicle was Otto Leonel Hernandez Lopez, a participating artisan in Trama; two other Trama members were travelling with them in a separate vehicle. Heavily armed men in two vehicles fired on Cardenas' truck with what is believed to be a 9mm pistol (associated with military intelligence), wounding her and forcing her to stop, according to Hernandez. Hernandez was himself wounded but saw the men carry Cardenas off; he managed to escape and hide before losing consciousness. He did not reach Quetzaltenango until the next day. The other Trama members had gone ahead and did not see what happened to Hernandez and Cardenas. [Guatemala Human Rights Update 12/1/95; Report from the Mexico Dept. of Global Exchange (globalexch@igc.apc.org) posted on 12/5/95 by Ellen Herman and Lynn Stephen; Cerigua Weekly Briefs #47, 12/7/95; La Jornada (Mexico) 12/3/95 from AFP] Police arrested Hernandez on Dec. 5 in connection with the killing. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #47, 12/7/95] Faxes demanding an in-depth investigation of the case and prosecution of those responsible can be sent to President de Leon (fax 502-2-2-9968); Governance Minister Carlos Enrique Reynoso Gil (fax 502-2-51- 5368); and MINUGUA's offices in New York (fax 212-963-5065). US citizen Deborah Katzman, a member of the UN human rights mission in Guatemala, narrowly escaped a kidnapping attempt on Dec. 3 in Huehuetenango, Huehuetenango province. Katzman was assaulted and forced into a sports car, but managed to escape when witnesses blocked the vehicle's path. National Police say local rancher Salvador Mendoza Hernandez is the main suspect in the failed kidnapping. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the body of another US woman living in Guatemala was found just days earlier. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #47, 12/7/95; Christian Science Monitor news service 12/7/95] Violence in Guatemala is increasing at an alarming rate, with 500 killings in the past two months, according to police statistics. The daily La Hora estimated an average of 13 kidnappings per day during the same period. Many see political motives behind the increased violence: "We have information that this crime and violence is being provoked," said President Ramiro de Leon Carpio. "And the worst thing is these sectors are achieving their goal of sowing uncertainty and fear among the population." Guatemala City Archbishop Prospero Penados speculates the crime wave is being promoted by powerful social sectors and politicians who lost the recent elections and are now seeking to destabilize the country. These politicians may also be carrying out kidnappings to pay off campaign debts, according to Penados. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #47, 12/7/95] 2. MEXICANS REJECT ECONOMIC "REFORM" On Nov. 20, as Mexico commemorated the start of the 1910 revolution, a coalition of Mexican grassroots organizations finished a petitioning campaign that netted 414,649 signatures for an economic plan billed as an alternative to the neoliberal policies in effect since 1982. [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update Vol. 2, #50, 11/28/95, from La Jornada 11/27/95] The "Referendum for Liberty" consists of 12 points; the proposals include rolling back increases in the valued-added tax (IVA) to 10% (except for luxury items), increasing the minimum wage by 25%, suspending privatization programs, and renegotiating the foreign debt and the two-year old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). ["Referendum de la Libertad," posted on New York Transfer News Collective 11/13/95] The petition campaign, which began in October, was organized by the El Barzon debtors' organization, Civic Alliance (an election monitoring group), the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), Berta Lujan of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT), and some business groups [see Update #301]. The signatures were to be formally presented to the federal Chamber of Deputies on Dec. 5 as part of a Mexico City demonstration called by El Barzon. [LJ 12/3/95] Organizers were happy with the results, although the number of signatures fell short of the more than one million votes in the August plebiscite called by the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). "It was a matter of consciously signing on to a complicated alternative economic program, and not a simple plebiscite for 'yes' or 'no,'" explained Raimundo Artiz from the National Association of Transformation Industries (ANIT). [Inter Press Service 11/17/95] Meanwhile, opposition continued to grow to Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon's Nov. 1 proposal for de facto privatization of much of the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS), which provides health care, pensions and other benefits to about 39 million Mexicans [see Update #301]. The opposition campaign was led by the National Social Security Workers Union (SNTSS), which is affiliated with the Congress of Labor (CT), the labor movement of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Nine other PRI-linked unions joined in the opposition to IMSS reforms. On Dec. 1 tens of thousands of unionists marched into Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo, to reject Zedillo's plan. For the first time in history members of the "official" unions demonstrated jointly with members of independent unions like Berta Lujan's FAT and the militant Mexico City bus drivers' union, SUTAUR 100. Mexico-based US journalist John Ross notes that the fight over social security "has become a crucible for neoliberal projects around the globe," most visibly in the ongoing general strike by millions of French public sector workers. [Mexico Update Vol. 2, #51, 12/5/95; John Ross 12/11- 18/95] As opposition to Zedillo's plan grew, media reports linked former SNTSS general secretary Miguel Angel Saenz Garza and a current union official, Margil Yanez Munoz, to the EZLN rebels. The two union officials are longstanding members of the PRI, but Yanez is also the brother of Fernando Yanez Munoz, a guerrilla from the 1970s identified by the government last February as "Commander German," the "maximum leader" of the EZLN. Fernando Yanez, who denies any connection to the EZLN, was arrested on Oct. 21 and then suddenly released on Oct. 27 [see Update #300]. Margil Yanez says he hasn't seen his brother since 1979, although he talked to him by phone after his release this year. The SNTSS official denies any links to the EZLN but says his connection to his brother "greatly honors me, I'm very proud of it." Saenz Garza was erroneously identified as Yanez' brother-in-law. [LJ 12/3/95] After making minor revisions, the Chamber of Deputies passed the IMSS reform on Dec. 8, by the 289 votes of the PRI majority. (All PRI deputies backed the plan, except for one who was out of town.) [John Ross 12/11-18/95] 3. US GUARDS MEXICO BORDER AS CORRUPTION SCANDAL WIDENS While many Mexicans protested economic policies promoted by former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), investigations continued into the millions amassed by Salinas' brother Raul while administering government programs from 1983 to 1992. The Controller's Office says that Raul Salinas had at least 45 Mexican bank accounts, along with an undetermined number of foreign accounts under false names. His bank accounts contained at least $100 million; Jose Urena, a columnist for the Mexico City daily La Jornada who has tracked the Salinas family's activities, says Raul may have as much as $3 billion in foreign accounts under various names. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is reportedly probing links between drug traffickers and Raul Salinas, who has been in the Almoloya maximum security prison since February facing charges for the September 1994 assassination of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. [LJ 12/3/95] On Dec. 3 Carlos Salinas, whose whereabouts are unknown, sent the media a nine-page fax distancing himself from his brother and suggesting that recent attacks against the Salinas family originate with former president Luis Echeverria Alvarez (1970- 1976) and his circle. Salinas also hinted that Echeverria might have been involved in the March 1994 assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. Among Echeverria's friends, Salinas named Porfirio Munoz Ledo, Echeverria's labor secretary and now president of the center-left opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), along with three members of Congress who had worked with Echeverria: Augusto Gomez Villanueva (PRI), Ignacio Ovalle (PRI) and Adolfo Aguilar Zinzer (independent). [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/5/95 from AFP; Wall Street Journal 122/5/95; Mexpaz Bulletin #51, 12/6/95] [Echeverria has his own share of scandals. On Dec. 21, 1992, a Los Angeles jury convicted his brother-in-law, Ruben Zuno Arce, of conspiracy in the 1985 murder of DEA agent Enrique ("Kiki") Camarena Salazar. Echeverria was governance secretary during the student protests in 1968, and many hold him responsible for the Oct. 2, 1968 massacre of at least three hundred students and other protesters in the Tlatelolco housing project in Mexico City; see Update #152.] Salinas dismissed his critics as people who supported the populist Echeverria's "project for the country...a closed economy, without political competition, and where strong antagonisms existed between classes." [Washington Post 12/5/95] The Washington Post, which promoted Salinas while he was in office, hinted in an editorial that Salinas might be right to condemn the "cabal of old-guard politicians...who bitterly oppose Mr. Salinas' economic reforms and his attempts to move Mexico away from its tradition of top-down politics." [WP 12/9/95] While former presidents attack each other, the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is preparing for what US immigration specialist Wayne Cornelius calls an "emergency" that "could arise when the political calamities paralyze the [Mexican] economy and detonate generalized violence that has not been seen in Mexico since the revolution." Cornelius was referring to INS contingency plans for "logistical support to the Border Patrol from military units...detention of immigrants in inactive military bases and construction of concrete barricades on the border with Mexico," according to the Mexico City daily El Financiero. [Financiero 11/11/95, translation by National Commission for Democracy in Mexico] The US government admitted in April that undocumented Latinos would be rounded up in the event of an upheaval in Mexico; this would be the first major internment operation in the US since World War 2. ["Lightning at the End of the Tunnel," Global Exchange, September 1995] The INS has carried out three field exercises for this scenario so far this year: in June in Orlando, Florida, in November in McAllen, Texas, and this month in Nogales, Arizona. Border Patrol agents say this was the first time the INS had carried out such exercises in twenty years, maybe even the first time ever. [New York Times 12/8/95] 4. SALVADORAN GOVERNMENT CLOSES COMMUNITY RADIO STATIONS On Dec. 4, in a simultaneous operation under orders from the Chief of National Operations, El Salvador's National Civilian Police (PNC) searched 11 community radio stations --all members of the Association of Participative Radios and Programs of El Salvador (ARPAS)--and confiscated the broadcast equipment of nine stations which lacked the legal permits to operate. According to PNC agents, the operation was in response to a petition by Juan Jose Domenech, president of the National Telecomunications Administration (ANTEL), who ordered the closure of "all community radios." The Salvadoran Association of Radio Broadcasters (ASDER), which groups legally licensed stations, said it supported ANTEL's move against the community stations. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/8/95 from AP; ARPAS Press Release 12/5/95] The affected stations are: Radio Segundo Montes (Meanguera, Morazan), Radio Sumpul (Guarjila, Chalatenango), Radio Izcanal (Nueva Granada, Usulutan), Radio Ulua (Cacaopera, Morazan), Radio Presencia (Santa Rosa de Lima, La Union), Radio Cooperativa (Santa Elena, Usulutan), Radio Victoria (Villa Victoria, Cabanas), Radio Suchitlan (Suchitoto, Cuscatlan), Radio Excel (Zaragoza, La Libertad), Teo-Radio (Teotepeque, La Libertad) and Radio Nejapa (Nejapa, San Salvador). All but three of these are low-wattage stations which are heard only in the community (municipality) and neighboring villages. Three of the stations transmit with more than 100 watts and cover a good part of the department where they are based and some communities in neighboring departments. All have actively sought legal broadcasting permits but have been repeatedly denied them by ANTEL. ARPAS believes that new legislation is needed to create a legal space for community radio in El Salvador. The organization also says it does not see community radio as competitive with commercial radio, and has proposed joining together with ASDER in a single organization. [ARPAS Press Release 12/5/95] According to the Coordinator of the Rural Communities of Chalatenango (CCR), the police beat and threatened residents and international observers in their attempt to shut down Radio Sumpul. When the Sumpul radio operators asked to see their search warrant, police agents said that they were only following orders from their superiors and began removing equipment. Local residents immediately set up barricades and formed human chains to prevent the equipment from being removed. The protesters at Radio Sumpul did not allow the police agents to leave the site until after the equipment had been checked for damages and the PNC leadership on the scene had signed an agreement, in front of a witness from the United Nations, to pay for damages incurred. According to CCR the seizure of TV and radio equipment is against article 6 of El Salvador's Constitution. [CISPES Urgent Action 12/6/95] ARPAS is seeking the return of the confiscated equipment and no further harassment against community radio stations; acceleration of the granting of broadcast licenses to the stations; and a review of Salvadoran broadcast legislation. Messages supporting these demands can be sent to President Armando Calderon Sol (fax 503-281-0018 or 503-281-0017) with copies to ARPAS (phone/fax 503-222-4467, email: arpas@arpas.org.sv) and the Solidarity Network of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) (fax: 514-849-7129; email: amarc@web.apc.org). [AMARC Radio Action Alert 12/7/95] 5. US ACTIVIST ARRESTED IN PERU US citizen Lori Helene Berenson, a 26-year old former staffperson of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), was arrested on Nov. 30 in Peru and is being held in prison on terrorism charges, accused of helping the leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) rebels. Berenson was arrested together with Peruvian Nancy Gilvonio and Panamanian national Pacifico Castrejon Santamaria [not a Panamanian woman as reported by AFP last week--see Update #305]. The Peruvian government says that Castrejon, a painter and architect by profession, was in charge of receiving international economic aid for the MRTA. According to AFP, Gilvonio and Berenson had both obtained press credentials from the Brooklyn-based magazine Third World Viewpoint. [Nuevo Herald (Miami) 12/7/95 from AFP] The magazine's editor, Lloyd D'Aguilar, said in New York that Berenson had never sent any of the articles she had promised him. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/10/95 from Notimex] President Alberto Fujimori said on Dec. 8 that Berenson and Castrejon will be tried under Peru's terrorism laws and will receive no special consideration as foreigners. If convicted they may face life in prison. [ED-LP 12/10/95 from Notimex] Berenson grew up in New York City and got involved in Central America issues while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After dropping out of college, Berenson worked briefly with CISPES in New York and Washington in 1989, then moved to Nicaragua and later El Salvador, where she spent several years teaching English, and doing translation and secretarial work for human rights organizations until 1994. [CISPES Action Alert 12/6/95] Unnamed US officials cited by the New York Times said Berenson was known to US authorities in several South American countries as a friend of revolutionary movements. They said she had been in Peru for about a year and was well acquainted with the nature of the MRTA. [NYT 12/5/95] Police sources in Peru said that Berenson was recruited by an unidentified top MRTA leader in Panama, and that she came to Peru in 1994 with Castrejon. Police said Berenson and Castrejon posed as a married couple planning to establish residence in Lima. [ED-LP 12/8/95 from EFE] Fujimori said that MRTA second-in-command Miguel Rincon Rincon--also arrested in the raid--had been in Panama to attend the inauguration of President Ernesto Balladares in August 1994. [Reuter 12/3/95] Panamanian consul Maria Aramburu visited Castrejon in prison after his arrest and brought him some toiletry items and two religious books, one of which was titled "Peace Within the Body." [ED-LP 12/10/95 from Notimex] Berenson's father arrived in Peru on Dec. 7 accompanied by US lawyers Ramsey Clark and Tom Nooter. "I believe in my daughter's innocence and I'm going to fight with her until the end," said Mark Berenson. [ED-LP 12/8/95 from EFE] On Dec. 8, Mark Berenson met with US embassy officials including consul general Thomas Holladay and ambassador Alvin Adams. [Adams is best known for his stint as US ambassador to Haiti during the 1991 coup there.] Mark Berenson and Nooter were able to see Lori Berenson on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8; Nooter said she was in good health, and was just hoping to be able to prove her innocence. [ED-LP 12/10/95 from Notimex] But according to a Dec. 5 UPI story cited in a CISPES Action Alert, senior US officials had admitted that Berenson was physically mistreated. [CISPES Action Alert 12/6/95] Berenson's mother said her daughter had asked for shoes and underwear in a Dec. 4 phone call. "I called the embassy to get her underwear," said Rhoda Berenson. "They said first we must wire her money. I didn't want to ask what happened to the shoes and underwear she had on." "They're accusing me of the most unbelievable things I would never dream of doing," Lori told her mother. [NYT 12/6/95] CISPES is asking supporters to contact Secretary of State Alexander Watson (fax 202-647-0791), Peruvian Ambassador Ricardo Luna (fax 202-659-8124) and members of the US Congress to pressure for the immediate safe release of Lori Berenson. [CISPES Action Alert 12/6/95] 6. DID PERU REBELS PLOT CONGRESS TAKEOVER? The government claims that Berenson was living at and supplying a safehouse for the MRTA rebels in an upscale residential area of Lima. Police and army forces surrounded the house on Dec. 1 and the rebels fled over rooftops before battling with the troops for 10 hours. The rebels finally agreed to surrender in exchange for being treated as prisoners of war. Three rebels and one police agent were killed in the battle; seven police agents and four rebels were wounded [these differ from the casualties reported in Update #305]. Spokesperson Hugo Sayers of Peru's National Directorate Against Terrorism (DINCOTE) declined to comment on news reports in Lima that suggested that Berenson, after being arrested, had given the police the location of the rebel hideout. [CISPES Action Alert 12/6/95; NYT 12/5/95, 12/6/95; Reuter 12/3/95] Fujimori said on Dec. 3 that the safehouse was detected because Berenson and Castrejon were buying about 50 bread rolls a day at a nearby bakery. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/4/95 from AFP] Fujimori said that a Bolivian national was also arrested in the MRTA bust. [Reuter 12/3/95] Two Bolivian police officials arrived in Lima on Dec. 5 to investigate some Bolivian military-issue weapons and boots that were confiscated in the MRTA raid. They also planned to exchange information with Peruvian authorities, who claim the MRTA has set up Bolivia as its second base of operations. DINCOTE said on Dec. 6 that Peruvian troops sent to Bolivia detected "as many as five homes that the MRTA was using as bases there." [NH 12/7/95] The MRTA has been described by the press as "pro-Cuba" and "Guevarista" (following the ideals of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, killed in Bolivia in 1967). The captured MRTA rebels were plotting to storm Congress and kidnap leading legislators, President Fujimori announced on Dec. 3. Fujimori showed a detailed map of Congress and nearby streets captured from the rebels and a photo of one MRTA member dressed as a policeman in preparation for a possible attack. [Reuter 12/3/95] Fujimori said Castrejon had planned the assault on Congress, while Berenson used her press credentials to enter the building and study the layout. [ED-LP 12/10/95 from Notimex] "At any moment, [the rebels] could have attacked Congress," Fujimori said in a television interview. "If we imagine the worst, there could have been a repeat of what happened a few years ago in Bogota's Palace of Justice," added Fujimori, referring to a 1985 takeover by the Colombian M-19 rebels which ended when police and army troops seized the building, leaving more than 100 people dead, including many of the hostages. Fujimori said the plot to seize Congress was probably intended to force the release of top MRTA leader Victor Polay Campos, arrested on June 9, 1992, and serving a life sentence at a Lima naval base. Fujimori showed a video of a limping, gaunt Polay wandering around an exercise yard in a Lima jail. "It's notable that he has lost weight in these recent months," Fujimori remarked. Polay's mother claimed last year that her son had been regularly tortured, including having electric shocks to his genitals, and was held incommunicado in a tiny, dimly lit cell. [Reuter 12/3/95; ED-LP 12/4/95 from AFP] Fujimori said he periodically watches videos of Polay; this is the first time such videos have been shown publicly. [ED-LP 12/4/95 from AFP] Berenson and Castrejon are not the first foreigners charged under Peru's anti-terrorism statutes. Three Chileans who were arrested in 1993 for involvement with the MRTA are currently serving life sentences in Peru. [NH 12/7/95 from AFP] Maria Gabriella Guarino, an Italian woman who was jailed for 18 months in Lima on terrorism charges, flew home on Aug. 31. Guarino was originally sentenced to 20 years in prison but after an appeal she was re- sentenced to time served and expulsion from Peru. Guarino was arrested in March 1994, several months after entering the country illegally to be with her lover and the father of her child, Juan Antonio Leon Montero, a regional MRTA leader. Guarino was convicted of collaborating by acting as the MRTA's mouthpiece, filming a video on an earlier visit and distributing it in Europe to raise funds for the guerrillas. She said she was innocent, that she had come to show him their daughter and to try to convince him to return with her to Rome. [Reuter 8/31/95] Amnesty International reports that it is concerned for the safety of Peruvian former prisoner of conscience Cesar Augusto Sosa Silupu, who was once again detained on Nov. 16 following a June 6 decision by the Supreme Court to overturn on procedural grounds his July 1993 acquittal of terrorism charges by a high court. Because Peru's current anti-terrorism legislation calls for high court rulings to be referred to the Supreme Court of Justice for ratification or veto--and because the Supreme Court has recently ruled to overturn many acquittals and case dismissals--AI fears that hundreds of other former prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience may soon be rearrested. Amnesty International adopted Sosa as a prisoner of conscience during his initial imprisonment between August 1992 and July 1993 because there was no evidence of his having any links whatsoever to the armed opposition, because the charges he faced appeared to be politically motivated and because he had neither used nor advocated violence. Since May 1992, when Peru's current anti- terrorism legislation came into effect, AI has adopted 83 prisoners of conscience, 59 of whom have already been released, and has documented the cases of at least another 800 possible prisoners of conscience, many of whom have also been released. Independent human rights organizations say that there are at least 300 former prisoners who, having already spent up to 30 months in prison on false terrorism charges, again face detention while their cases are returned to the high courts. [AI Urgent Action Bulletin 11/28/95] 7. HAITI: ARISTIDE ASSASSINATION PLOT? An unnamed source close to Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide says that the government has uncovered a plot to assassinate Aristide and his likely successor, Rene Preval, after the Dec. 17 presidential elections, according to the New York- based Haitian weekly Haiti Progres. The discovery of the plot has made the Aristide government more insistent than ever that the US military should return the 160,000 pages of documents that it seized from the Haitian military and the rightwing paramilitary group Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) in the fall of 1994, at the beginning of the US-led United Nations occupation of the country. If the documents are not returned, the weekly writes, "the postponement of the presidential election would be, under the circumstances, more than likely." [HP 12/6- 12/95] Pentagon officials said on Dec. 6 that the government of US president Bill Clinton has decided to return the documents, over the protests of the Defense Department. A State Department official insisted that the US will cooperate with Haitian officials in investigating any US citizen whose involvement in illegal acts is revealed through the papers, but a Pentagon official said that the Defense Department will probably black out the names of US citizens "for privacy reason" and to "ensure the safety of American citizens." Haitian officials have suggested that the documents may show ties between the Haitian military and US intelligence agencies. [Washington Post 12/6/95] Meanwhile, opinion makers in the US are keeping up attacks on Aristide over his Nov. 11 call for civilians to help police disarm rightwing paramilitary forces [see Update #303]. On the weekend of Nov. 25 conservative television talk show host John McLaughlin noted that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had called Aristide "a psycho" in 1993. "[A]nd now he is indicating that he is in fact a psycho," McLaughlin said. In Newsweek magazine Howard Fineman wrote: "He is a psycho, but he's our psycho." Two liberal human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), sent Aristide an open letter on Nov. 27 asking him to condemn violence by pro-government protesters attempting to act on his call to disarm the right. [Inter Press Service 11/28/95] The disarmament efforts by civilians and the newly formed National Police--efforts which started before Aristide's Nov. 11 speech--have also been criticized by the Haitian grassroots movement. The Gonaives branch of the Catholic human rights group Peace and Justice noted that there have been few arrests. "The operation...announced in a media-oriented manner, without preparation, has permitted a number of important military and paramilitaries to have the time to flee and escape." [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #3, 11/25/95] On Dec. 2 Aristide, a former Catholic priest, confirmed rumors that he was planning to get married. According to Reuter, he is engaged to Mildred Trouillot, a Haitian-American attorney who worked for Aristide during his three years in exile. She is related to Bertha Pascal-Trouillot, the conservative interim president in 1990 and early 1991. [Washington Post 12/2/95, some from Reuter] While in Washington Trouillot reportedly worked in the office of lawyer and former US Congress member Michael Barnes (D-MD), an Aristide adviser. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 12/2/95 from EFE] Her annual salary was said to be $69,000. [Posted on NY Transfer by Bob Corbett, 12/2/95] 8. MORE BRAZILIAN OFFICIALS CANNED IN RAYTHEON SCANDAL Two more ranking members of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso's government have resigned in the scandal over a $1.4 billion project to build a radar system over the Amazon, the Amazonia Investigation and Surveillance System (SIVAM). Nov. 27 brought the resignation of Francisco Graziano, the director of Brazil's National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA). Graziano, appointed to the post on Sept. 27 [see Update #297], resigned after it was discovered that he was responsible for ordering wiretapping that led to the firing of Cardoso's chief of protocol, Julio Gomes Dos Santos, on Nov. 17, and the resignation of air force minister Maura Jose Gandra on Nov. 19. The wiretapping linked the two to possible bribery of legislators by a local representative of the US defense company Raytheon, which has won the SIVAM bid [see Update #304]. [Financial Times (UK) 11/28/95; La Jornada 11/26/95 from AFP, EFE, ANSA] The fourth casualty was Mario Olivera, head of the Federal Police's Operations Center (CDO), who set up the wiretapping. In addition to weakening President Cardoso's government, the scandal has raised the possibility that Raytheon might lose its contract, or that the whole radar deal might be scrapped. "It's a dead issue," said Jose Dirceu, president of the leftist Workers Party (PT). But US commerce secretary Ron Brown, who worked for two years to get Raytheon the deal, remains optimistic. On Nov. 28 Brown charged that "Brazilian parliamentarians may have been allied with Thomson-CSF and Alcatel [two French companies that lost the SIVAM bid]...in an effort to delay the project." Senate president Jose Sarney demanded that the Foreign Ministry protest to the US. "[T]his type of comment doesn't form part of normal relations between two countries." [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/8/95 from IPS, AFP, Reuter; LJ 12/3/95 from AFP, Reuter, DPA, Prensa Latina] Meanwhile, a San Juan Superior Court has denied a request by two organizations who are battling the proposed construction of a massive US navy radar system in Puerto Rico to postpone public hearings on the issue. The United Front in Defense of Lajas Valley and the Community of Vieques Municipalities had requested the delay to give them time to collect more information on Raytheon, which would install the Relocatable Over The Horizon Radar (ROTHR) system. The hearings in Lajas began on Dec. 6. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/27/95, 12/7/95] 9. HONDURAS: US APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS TRAFFICKER'S CONVICTION In a unanimous ruling on Nov. 30, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco decided not to overturn the kidnapping-related convictions of Honduran national Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, currently serving a life sentence in the US. The ruling is the last of six upholding convictions of defendants in the 1985 kidnapping and subsequent murder of US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. Matta was convicted in July 1990 on conspiracy charges linked to the Camarena kidnapping [see Update #27], but was acquitted of charges of taking part in the murder; he has two other appeals pending before the court on charges of operating a drug enterprise. Matta's defense had asked that the kidnapping conviction be overturned because Matta was forcibly abducted from Honduras by US marshalls in April 1988 and brought into the US for trial. But the appeals court, while calling Matta's abduction "conduct we seek in no way to condone," ruled that the abduction alone did not provide a reason to overturn the convictions. The court said that a 1992 Supreme Court ruling had upheld the prosecution of a fugitive who was brought to the US by kidnapping rather than extradition. [New York Times 12/3/95 from AP] That controversial June 15, 1992 Supreme Court decision came in the case of another defendant in the Camarena case: Mexican gynecologist Humberto Alvarez Machain, who was kidnapped from Mexico in April 1990 by DEA agents for involvement in the Camarena murder. After the Supreme Court upheld US authorities' right to abduct Alvarez Machain and bring him to trial in the US, the charges against the doctor were thrown out of federal court on Dec. 14, 1992, and US authorities were forced to release him [see Updates #125, 146, 149, 151, 152]. Even assuming that the abduction of Matta could be considered a kidnapping, wrote Judge Cecil Poole, that is not the type of serious violation of international norms "such as torture, murder, genocide and slavery" that may be challenged in any nation's court. In a separate opinion, Judge John T. Noonan called the marshalls' abduction of Matta "a brutal deprivation of personal liberty." "That the abductors were law enforcement officers of the United States, rather than some fanatic band, doubles the horror of their activity," Judge Noonan wrote. "If agents of the mightiest power on earth are unrestrained from kidnapping by legal authority--or rather, in obedience to higher authority in the executive department, see themselves constrained to kidnap--the freedom of individuals throughout the world is at the mercy of a decision made by an official of the United States Department of Justice." The appeals court also considered dismissing the charges against Matta because of his accusations--denied by the marshalls--that he was beaten and burned by an electric stun gun during the drive to a US air force base in Honduras and during his flight to the US. The court said that a federal judge in Los Angeles had found the evidence inconclusive and had ruled that Matta's charges, even if true, did not amount to "grossly cruel and unusual barbarities." While Judge Poole said the evidence "reasonably could support a finding that [Matta] was tortured," he also said it could be interpreted differently. The court also rejected defense challenges to the joint trial of Matta with other defendants in the Camarena case and the playing of a tape recording of Camarena's torture. [NYT 12/3/95 from AP] In a communique published Sept. 26 by local press in Honduras, the previously unknown "Revolutionary Patriotic Front" demanded the "immediate extradition" of Matta back to Honduras and warned it would murder "all US nationals who are in Honduran territory" if its demand is ignored. On Oct. 3 Matta's daughters denied any links with the group; Matta's family had been waging an intense and costly publicity campaign for the previous three months, asking President Carlos Roberto Reina to repatriate Matta, who they say is suffering from tuberculosis in the maximum security prison at Marion, Illinois. Matta's 1988 abduction by US authorities provoked violent student protests in Tegucigalpa; the government declared a state of emergency after five people were killed and the US embassy building was assaulted. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/4/95 from AP] 10. CHILD KILLED IN BOLIVIAN COCA RAID On Nov. 17 six-month-old Remberto Garcia died in the town of Entre Rios, in the Bolivian coca-producing region of Chapare, allegedly as a result of tear gas fumes from an attack by anti- drug troops from the Mobile Unit for Rural Patrolling (UMOPAR). The infant's death occurred just two days after 13-year-old Janeth Roxana Veliz Vargas was killed by gunfire during an UMOPAR attack on the town of Shinahota [see Update #304]. At least 10 civilians were injured by firearms and some 40 people were detained during UMOPAR operations between Nov. 15 and 17. Most of those arrested were allegedly ill-treated while under police custody and the whereabouts of at least two union leaders are unknown. The doctor in charge of the medical center in Shinahota charged that people injured during the attack were forcibly removed from the center by UMOPAR forces. UMOPAR and other security forces dropped tear gas canisters from helicopters in their efforts to disperse campesino protesters, according to reports by local human rights organizations and the Municipal Civic Committee of Shinahota. "It seems that, in fulfilling agreements with the United States for the eradication of coca crops, the Bolivian government has disregarded its own constitutional provisions which protect the right to life and establish guarantees for all Bolivian citizens," Amnesty International wrote on Nov. 28. [AI Index 11/28/95] 11. HIGH ABSTENTION, PROTESTS IN VENEZUELAN MUNICIPAL VOTE On Nov. 3, with more than 70,000 troops patrolling to ensure order, Venezuelans went to the polls to elect 22 governors, 370 deputies, 330 mayors, and 2,404 district and municipal councilors from among more than 200,000 candidates. The social democratic Democratic Action (AD) party won 11 of the country's 22 governorships, regaining much of the power it lost when its leader, Carlos Andres Perez, was impeached from the presidency. According to unofficial projections, the Christian democrat Committee of Independent Electoral Political Organization (COPEI) and Movement to Socialism (MAS) each took four governorships. The Convergencia Nacional party of President Rafael Caldera won only one governor's race, and two others are still unclear. Unofficial returns also showed the AD winning about 55% of the 330 mayoral posts at stake. The AD's Antonio Ledezma won the important Caracas mayoral race in the Federal District, defeating incumbent mayor Aristobulo Isturiz of the Causa R party, who conceded the day after the elections. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 12/8/95 from Inter Press Service, Notimex, Reuter, La Jornada, Agence France-Presse; IPS 12/4/95] The Caracas metropolitan area is made up of five municipalities; the one which Ledezma will govern when he takes office on Jan. 2 covers 1.9 million of the capital's four million residents, geographically located in the center and a part of the west of the city. In Chacao, a primarily middle- and upper-class Caracas municipality with a population of 75,000, popular mayor Irene Saez was reelected by a landslide. Saez, a former Miss Universe with a political science degree from the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), is considering running for president in 1998, although she says she would prefer to wait until 2003 so that she can mature politically in some other post beforehand. [El Diario- La Prensa 12/5/95 from Notimex, 12/6/95 from AP] Political analysts said the 55% to 58% abstention rate--the highest ever in Venezuela--favored traditional political powerhouses such as AD. This was particularly true in Caracas, where the abstention reached perhaps 70%. Both the AD and COPEI have also benefitted from the erosion of the Caldera administration's popularity. At the same time, Causa R has failed to develop into a viable political party after taking 22% of the vote in the 1994 general elections. Venezuela's current economic crisis also played a major role: Caldera is about to begin negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a new loan, which is expected to bring with it more stringent structural adjustment policies. Just before the elections, Planning Minister Edgar Paredes Pisani announced that the government had struck an accord in principle with the IMF to devalue the currency, which could significantly aggravate inflation. A recent forecast predicts the already high rates of inflation and unemployment to climb further in 1996. Delays in announcing official election results touched off rioting in several states. On Dec. 7, the National Guard was still protecting the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) offices in Caracas and riot police and military were patrolling in several cities. Causa R charged fraud after provincial electoral councils declared AD candidates the winners in the states of Bolivar--a Causa R stronghold--and Anzoategui. Causa R Deputy Carlos Melo said the party would not turn over the mayor's office in Caracas until the victories in Bolivar, Anzoategui, and Zulia are recognized. There were disturbances in Maracaibo, the port capital of Zulia, where both former coup leader Francisco Arias Cardenas of Causa R and AD candidate Omar Barboza claimed victory. In Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara state, the military was called out to prevent rioting after Orlando Fernandez claimed victory in the governor's race for his Convergencia/MAS coalition and called a protest march. The editor-in-chief of Barquisimeto daily El Impulso told Notimex that the march was peaceful and there were no disturbances. The same source said that the armed forces shut down Radio Cristal, of which Fernandez is the principal stockholder. On Dec. 5 Luis Jose Oropeza, candidate for Lara governor on an AD-COPEI ticket, finally conceded defeat. [LADB Notisur 12/8/95 from IPS, Notimex, Reuter, LJ, AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 12/5/95 from Notimex; IPS 12/4/95] 12. PUERTO RICAN FORMALLY RENOUNCES US CITIZENSHIP On Dec. 2, his 68th birthday, Puerto Rican lawyer Juan Mari Bras received formal notification from the US State Department that his renunciation of US citizenship had been accepted. Mari Bras had submitted his request to the US ambassador to Venezuela more than a year earlier, following legal procedure. Mari Bras said that he has no plans to leave the island, though he did not deny that he might travel to the United Nations in New York to testify before the UN Decolonization Committee on the case of Puerto Rico; if so, he said he could request a document that is given to officials of nations that have no relations with the US. Although US citizenship is a requirement to practice law and to vote in Puerto Rico, Mari Bras says he intends to continue doing both. If necessary, he said, he will take his case to Puerto Rico's Supreme Court, to the US Supreme Court and to the International Court at La Hague. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/5/95 from AP] The State Department has now passed the Mari Bras case on to the jurisdiction of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). [ED-LP 12/8/95] The Puerto Rican National Pro-Homeland Union (UNA) is preparing to ask the Organization of American States (OAS) to legally recognize Puerto Rican citizenship. The request will be signed by some 200 people who have renounced their US citizenship before a notary public in Puerto Rico; they have not taken the legal steps required by the US to formally renounce US citizenship because they do not accept the jurisdiction of US federal immigration laws. [ED-LP 12/7/95 from EFE] 13. IN OTHER NEWS... Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem confirmed on Dec. 4 that Navy Frigate Capt. Alfredo Astiz had been formally retired, and had not been promoted to the rank of ship's captain. Despite his retirement, Astiz will continue collecting his military salary in accordance with regulations. The daily Clarin said on Dec. 4 that the retirement of Astiz would allow Menem to go ahead with his planned visit to France in February. A French court has sentenced Astiz in absentia to life in prison for the 1977 abduction and murder of two French nuns. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/5/95 from AP]... Two young activists for the rights of street children were machine-gunned to death in a suburb of the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife. Edson dos Santos Turiano (19) and Jose da Silva (21) had been kidnapped three days earlier by five hooded assailants, witnesses said. [Diario Las Americas 12/9/95 from EFE] CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, we failed to properly identify Ecuadoran president Sixto Duran-Ballen in Update #305, item #1 ("Ecuadorans Vote `11 Times No'"). 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. 12/14 THU, 7:30 PM - "Under Fire" (1983), movie w/discussion. 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $5. 212-242-4201. 12/15 FRI, 6:30 PM & 12/16 SAT, 11 AM - "Image Theater: Cop-in-the-Head." Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory workshop. 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. $50. 212-242-4201. 12/15 FRI - 1/12 FRI - "Art for the Zapatista Mvt." Opening 12/15, 6 PM w/art, videos, music, poetry. 156 Rivington St. 212-254-3697. 12/15 FRI, 4-6 PM - "No US/NATO Troops to Bosnia," demo. Times Sq. Int'l Action Ctr, 212-633-6646, email: npc@pipeline.com 12/15 FRI, 8 PM - "Reclaiming Our History," w/Howard Zinn. 205 W 19th St, #7F. $25. Reservations: 212-228-0450. 12/16 SAT, 9 AM - New York Greens Conference. Labor & the Greens, ballot access, dance & more. Learning Alliance, 324 Lafayette St, 7th fl. $15. 212-226-7171. 12/16 SAT, 10 AM - Conference on Immigrant Rights, followed by march to Times Sq at 1 PM. At Local 1199, 43rd St & 8th Ave. Dance party at 8 PM w/Ray Santiago & his salsa band. At Brecht Forum, 122 W 27th St, 10th fl. Coordinadora 96, 212-505-0001. 12/16 SAT, 12 NOON - "Nobody Beats the Wiz in Rainforest Destruction," protest. At the Wiz, 6th Ave & 8th St. Wetlands Rainforest Action Gp, 212-966-5244. 12/18 MON, 7:30 PM - "The Gringo in Mananaland" (1995), video on US media stereotypes of Latin America. Discussion w/dir DeeDee Halleck. Context, 28 Ave A (1st & 2nd Sts). $6. 212-777-3394. 12/21 THU, 7 PM - CREED monthly mtg. Review materials for 1996 anti-maquiladora campaign. Location TBA. 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/ =================================================================