WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #308, DECEMBER 24, 1995 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Demonstrator Killed as Presidents Meet in Honduras 2. Wounded Student Dies in Nicaragua 3. US Drug Agency Tapped Mexican Phones 4. INS Grabs Mexican Attorney as Extradition Case Fails 5. Mexico: Subway Riders Shafted, Banks Bailed Out 6. Haiti News: Preval Wins, Rockwood Loses, Clinton Scores... 7. Returnee Child Killed in Guatemala 8. UN Guatemala Mission Helping the Army? 9. Guatemalan Exhumations Scheduled, Witness Vanishes 10. Central America Plagued With New and Old Diseases 11. World Bank Rejects Complaints by Chileans, Brazilians 12. Mine Workers, Health Workers Strike in Chile 13. Peru President Withdraws Army from Drug Fight 14. Argentine Officers Arrested for Jewish Center Bombing 15. El Salvador: Budget Approved, FMLN Leader Killed 16. Dominican Republic: Voters Rally, Workers Riot 17. Panamanians Commemorate US Invasion 18. Raytheon Scandal Still Hot in Brazil 19. Other News: The Gap, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Cuba & More! 20. 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. 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Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as "Weekly News Update on the Americas," and include our address so that people will know how to find us. 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. DEMONSTRATOR KILLED AS PRESIDENTS MEET IN HONDURAS The Honduran government has ordered an investigation into a Dec. 13 shooting attack on grassroots demonstrators in San Pedro Sula, who were marching peacefully to a protest at the site where the Central American presidents were holding a summit. A government communique alleges that there were no verbal or physical confrontations, and that security forces maintained a 100-meter distance from demonstrators. The primary focus of the presidential summit was citizen safety. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 12/16/95 from AFP] At least 11 demonstrators have been killed by police so far this year in Central America. [Inter Press Service 12/20/95] The Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared-Detained in Honduras (COFADEH) has reported that eight people were injured in the Dec. 13 incident when snipers shot at the demonstrators using weapons with silencers. [CODEHUCA Urgent Action 12/19/95] Cesar Chavez, one of the wounded demonstrators, died on Dec. 15--the last day of the summit--apparently killed by military bullets. [IPS 12/15/95] The victims of the attack were members of several different campesino groups who took part in the peaceful demonstration, called by the Grassroots Movement for Justice (MPJ). The demonstrators were demanding that the government increase salaries; implement an agrarian land distribution policy; punish military officers responsible for forced disappearances; punish the police responsible for the massacre of campesinos in Guaymas in October [see Update #300]; and solve the agrarian conflict between the residents of Tacamiche and the multinational Chiquita Brands banana subsidiary Tela Railroad Company [see Updates #285, 287]. The Commission for Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA) has asked the Honduran government to investigate the San Pedro Sula incident in depth, and to address the demands made by the demonstrators. Messages can be sent to President Carlos Roberto Reina (fax# 504-37-8621) and Attorney General Edmundo Orellana (fax# 504-39-3698), with copies to COFADEH (fax# 504-37-9800). [CODEHUCA Urgent Action 12/19/95] 2. WOUNDED STUDENT DIES IN NICARAGUA Jeronimo Urbina, a Nicaraguan student who was shot and wounded when police attacked a Dec. 13 demonstration, died on Dec. 20 in a Managua hospital. Urbina is the second victim of the police attack to die; university employee Ernesto Porfirio Ramos died shortly after being shot at the student demonstration [see Update #307]. [Reuter 12/20/95] The Nicaragua Network Hotline said the area around the National Assembly in Managua was like a war zone for over six hours on Dec. 13, as some 1,000 police agents used tear gas and rubber and lead bullets against 2,000 students, some armed with rocks and a few with home-made bombs. [Nicanet Hotline 12/18/95] Authorities said the police officers violated standing orders by firing on the crowd. To protest against the shootings, students held daily demonstrations and launched a week-long strike that crippled university functions during final exams. [Reuter 12/20/95] "The protest activities continue," said Yudelia Aburto, leader of the Nicaraguan National Student Union (UNEN). "We will make visits to the neighborhoods to clarify and sensitive the population about our just demand." The students set up their headquarters at the Central America University (UCA), which they blocked off from general traffic with street barricades made of paving stones. Twelve of the students were on the 15th day of a hunger strike at the UCA on Dec. 18; several were moved to hospitals because of their failing health. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/19/95 from EFE] The student strike was called off on Dec. 19, but students held another protest march on Dec. 20 after hearing of Urbina's death. One other student remains hospitalized with a bullet wound to the thigh but his life is not in danger. [Reuter 12/20/95] The Commission for Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA) has sent a letter to President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, demanding and in-depth investigation punishment for those responsible for the attack against students. [Diario Las Americas 12/23/95 from AFP] Messages can be sent to Chamorro at 011-505-2-287911. (Note: The international access code used by US callers is 011, not 001 as printed in last week's Nicaragua coverage.) 3. US DRUG AGENCY TAPPED MEXICAN PHONES The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intercepted phone calls in Mexico during the early 1990s between alleged drug traffickers and the Mexican presidential residence, the Attorney General's Office (PGR), the Governance Secretariat, the Federal Electoral Commission and other Mexican agencies, according to the Mexico City daily La Jornada. The paper's Washington correspondents, Jim Cason and David Brooks, say that a US official has given La Jornada secret reports prepared by the DEA in 1993 with the case number TD-87-0007. The documents stem from the DEA's investigation of the so-called Gulf Cartel, an alleged drug trafficking group based in Texas and northeastern Mexico and headed by US citizen Juan Garcia Abrego, currently on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) "Ten Most Wanted List." At least three of the tapped calls were to numbers belonging to the office of then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988- 1994). Nineteen were to the home of Marcela Bodenstedt Perlich, an alleged Gulf Cartel agent romantically linked to Salinas' presidency secretary, Jose Cordoba Montoya [see "Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 2," 9/9/95]. As Cason and Brooks note, the documents, if authentic, raise serious doubts about the US government's repeated denials that the DEA was operating in Mexico in violation of Mexican sovereignty. They would also show that in 1993 US president Bill Clinton had information linking the Salinas administration to drug trafficking at the same time that the White House was extolling the Mexican president and lobbying Congress to ratify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. [LJ 12/22/95, electronic edition] 4. INS GRABS MEXICAN ATTORNEY AS EXTRADITION CASE FAILS The DEA revelations cast a new light on the extradition proceedings against former Mexican deputy attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu, who ran Mexico's anti-drug campaign during much of 1994. Ruiz Massieu reportedly worked closely with the DEA during this time, and apparently knew about and approved of DEA wiretapping activities [see "Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 2," 9/9/95]. The US seized Ruiz Massieu at Newark International Airport on Mar. 3, 1995, as he was attempting to transfer to a flight for Madrid, and charged him with a false currency declaration. The Mexican government tried to have him extradited to face accusations that he had covered up the role of President Salinas' brother Raul in the September 1994 assassination of his own brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, general secretary of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). A US federal judge in Newark, Ronald Hedges, turned down two extradition requests based on the coverup charge, and one more involving Ruiz Massieu's alleged embezzlement of some $300,000 while working as deputy attorney general. Ruiz Massieu insists that he received the money as a bonus at the end of the Salinas administration, although he has had more trouble explaining some $9 million dollars he kept in the Texas Commerce Bank in Houston. [New York Times 12/23/95; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 12/14/95 from EFE] The Mexican government, represented by the US Justice Department, entered a fourth extradition request before a new judge, Stanley Chesler. But the latest case, again based on the embezzlement charge, began to unravel on Dec. 15 when US attorneys Claudia Flynn and Alberto Rivas advised Judge Chesler that the Mexican government possessed documentary evidence that two checks paid to Ruiz Massieu last year--totaling about $270,000 at the 1994 exchange rate--were indeed bonus payments. Chesler adjourned the case to Dec. 20. There followed four days of intensive high-level discussions between the US and Mexican governments. The US decided to replace Flynn and Rivas, a move which one of Ruiz Massieu's attorneys, Tony Canales, called "without precedent." [LJ 12/20/95, electronic edition] Two top Justice Department attorneys were brought in from Washington, Assistant Attorney General Mary Lee Warren and international affairs director Fran Fragos Townsend. [ED-LP 12/21/95 from AP] But Chesler threw the case out on Dec. 22 and set Ruiz Massieu free. The former deputy attorney general, who had been held without bail since March, was immediately detained by agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which like the DEA is a Justice Department agency. Secretary of State Warren Christopher requested that Ruiz Massieu be deported because his presence in the US would have "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences." Ruiz Massieu is filing for political asylum, and the deportation process is expected to take at least two months. [NYT 12/23/95; ED-LP 12/24/95 from AFP and EFE] Meanwhile, La Jornada's Juan Manuel Venegas reports that the DEA has evidence that Mario Ruiz Massieu and Raul Salinas teamed up over a five-year period to run contraband, including electronic components, arms and drugs, inside Mexico. As many as 20,000 truckloads of contraband were reportedly shipped just during the time Ruiz Massieu was deputy attorney general. [LJ 12/10/95] In a related scandal, on Dec. 19 the Mexico City dailies El Financiero and El Universal reported on investigations by private detective Humberto Lopez Mejia indicating that a judicial police agent, Antonio Martinez Estrada, is the man videotapes show firing the fatal shot into the head of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio in Tijuana on March 23, 1994. Lopez says that Mario Aburto Martinez, convicted of the assassination last year, was substituted for Martinez Estrada in the Tijuana offices of the Attorney General (PGR) shortly after the assassination. Martinez Estrada himself was then taken to a repair shop in Tijuana and shot dead, along with the shop's owner, according to Lopez. [ED-LP 12/20/95 from AFP] On Dec. 20 current president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, who was Colosio's campaign manager, called the new accusations "inadmissible" and "offensive." [ED-LP 12/21/95 from AP] 5. MEXICO: SUBWAY RIDERS SHAFTED, BANKS BAILED OUT Without warning, the government of Mexico's Federal District (DF) abruptly raised the fare for the Mexico City subway system on Dec. 16. The new fare of one peso (about $0.14) is more than twice the previous cost of a ride, although the Metro still offers one of the lowest fares in the world. An extensive advertising campaign told angry riders that "our transportation system is worth a lot and only costs a peso" and gave price comparisons with such commodities as a pack of gum (also one peso). [La Jornada (Mexico) 12/17/95] The hike came almost one year after the beginning of Mexico's current economic crisis, which has shrunk the economy by about 7%. In September, the last month for which statistics are available, consumer spending in major cities was down 31.6% from the year before [Los Angeles Times 12/12/95] Fares were also raised for municipal trolleys and electric trains, but the Route 100 bus system, declared bankrupt last April, will keep fares at 40 centavos. The DF has still not resolved its problems with Route 100's 11,000 laid-off drivers and their militant union, the Route 100 Urban Passenger Auto Transport Workers Union (SUTAUR 100). The workers refuse to accept severance pay and continue to demonstrate regularly. Apparently in an effort to reopen negotiations, earlier this month the DF government agreed to pay the drivers a month's salary on Dec. 19 to help them get through the Christmas season. [LJ 12/17/95] On Dec. 15, the day before the fare hike was instituted, US media reported that the Mexican government was planning to take over about $2 billion in bad loans from the country's largest bank, Banamex-Accival SA. [Wall Street Journal 12/15/95] As of October, non-performing loans had reached 17.7% of total loans in the Mexican banking system; the Mexican government estimates that the bailout for the whole system will cost at least $11 billion. [LAT 12/4/95] The government plans to finance some $8 billion of the bailout through selling state-owned enterprises next year. Ironically, the banking system, which was nationalized in 1982, was reprivatized in 1991 as part of the neoliberal program pursued by former president Salinas. [LJ 12/17/95] On Dec. 18, the US and Mexican governments postponed a controversial NAFTA provision that would have let Mexican trucks travel freely through much of the US Southwest, with US trucks given access to a comparable area in Mexico. [NYT 12/19/95] Apparently the White House was concerned that the provision, set to go into effect that day, could have hurt US president Bill Clinton's chances for reelection in November 1996. "All we need is one big environmental disaster, or one of these trucks plowing into a school bus," a Clinton adviser remarked recently, "and all of a sudden NAFTA is going to look like a pretty disastrous idea." [NYT 12/17/95] 6. HAITI NEWS: PREVAL WINS, ROCKWOOD LOSES, CLINTON SCORES... On Dec. 23, former prime minister Rene Preval was declared the winner in Haiti's Dec. 17 presidential elections. Preval, who was supported by current president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, won 87.9% of the vote in an election marked by apathy; turnout was just under 28%. Another Aristide supporter, Leon Jeune, came in second with 2.5%. [Washington Post 12/24/95 from AP]... On Nov. 27, the commanding officer of the US army's 10th Mountain Division upheld the dismissal of US army Capt. Lawrence Rockwood, who was court- martialed in May of this year for having gone on his own initiative to investigate reports of human rights abuses at a Haitian prison in September 1994 [see Updates #266, 276, 277]. But the commanding officer, Gen. Thomas N. Burnette, reduced the court-martial panel's recommended punishment, dismissing a charge of conduct unbecoming an officer and ruling that Rockwood could keep $1,500 of his monthly $3,800 salary for two months. Burnette reviewed the case as part of an automatic appeals process. [New York Times 11/28/95 from AP] Note: Update #307 quoted from advance copies of a Nation article by Allan Nairn saying that Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide consented to US military occupation of Haiti as "the only way to stop the carnage and ensure his return." The sentence was omitted from the final version of the article printed in the Jan. 8/15, 1996 edition of the Nation. The English-language Haitian biweekly Haiti Info remarked before the latest Nairn revelations that although the story of US links to the rightwing paramilitary group Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) is "embarrassing to the Bill Clinton administration," the White House has managed to shift the blame onto the CIA and Aristide opponents like Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS) and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC). "Clinton, head-to- head with the Republicans, scores another point." [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #4, 12/14/95] 7. RETURNEE CHILD KILLED IN GUATEMALA Nine-year old Magdalena Caal Coc was killed and three people were wounded in a Dec. 16 shooting attack at a temporary settlement of returned refugees at Santa Maria Dolores, located on grounds belonging to the Special Commission for Attention to Refugees (CEAR) near the municipality of Cantabal, Ixcan, department of Quiche. Caal Coc was playing with other children when a rain of bullets fell on the camp. Twelve-year old Santiago Quix Call was wounded, as were two adults who tried to help the children. According to preliminary information, returnees in the camp saw smoke coming from rifles that fired the bullets from fairly close range on the other side of the road from the camp, but did not see who was doing the firing. At about the same time, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) allegedly ambushed a column of five army tanks on the road to Veracruz, west of Cantabal. In newspaper accounts on Dec. 17, the army claimed that the Santa Maria Dolores victims were wounded by crossfire from the ambush. Observers in Cantabal say this is extremely unlikely, as the ambush took place two kilometers to the southwest of the returnee camp, on the other side of some hills. [National Coordinating Office on Refugees and Displaced of Guatemala (NCOORD) Alert 12/18/95; El Diario-La Prensa 12/18/95 from AFP] The Santa Maria Dolores return group has been staying temporarily at Santa Maria Dolores under the protection of CEAR and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) since a Dec. 9 agreement was reached with CEAR to identify and purchase new lands for the families. According to UNHCR officials in Cantabal, the Santa Maria Dolores group had expressed fears about the insecurity of the site. But after more international accompaniers arrived and UNHCR officials established a permanent presence, they did not ask to be moved. Letters demanding a thorough investigation of the incident and prosecution of those responsible can be sent to President Ramiro de Leon Carpio (fax# 011-502-2-515667 or 2-537472). [NCOORD Alert 12/18/95] The Committee of Campesino Unity (CUC) issued a declaration expressing fears that the Santa Maria Dolores attack was planned by the army, similar to the Oct. 5 massacre of returned refugees at Xaman [see Updates #297, 298]. [ED-LP 12/18/95 from AFP] Attorney General Ramses Cuestas has charged that the army is trying to block his office's investigation of the Xaman massacre. Cuestas said that the special prosecutor assigned to the case, Ramiro Contreras, has received death threats and that the military judges in charge of the judicial process are showing scarce "autonomy and independence," since they consult the military hierarchy for every decision. "There is interest within some sectors, among them the army, in not clarifying the case," said Cuestas. [Diario Las Americas 12/16/95 from AFP] 8. UN GUATEMALA MISSION HELPING THE ARMY? According to the Return of the Guatemalan Refugees Monitoring Update, high profile Guatemalan human rights activists are quietly rethinking their support of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA). Among other problems, some of MINUGUA's civilian workers say that the mission's military workers--who are sent to Guatemala by their respective countries without screening by UN personnel and without human rights training--become too close to the Guatemalan military, sometimes functioning as conduits for information and obstructing investigations. These military officers have more authority within MINUGUA than is generally known, and have accused the civilian workers of being subversives. The Monitoring Update charges that civilian MINUGUA worker Deborah Katzman's escape from an attempted abduction was misreported in the local press [and subsequently in our Update #306], which claimed that bystanders blocked the attacker's car. In fact, Katzman escaped by jumping out of the moving vehicle, injuring herself slightly; only then did someone assist her. MINUGUA officials did nothing to correct the story; instead they suggested that Katzman shouldn't have been living where she was, and that she should change her worksite. Although the name and address of Katzman's attacker--a local rancher--are known, he is still at large. Police refused to look for him at his home because it was dark. Katzman remembered her assailant saying, "I'll kill you," and, "Your radio isn't working," referring to the radio which MINUGUA workers carry with them at all times. There has been no investigation into how the assailant knew that her radio was not working. In another incident, a MINUGUA worker who reported that she was being followed by someone was told that maybe it was just someone who found her attractive. [RGRMU #152, 12/11/95] According to Fernando Penados, chief investigator for the Archdiocesan Human Rights Office (ODHA), corrupt state security agents may be responsible for the torture and murder of at least 12 people, including Mexican national Lucina Cardenas Ramirez. The body of Cardenas--who according to Noticias de Guatemala worked for the United Nations (UN) until Oct. 31 of this year-- was found on Dec. 2 in Quetzaltenango province [see Update #306]. ODHA director Ronalth Ochaeta backed Penados' findings, saying the arrest of Cardenas' traveling companion Otto Hernandez for the crime is premature, and may be an attempt to cover up for the real killers. "This group is well-organized and has sophisticated weapons and fast cars, and with the precise information they receive about the victim there must be customs agents involved," said Ochaeta. Army spokesperson Col. Guillermo Caal Davila said that if any military personnel are found to be involved in the killing, the army will not protect them. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #48, 12/14/95; NG Informacion Semanal 12/2-8/95 from Siglo Veinteuno, Prensa Libre] In other news, on Dec. 12 an appeals court handed down prison sentences for ten Guatemalans convicted in the brutal March 1994 mob beating of US journalist June Weinstock. Five of the ten were sentenced to 26 years in prison for attempted murder and aggravated assault, and another five got 14 years as accomplices to attempted murder and for assault. Last February a lower court had absolved the prisoners for lack of evidence. Despite the new ruling, the ten continue to maintain their innocence. Weinstock, a photographer from Alaska, was left in a coma after a mob attacked her in San Cristobal Verapaz, Alta Verapaz province because of rumors that she was involved in child trafficking [see Update #219]. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #48, 12/14/95] 9. GUATEMALAN EXHUMATIONS SCHEDULED, WITNESS VANISHES According to the Guatemala Human Rights Commission (CDHG), excavations are scheduled for Jan. 7-14 at a mass grave next to the Las Cabanas military base in La Montanita, San Marcos department. The site is believed to contain the remains of some 2,000 disappeared persons, including union leader Fernando Garcia, the husband of Mutual Support Group (GAM) leader Nineth Montenegro. US lawyer Jennifer Harbury believes that her husband, murdered rebel leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, is also buried there. [ED-LP 12/6/95 from EFE] According to GAM, the remains of 14 student leaders abducted on May 22, 1984, may also be buried at the site. GAM said the area behind the base probably contains as many as 3,000 bodies. [Guatemala Human Rights Update (Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA) #20/95 11/3/95] Former Guatemalan army intelligence agent Nery Angel Urizar Garcia, a key witness in the Bamaca case, has meanwhile vanished from the US apartment where he and his family were hiding while awaiting a second appearance before the Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS). Urizar was scheduled to appear before the commission on Nov. 29, but the date passed with no sign of him, according to case lawyer Jose Pertierra. Pertierra said Urizar was terrified and may have decided it was safer not to participate in a second round of testimony. "He didn't talk to us, we don't know what happened," said Alice Zachmann of the Guatemalan Human Rights Commission (GHRC) in Washington. "We were in touch every two or three days, but so far we don't know if he left the country, returned to Guatemala, or changed states." Urizar came to Washington in May, shortly after going public with information that the army had killed one of its own G-2 agents in 1992 and buried him as Bamaca to keep news of the rebel's capture a secret [see Updates #278, 280]. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #48, 12/14/95] 10. CENTRAL AMERICA PLAGUED WITH NEW AND OLD DISEASES Health authorities in Honduras are trying to identify a mysterious disease that has killed at least 10 infants since it appeared six weeks ago. The Health Ministry has sent material from three autopsies to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for analysis of what they believe is a highly aggressive "mutant" microorganism. The outbreak is the fourth major epidemic to strike Central America this year. More than 35,000 cases of dengue have occurred in the region this year; a mysterious bacterial infection diagnosed in November as leptospirosis killed 26 people in Nicaragua and infected more than 2,500 before spreading to Honduras and El Salvador; and El Salvador was hit at about the same time by an epidemic of hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, which is not fatal but can cause blindness. Dr. Elsa Palou, president of the Honduran medical association, said she was particularly disturbed by the resurgence of "old diseases" long thought vanquished. She attributed their reappearance not only to bad sanitation conditions but also to the unwillingness of governments throughout the region to spend money on disease prevention and health education programs. [New York Times 12/10/95] 11. WORLD BANK REJECTS COMPLAINTS BY CHILEANS, BRAZILIANS During the week of Dec. 4, a World Bank inspection panel rejected a formal complaint filed by Chilean activists in Washington on Nov. 17 against the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an affiliate of the World Bank that lends to the private sector in developing countries. The IFC is the Bank's fastest-growing unit. The panel claimed it does not have the authority to examine complaints against bank affiliates, but only against the two core institutions of the Bank--the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association. The complaint was made on behalf of 200 Chilean citizens, including 40 Pehuenche Indians and three members of the Chilean parliament, who charged that the IFC had failed to follow its own environmental rules in lending money for the Pangue dam project on Chile's Bio Bio river. In the first 14 months of its existence, the panel has taken up four complaints about the Bank's public sector projects. [Inter Press Service 11/17/95, 12/14/95] Even those challenges accepted by the panel do not necessarily bring results. In September, the Bank's board of exective directors refused to accept the panel's recommendation to investigate charges by indigenous groups and others that the Bank had failed to follow its own environmental rules in creating special forest reserves in Rondonia in the Brazilian Amazon. On Dec. 11, the panel finished work on a new report on the Rondonia case which it will present to the board in an appeal. The inspection panel met during the week of Dec. 4 with World Bank president James Wolfensohn, who reportedly agreed to investigate the Chilean claim. According to knowledgeable sources, Wolfensohn also agreed to examine a way for complaints to be brought against the IFC and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the Bank's insurance arm. [IPS 12/14/95] 12. MINE WORKERS, HEALTH WORKERS STRIKE IN CHILE Nine workers were killed and 41 injured--13 seriously--when two buses collided on a highway in northern Chile on Dec. 9, just minutes after a 31-hour labor dispute was settled between workers and management of BSK, a contracted firm building the El Abra mine. One of the buses transporting workers from the El Abra site back to Calama crashed into a smaller bus that was on its way to deliver food to striking workers at the mine site. Some 8,000 BSK workers had walked off the job Dec. 7 to protest the layoffs of 2,000 workers. The strikers cut off electricity, erected barricades and took control of the 102 Pullman buses used to transport workers from the site to their living quarters, thus preventing anyone from leaving the site. By early evening on Dec. 9, BSK had agreed to 70% of the workers' demands, including the re-hiring in January of the laid off workers. The company said it planned a lawsuit against the 200 instigators of the strike. Construction at the El Abra mine began in February 1995. [CHIP News 12/11/95; El Diario-La Prensa 12/11/95 from AFP] Eighteen of the workers fired by BSK ended a hunger strike after five days on Dec. 18. The workers were protesting being laid off without sufficient notice or compensation. Local church officials helped mediate a settlement, in which each of 25 fired workers received about $1,000 and a ticket home. [CHIP News 12/18/95, 12/19/95] On Dec. 12, more than 17,000 health workers from public municipal health centers in Chile began what was supposed to be their second 72-hour strike in two weeks to demand pay raises and other benefits. Unlike a three-day walkout held Nov. 28-30, this strike shut down emergency services. Health Minister Carlos Massad accused union leaders of "using 6 million hostages in order to obtain benefits never promised to them." Several municipal mayors threatened to fire striking workers or dock their pay for days not worked. [CHIP News 12/12/95] The National Coordinator of Municipal Health Center Workers ended the strike on Dec. 13 after 48 hours and announced possible demonstrations for the following week. Union leader Esteban Maturana called the two-day strike a success although only two-fifths of the workers walked off the job. [CHIP News 12/15/95] 13. PERU PRESIDENT WITHDRAWS ARMY FROM DRUG FIGHT In a Dec. 21 speech delivered at the closing ceremony of the academic year at Chorrillos Military School, Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori announced that he was ordering the withdrawal of the armed forces from the fight against drug trafficking. Fujimori said that with this measure he is trying to make the armed forces "less vulnerable to manipulation," and to the press campaigns which have linked armed forces members, including top officials, to corruption. The National Police, supported by the judicial power and the Public Ministry, will now have sole jurisdiction over drug trafficking. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/22/95 from EFE; Diario Las Americas 12/23/95 from EFE] The announcement followed a decision by Congress, reported on Dec. 16, to grant Fujimori legislative powers for the next four months that will allow him to make decisions about drug trafficking, pensions and property titles. [La Jornada 12/17/95 from DPA, Reuter, AFP] Peru's official gazette reported on Dec. 7 that the government had extended a state of emergency for another 60 days in a number of provinces. The state of emergency, which allows the armed forces to take control of domestic security, is in effect in the departments of Pasco, Junin, Huancavelica, Cusco, Ayacucho, Huanuco and Loreto. [ED-LP 12/8/95 from EFE] 14. ARGENTINE OFFICERS ARRESTED FOR JEWISH CENTER BOMBING Eight active-duty and two retired military officers, along with four civilians, have been arrested in Argentina in connection with the July 1994 car bomb attack on the Jewish-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) that killed at least 86 people and injured more than 200 [see Update #234]. The investigation, headed by federal judge Juan Jose Galeano, has yet to determine whether those arrested were involved only in the illegal sale of military materiel, including explosives, or if they were part of a "local connection" in the bombing plot. Galeano believes the attack was arranged by Islamic fundamentalists, probably financed by Iran; the Supreme Court, however, found no evidence to link Iran with the bombing. A police source has revealed that some of those arrested are members or sympathizers of the carapintadas, a group within the military which has attempted four coups against the past two constitutional governments. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/4/95 from AP] Judge Galeano finished questioning the 10 suspects on Dec. 6. [ED-LP 12/7/95 from AP] President Carlos Saul Menem said on Dec. 2 that he was not "in the least" surprised that carapintadas may be involved in the AMIA bombing, nor was he surprised that some members of the carapintadas continue in active-duty service in the Argentine military. [La Jornada 12/3/95 from Reuter, AFP, EFE] On Dec. 21, Menem denied that he is considering granting presidential pardons for imprisoned members of the carapintadas and of the leftist Everyone for the Homeland Movement (MTP). "There will be no pardons for now," Menem told the daily La Nacion. "When I pardoned the [military] commanders and the [leftist rebel] Montoneros several years ago I announced it ahead of time. Likewise, if a new pardon is decided on I am going to announce it...." A day earlier, Menem had told journalists that the possibility of a pardon was being studied. The pardon in question would cover 120 members of the carapintadas, including coup leader Mohamed Ali Seineldin, as well as 22 MTP members. MTP top leader Enrique Haroldo Gorriaran Merlo, arrested on Oct. 28 in Mexico [see Update #301], would not be included in the pardon. [ED-LP 12/22/95 from AP] 15. EL SALVADOR: BUDGET APPROVED, FMLN LEADER KILLED On Dec. 22, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly approved the government's 1996 budget of $1.698 billion. The budget, $351 million greater than last year's, was approved by 62 out of the total 84 deputies. Members of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) and the Social Christian Renovation Movement (MRSC) abstained. In the new budget, the Education Ministry was granted $248 million, followed by Public Works with $166 million, health with $156 million and public security (police) with $154 million. Gerson Martinez, head of the FMLN bloc in the assembly, said that the FMLN did not approve the budget because it is badly structured, and does not assign enough resources to basic areas such as public health. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/24/95 from AFP] Ramon Boanerges Salazar, a candidate for the FMLN's National Council, was shot to death in San Salvador on Dec. 14, the night before the party's third Convention. FMLN deputy Marta Valladares told the press that robbery has been eliminated as a motive since the killers did not take the victim's possessions. [Flor de Izote Foundation Weekly Report Vol. 6, #47, 12/11-18/95 from Diario Latino] 16. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: VOTERS RALLY, WORKERS RIOT On Dec. 17, presidential candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez addressed a massive rally of hundreds of thousands of his supporters in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo. Pena Gomez said he would win more than 50% of the votes in the upcoming elections, scheduled for May 16, 1996, pointing out that some 40 political groups "have joined the unstoppable train that is the Santo Domingo Accord." The rally was compared in size to Pena Gomez' campaign closing rally in May of 1994, which was considered at the time to be one of the largest rallies ever held in the country. The Dec. 17 rally followed one earlier in the day and another the previous day in the provincial capitals of Santiago and San Cristobal, respectively. All three were called by the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and its allies in the Santo Domingo Accord, in response to three large demonstrations held the previous week by supporters of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), running second in opinion polls. [ED-LP 12/18/95] Current president Joaquin Balaguer of the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC) is widely believed to have stolen his narrow victory in the May 1994 elections from Pena Gomez through fraud. To end the resulting crisis, the 89-year-old Balaguer signed a "Pact for Democracy," shortening his current term of office--his seventh--from four to two years and scheduling new elections for 1996 in which he is not eligible to run [see Update #237]. At least five people were wounded, three of them by bullets, when workers at the state-owned National Paper Industry in the Dominican town of Villa Altagracia, San Cristobal province, rioted to demand payment of their Christmas bonsues. The workers disarmed company guards and began shooting off the guards' weapons; police retaliated by shooting at the workers. Youth blocked streets in Villa Altagracia with burning tires and set a truck on fire. Police asked for help from the army, and mixed police and army troops took military control of the town. [Diario Las Americas 12/23/95 from EFE] 17. PANAMANIANS COMMEMORATE US INVASION Hundreds of people marched on Dec. 20 in Panama City to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the US invasion of Panama. The Committee for the Rescue of Sovereignty, which organized the "great black march," voiced a demand that ex-president Guillermo Endara, along with former vice presidents Ricardo Arias Calderon and Guillermo Ford, be brought to trial for their role in authorizing the US invasion. Participants in the march also shouted slogans opposing any attempt to renegotiate an extension of US military presence beyond the year 2000. The protest took place without incidents, ending with a rally in the Chorrillo neighborhood, which was almost completely destroyed during the invasion. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/21/95 from EFE] The previous day, about 50 protesters hung an effigy of a US soldier on a fence on the US embassy grounds and set it on fire with gasoline as they waved Panamanian flags and shouted "murderers out." [Reuter 12/20/95] At midnight, protesters held a vigil in front of the US embassy. [Centro de Capacitacion Social (CCS) Resumen de Noticias 12/18-23/95] This year, like last year [see Update #256], the government decreed Dec. 20 a day of "national mourning." President Ernesto Perez Balladares called on Panamanians to "dedicate a moment of meditation in memory of those who lost their lives" during the US invasion. [ED-LP 12/20/95 from AP] Panamanians mourning for the victims of the US invasion were probably not too upset about the death of the general who led it, former head of the US army's Southern Command Gen. Maxwell Thurman. Thurman, who had delayed his retirement at the request of the Bush Administration to spearhead the Panama operation, died in Washington on Dec. 1 of this year at the age of 64. Thurman was diagnosed with leukemia in 1990 and retired in February 1991. Before heading the Southern Command, Thurman headed the army's Recruiting Command at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, where he worked to develop the "Be all that you can be" recruiting campaign. [New York Times 12/2/95] A businessperson of Cuban origin who participated in another US invasion--the failed Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba launched from the US in 1961--was named on Dec. 19 as Panama's new chief of the National Police, replacing lawyer Oswaldo Fernandez. Jose Luis Sosa, who spent two years in Cuban prisons after taking part in the Bay of Pigs invasion, has been Panama's chief of the Council of Defense and National Security (CDSN), in charge of the country's political police since September 1994. "My politics in the police will be equal to that in the Security Council, following the directives of the president," said Sosa in brief declarations to the press. [ED-LP 12/20/95 from AFP] 18. RAYTHEON SCANDAL STILL HOT IN BRAZIL The Brazilian prosecutor's office opened an investigation on Dec. 19 into charges of illicit enrichment and corruption against Julio Cesar Gomes dos Santos, former chief of protocol for President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Prosecutor Geraldo Brindeiro also asked federal police to investigate Jose Afonso Assumpcao, Brazilian representative for the US arms manufacturer Raytheon Corporation. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/20/95 from EFE] Gomes was fired on Nov. 17 amid charges he was linked to Raytheon's alleged attempts to bribe Brazilian senators to approve its bid on a radar project to monitor the Amazon, called the Amazonia Investigation and Surveillance System (SIVAM) [see Update #304, 306]. The Washington-based investigative journal CounterPunch reports that Gomes is now serving as Brazil's ambassador to Mexico, and that Assumpcao has been "relieved of his duties." Gomes claims his suggestion of a payoff--recorded in a wiretapping--was only a joke. [CounterPunch Vol. 2, #22, 12/15/95] In comments published Dec. 20, US ambassador to Brazil Melvin Levitsky told the daily Jornal do Brasil that suspension of the Raytheon contract would have an impact on US relations with Brazil. [ED-LP 12/24/95 from Notimex] 19. IN OTHER NEWS... On Dec. 15 the US retail clothing chain The Gap signed an accord with the National Labor Committee (NLC), a US-based labor and human rights group, to allow local government human rights office "to monitor factory compliance with The Gap's 'Sourcing Principles and Guidelines'" in El Salvador and other Central American countries. The NLC had been working to expose the firing of pro-union workers and other violations at the Mandarin International maquiladora in El Salvador's San Marcos Free Trade Zone; the factory supplies Gap T-shirts [see Update #287]. [New York Times 12/22/95]. Three former US executives of the Dutch firm Philips cheated the US Defense Department out of $30 million by falsifying documents and manufacturing missile parts in the Dominican Republic, the Miami federal prosecutor's office has reported. Executives Edward Souza, William Kaufman and Samuel Bell--who worked at Philips factories in West Palm Beach and Jupiter, Florida--falsified documentation showing the results of testing the missiles and evaded US requirements by contracting out part of the work to electronics firms based in the Dominican Republic. Some of the missiles were used in the 1991 Gulf War. [Diario Las Americas 12/16/95 from EFE]. US Border Patrol agent Charles Lindbergh Vinson is under arrest on $30,000 bail for sexually assaulting a Salvadoran immigrant on Dec. 15. The victim told police she entered the US illegally to join her family; Vinson detained her just meters away from the border and forced her to commit a sexual act. "At the scene of the events we found physical evidence and we believe that a sexual assault occurred," said police captain Tom Hall. "Of that we are certain." Authorities are asking the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to allow the woman, her husband and her child to remain in the US during the investigation. [El Diario-La Prensa 12/22/95 from AP]. The Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives has abandoned hopes of getting the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act of 1995 (HR 1710) through Congress this year, legislators announced on Dec. 18. Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the Republican leadership had given up on the bill this year because up to 100 Republican members of Congress still opposed it. [NYT 12/19/95 from AP]. Puerto Rican lawyer Juan Mari Bras, who has formally renounced his US citizenship [see Update #306], entered New York City via Kennedy airport without incidents on Dec. 22. Bras came to New York, invited by city councilperson Jose Rivera, to speak at celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Puerto Rico's flag. [ED- LP 12/24/95]. An American Airlines Boeing 757 jet carrying 164 passengers and crew crashed into a mountain on Dec. 20 as it began its descent for landing at Cali airport in Colombia. Seven people were originally thought to have survived the crash, but the number dropped to four after several who were found alive died of their injuries. The cause of the accident remains a mystery, but Colombian authorities have ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack. The Colombian aeronautics director also denied that the lack of radar at Cali's airport could have been a factor. The radar was destroyed in a guerrilla attack three years ago. [ED-LP 12/24/95]. The Cuban government has removed Ernesto Melendez from his post as minister for foreign investment and economic collaboration, responsible for overseeing Cuba's efforts to obtain increased investment, it was reported on Dec. 19. Melendez has been replaced by Ibrahim Ferradaz Garcia, who until now served as chief of the National Auditing Office of the Finance Ministry. The report carried by the Communist Party daily Granma gave no reason for the shakeup, and failed to praise the outgoing minister's work in the manner customary for such announcements. [ED-LP 12/20/95 from EFE; Financial Times (UK) 12/20/95 from AP]. Manoel Ribeiro, councilperson from the leftist Workers Party (PT) in Brazil and a mayoral candidate in the city of Corumbiara, Rondonia state, was shot to death on his doorstep on Dec. 16. Ribeiro had told friends he feared someone might try to kill him because of his insistence on seeking justice for rural squatters massacred by police in Corumbiara on Aug. 9 [see Updates #289, 290, 293, 297]. [NYT 12/19/95] 20. 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. Women's Work Brigade to Nicaragua, 2/3/96-2/24/96. Live & work on a women's cooperative. NICCA, 510-832-4959 Women's Delegation to Cuba, 1/21/96-1/31/96. Investigate contemporary changes affecting women's lives, participate in women's studies seminar. About $1000. Hermanas, 609-448-3819, fax 609-252-1824. THROUGH 1/12 FRI - "Art for the Zapatista Movement" at ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington St. 212-254-3697. 12/27 WED, 10 AM-10 PM - "1st Amazon Arts Festival," crafts, music etc. from Ecuador's Shuar, Achuar, Quichuas & others. Angel Orensanz Foundation, 172 Norfolk St. $10. 212-780-0175. 12/28 THU, 5:30 PM - "Who Should We Defend?" Ctr for Defense Info video. Queens Cable Ch 35. 12/30 SAT, 7 PM - NY Cmts of Correspondence Holiday Party. 122 W 27th St, 10 fl. 212-229-2388. 1/1 MON, 7:30 PM - "Animals in the Mass Media: Images of a Schizophrenic Society." Paper Tiger TV on Manhattan Neighborhood Network ch 16; 1/3 WED, 10:30 PM Brooklyn Cable ch 34, ch 67; 1/4 THU, 4:30 PM Manhattan ch 17; 9:30 PM Bronxnet ch 68. 1/6 SAT, 5 PM at Printed Matter Bookstore, 77 Wooster St. 212-420-9045. 1/1 MON, 4 PM - Haitian Independence Week, Kwanzaa celebration, w/Marx Aristide (Washington Office on Haiti), Ron Daniels (CCR), Mary France. Jim Haughton's loft, 135 Duane St, 3rd fl (between Church & W B'way). $10. 718-533-1624. ================================================================= 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/ =================================================================