WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #318, MARCH 3, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Cuba's Shootdown of Planes Sparks US Sanctions 2. Cuban Pilot Says FBI Knew Planes Would Be Shot Down 3. US Shows Hypocrisy on Plane Shootdowns 4. US Protects Emigre Memorial Protest 5. Pro-Cuba Protests Continue 6. UN Extends Haiti Mission But Doesn't Pay the Bill 7. Police Beat Nicaraguan Lottery Workers 8. US Drug Policy: Mexico's In, Colombia's Out 9. Mexico Flops on Guerrero Coverup, Ruiz Massieu Extradition... 10. El Salvador Community Radio Back on the Air 11. Guatemalan Unionists Threatened, Attacked 12. US Military Prepares Treeless "New Horizons" in Panama 13. In Other News: Venezuela Prisoners & Bolivian Oil Workers ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A one-year subscription (52 issues) is $25. 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If you know someone who might be interested in subscribing, send their email (or regular mail) address to nicanet@blythe.org and request a free one-month trial subscription to the Weekly News Update on the Americas. 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 CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/wnuhome.html http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/nsnhome.html 1. CUBA'S SHOOTDOWN OF PLANES SPARKS US SANCTIONS At about 3:30 pm on Feb. 24, the Cuban air force shot down two Cessna planes operated by the rightwing Miami-based organization Brothers to the Rescue [see Update #317]. According to an official statement from the Cuban ministry of foreign relations (MINREX), the planes were shot down while violating Cuban airspace, at a distance of between five and eight miles north of Baracoa beach near Havana. MINREX says that a third plane, containing Brothers to the Rescue leader Jose Basulto Leon, lingered in international airspace beyond the 12-mile limit from the Cuban coast as the two planes were shot down [Basulto then returned unharmed to Florida with the plane]. Upon passing the 24th parallel, Basulto had communicated with Cuban air authorities; they made it clear he would be in danger if he entered the area, and he made it clear that he understood that danger. An earlier incursion (between 10:15 am and 11:27 am) by three planes (presumably the same three) had been warded off by the presence of the Cuban air force. The incursions occurred on the 101st anniversary of the beginning of Cuba's war of independence, and as Havana residents were preparing for carnival celebrations. [MINREX communique posted via Internet 2/27/96 by the Federation of Cuban Women] Basulto is a veteran of the failed 1961 CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; during the 1980s he provided military assistance to the Nicaraguan contras. [New York Times 2/28/96] CIA agent Felix Rodriguez wrote in his book Shadow Warrior that he and Basulto "have been like brothers" since their training together in Guatemala for the Bay of Pigs. Rodriguez added that Basulto had "been to contra camps in Central America, helping to dispense humanitarian aid." ["Jose Basulto Leon: Background" by Peter Dale Scott, posted on Internet on 2/28/96] A Feb. 26 communique from MINREX states that on Feb. 24, US authorities asked permission to enter Cuban territorial waters north of Havana to join Cuban authorities in search and rescue operations in the area where the two pirate aircraft were downed. According to MINREX, "This also confirms our assertion that the downing did occur in Cuban air space and over Cuban territorial waters, and not in international waters as [US Secretary of State Warren] Christopher indicated." The Cuban government also claims to have "unequivocal proof" including "annotated maps that show the minute-by-minute radar detection," as well as "taped conversations." Chairman of the Cuban-American Pilots Association Jorge Dorrbecker admitted on Feb. 25 that authorities of the US Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) had issued new warnings regarding Cuba three weeks earlier, according to a report from Miami by Mexican news agency Notimex, cited in the MINREX communique. Dorrbecker added that "all pilots were warned that if they crossed the 24th parallel without a flight plan, the Cuban Government would not be held responsible for their personal safety." MINREX ends its communique with the words: "Enough of opportunism, cowardice and attempts to involve Cuba into the electoral politicking of the United States." [MINREX communique 2/26/96] Late on Feb. 27, after more than 24 hours of virtually non-stop efforts on the part of US ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Madeleine Albright, the UN Security Council finally approved a statement "deploring" the Cuban shootdown of the planes. Primarily because of resistance from China, the final statement was considerably watered down from the US proposal, which had sought to condemn Cuba and set the stage for future punitive Security Council action. [NYT 2/28/96] On Feb. 26, US president Bill Clinton imposed sanctions against Cuba, closing off charter air routes, restricting the movements of Cuban diplomats in the US and expanding the broadcasting range of Radio Marti, the radio station run by the US Information Agency to broadcast pro-US propaganda to Cubans. [NYT 2/29/96] But the New York Times suggests that the economic impact of the new measures may be minimal, since they would not affect money sent by emigres to their relatives in Cuba, which currently runs to as much as $500 million a year. And Cuba's share of revenues from phone calls between the countries--estimated at as much as $75 million a year--may actually rise, since many emigres may decide to call relatives instead of visiting. [NYT 3/3/96] On Feb. 28, Clinton and congressional negotiators agreed on a compromise to ensure passage of the Helms-Burton legislation, a package of sanctions against Cuba. The measure would give the US embargo on Cuba the weight of law, preventing any president from acting to loosen or tighten sanctions. The package also includes a provision that would deny US entry visas to anyone with a financial stake in property confiscated by the Cuban government from someone who is now a US citizen. Another provision would allow US citizens whose property was confiscated to file suit in US courts against any foreign company using that property; under the compromise, however, the president would have the right to waive that rule every six months to keep the courts from being choked with lawsuits. The measure would also seek to bar countries from buying Cuban sugar or other products and reselling them in the US; cut aid to Russia if Moscow supports an electronic intelligence-gathering facility in Cuba; and block Cuba from joining international financial institutions. In addition, the bill would call on the US administration to seek an international embargo against Cuba, which was last rejected by the United Nations in a 117 to 3 vote [see Update #301]. The compromise Helms-Burton bill was overwhelmingly approved by a House-Senate conference and put on a fast track for passage; it could be approved as early as the week of Mar. 4. [NYT & Washington Post 2/29/96] Meanwhile, Cuba's Mission to the UN in New York reported receiving bomb threats and personal threats against Cuban diplomats from Feb 24-26. Early on Feb. 26, a Cuban diplomat was attacked and injured by rightwing demonstrators as he left the Cuban Mission on his way to the UN. [Radio Havana Cuba 2/26/96] 2. CUBAN PILOT SAYS FBI KNEW PLANES WOULD BE SHOT DOWN On Feb. 26, Brothers to the Rescue pilot Juan Pablo Roque was presented and interviewed on Cuban national television in Havana. A former major in the Cuban air force who deserted Cuba in 1992 by snorkeling over to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Roque insisted that Brothers is not a humanitarian organization, and that its president, Jose Basulto, is a former agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Roque said that Brothers gets substantial funding from the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and from Cuban-American businesses, including Bacardi, and that the group sometimes even charged for the service it was supposedly created for: helping the balseros--Cubans fleeing the island on rafts--to reach the US. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 2/27/96 from EFE; Inter Press Service 2/27/96] "I know of specific cases in which they received between $2,000 and $4,000 to locate relatives in the Florida straits who were leaving the country, and pass the data to the US Coast Guard," said Roque. [Statement of JP Roque on Cuban TV, posted on Internet 2/27/96 by Federation of Cuban Women] US and Cuban estimates show that at least one of every three balseros died before reaching the US. Roque also admitted participating in a Jan. 9 mission in which thousands of anti-Castro leaflets were dropped by plane on Havana. [IPS 2/27/96] Roque said that at the same time he was involved with Brothers to the Rescue, he was also working as an informant for the US, passing along information about the activities of anti-Castro groups in Florida to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In an interview with the US television news network CNN, Roque said the FBI knew in advance that Cuba was planning to shoot down the two planes; he said an FBI agent named Oscar Montoto told him on Feb. 21, "don't go on that mission because they're going to wipe you out of the sky." [ED-LP 2/29/96 from EFE; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 3/1/96 from EFE; IPS 2/27/96] [In the interview on Cuban television, Roque even gave the beeper or pager number of special agent Montoto: 734- 5578.] The FBI responded on Feb. 28, calling Roque a "liar" but admitting that it paid him $6,722.40 for information about Miami- based groups--including Brothers to the Rescue--which could have violated federal laws in their fight against Cuba. In a communique, the FBI said Roque had offered himself as an informant voluntarily in 1993. [ED-LP 2/29/96 from EFE; DLA 3/1/96 from EFE; IPS 2/27/96] The FBI claims that the last contact it had with Roque was in early February, when he called an agent in Miami to ask for $1,500 he was owed. [ED-LP 2/29/96 from EFE] But according to a bylined article in rightwing Spanish-language Miami daily Diario Las Americas, this phone conversation actually occurred on Feb. 20 or 21. The article reports that Roque spent Feb. 23, his last day in Miami, in a desperate effort to obtain funds. CANF spokesperson and journalist Ninoshka Perez says Roque visited the Foundation's offices on the afternoon of Feb. 23 to get money owed him from sales of his book Desertor, published by CANF. According to the same article, the FBI reportedly admits that in the fall of 1995 it warned Roque not to get involved in illegal activities like flying over Cuban airspace with Brothers to the Rescue, because he "could get shot down." [DLA 3/1/96] The FBI now claims that Roque was only useful as an FBI informant in one case--not linked to Cuban emigre groups--that culminated in the arrest of a fugitive drug trafficker in the Miami area. [NYT 2/29/96] If Roque was in fact working as a double agent for the US and Cuban governments [his wife in Miami, Ana Roque, believes his recent statements in Havana "were forced" [NYT 3/2/96]], then he was hardly the first, an article in the New York Times points out. Other double agents infiltrated in US anti-Castro groups included Jose Rafael Fernandez Brenes, who helped set up and operate the US Information Agency's TV Marti broadcasts from 1988 to 1991, and Francisco Avila Azcuy, who ran operations for the paramilitary group Alpha 66 for more than a decade while reporting secretly to both the FBI and the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate (DGI). Avila provided information to the FBI that helped convict seven Alpha 66 members for violating the Neutrality Act. Maj. Florentino Aspillaga, a DGI officer who defected to the US in 1987, contended that most, if not all, of the Cuban agents recruited by the CIA from the mid-1960s onward were double agents. "Four years later," recounts the New York Times, "CIA analysts and counterintelligence officers glumly concluded that the major was telling the truth." [NYT 3/1/96] 3. US SHOWS HYPOCRISY ON PLANE SHOOTDOWNS The US argues that the 1944 international agreement on civil aviation and its 1984 amendments--known collectively as the Chicago Convention--strictly ban the use of armed force against civilian aircraft. [NYT 2/28/96] But in a letter to the New York Times, international law professor Alfred Rubin points out that the Chicago Convention not only excludes "state aircraft" from its scope, but determines that any aircraft used in military services "shall be deemed to be state aircraft." Rubin adds: "It is possible to argue that dropping political leaflets and supporting a foreign country's dissidents is not `military,' as the term might be strictly construed, but neither is it `civil,' as that term might be equally construed." If the Chicago Convention "were construed to allow political overflights, Cuban aircraft would presumably be free to drop electioneering material in, say, Wilmington, NC, when Senator Jesse Helms is running for reelection." [NYT 3/1/96] [The US government reacted mildly by comparison when one of its own C-130 transport planes was shot down by the Peruvian military on Apr. 24, 1992, just a few weeks after Peru's president dissolved the Congress and court system in a military-backed "self-coup"--see Update #117.] Interestingly enough, less than a week before the planes were shot down by Cuba, the US government agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars in damages to the families of 248 Iranians who were killed in July 1988 when a US warship shot down an Iran Air airbus passenger jet on a regularly scheduled flight over the Persian Gulf. [NYT 2/26/96] 4. US PROTECTS EMIGRE MEMORIAL PROTEST On Feb. 29, Clinton ordered the Coast Guard to accompany a memorial protest flotilla of boats and planes planned for Mar. 2 by Brothers to the Rescue and other rightwing Cuban emigre groups. [NYT 3/1/96] The US navy has also been patrolling the Florida Straits with two ships, one a nuclear-powered anti- aircraft cruiser, the other a guided missile frigate, since the planes were shot down. [WP 2/29/96] A Pentagon back-up plan includes another 13 navy craft, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which were moved into waters about 200 miles away in what Pentagon officials called routine training exercises. [WP 3/1/96] To allow the Coast Guard to participate, Clinton had to declare a state of emergency; during peacetime the Coast Guard is considered non-military and takes its orders from the federal transportation department. [1010 WINS Radio News 3/2/96] Protected by an armada of US Coast Guard and Navy ships and aircraft, six planes from Brothers to the Rescue flew in circles about 20 miles off the coast of Cuba in international waters during the Mar. 2 memorial. Another 12 planes, along with most of the planned flotilla of 35 boats, began the trip but had to turn back because of bad weather. Some 12 boats made it as far as 43 miles south of Key West before dropping their memorial wreaths and a cross in the water and giving up. At the end of the day, Basulto and another pilot returned to Miami and flew above the Orange Bowl, where an estimated 50,000 people--including UN ambassador Albright and pop singer Gloria Estefan--had gathered for a memorial service for the dead pilots. [WP 3/3/96] 5. PRO-CUBA PROTESTS CONTINUE On Mar. 2, five members of the US solidarity groups Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO)/Pastors for Peace completed their 11th day of a liquid- only "Fast for Life" at the US/Mexico border crossing in San Ysidro, California. [IFCO/PfP Update and Action Alert 3/2/96] The fasters are demanding the return of 400 computers which were intended as donations for Cuba's health care system, but were confiscated by US customs authorities on Jan. 31 and Feb. 17 [see Updates #314-316]. The Cuban daily Granma reported on Feb. 24, meanwhile, that the US government recently gave $500,000 to the ultra-rightwing organization Freedom House to send computers to anti-government dissidents in Cuba. [Radio Havana Cuba 2/26/96] Parallel fasts are being organized in San Francisco, Chicago, and several other cities, and people in at least thirty US cities are planning demonstrations for Mar. 6 at federal buildings or other appropriate sites. Some of these may include civil disobedience. A call is going out for international actions at US consulates and embassies on that same day. The primary demand is the release of the 400 seized computers; the demonstrations will also express opposition to the Helms-Burton bill and call for an end to the US embargo. For more information call IFCO in New York at 212-926- 5757 or Pastors for Peace in Minneapolis at 612-870-7121. [IFCO/PfP Emergency Action Alert 2/27/96] 6. UN EXTENDS HAITI MISSION BUT DOESN'T PAY THE BILL In a last-minute vote, on Feb. 29 the United Nations (UN) Security Council agreed to a request from the Haitian government to extend the UN Mission in Haiti (MINUHA) for another four months. The vote came just hours before the current mandate for the military force was set to expire. The Security Council cut the force by more than one third to 1,200 soldiers and 200 police agents. Canada has agreed to supply 700 additional soldiers at its own expense to make up for the cuts. The Chinese government, which can veto Security Council decisions, insisted on the cuts because of the Haitian government's close ties with Taiwan. [New York Times 3/1/96; Washington Post 3/1/96] Many UN member nations are dissatisfied with aspects of the Haiti mission. Some analysts question the role of the Canadian military while investigations are continuing into the torture murder of a Somali teenager by Canadian peacekeepers in Mogadishu in March 1993. Members of the Canadian unit turned out to be in a neo-Nazi cell, and there are suspicions that Canadian soldiers were involved in two other murders of Somalis. [Inter Press Service 2/14/96] Meanwhile, 243 Honduran soldiers have still not been paid for their time in Haiti. Honduras refuses to cover the approximately $1,000 a month the UN is supposed to pay each peacekeeper. The UN owes a total of $1 billion to 75 nations for various peacekeeping operations. UN spokesperson Sylvana Foa says these are "countries sitting out there opening their mail every day hoping for a check from the United Nations." The US is $1.6 billion in arrears to the UN. [IPS 2/14/96, 2/16/96] 7. POLICE BEAT NICARAGUAN LOTTERY WORKERS Five journalists and one police officer were injured and 11 demonstrators were arrested in Nicaragua when anti-riot police violently broke up a protest by lottery ticket vendors outside the National Lottery building in Managua. Television cameraperson Ernesto Pineiro and sound technician Santos Padilla were beaten by anti-riot police who tried to prevent them from filming the incidents. Another TV journalist, Saphja Hamad, fainted from the effects of the police tear gas. Cameraperson Carlos Rizo from the state-run television station was badly injured on the ankle by a homemade bomb that police say was thrown by demonstrators. At a press conference, National Police chief Fernando Caldera promised "severe sanctions" against the agents responsible for attacking the journalists, but said the aggression was not originated by the police. The lottery workers are demanding that the National Lottery recognize its labor relationship with them; they are also seeking a collective labor contract, social benefits and a percentage of the agency's profits. [Diario Las Americas 3/2/96 from AFP] 8. US DRUG POLICY: MEXICO'S IN, COLOMBIA'S OUT On Mar. 1 the government of US president Bill Clinton officially reported that Colombia "cannot be certified as cooperating fully with the United States" in fighting drug trafficking. The White House kept Mexico on the list of "certified" countries, despite speculation that Mexico might be dropped; Paraguay was denied certification but was granted a waiver from the penalties that go with decertification. For the first time Belize was listed as one of the major drug-producing or drug-transit countries. The US decertified Colombia in 1995 but granted a waiver; this year the penalties will be imposed. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/3/96 from AFP; New York Times 3/2/96; Washington Post 3/2/96] US law requires the president to certify or decertify drug- producing countries each year on Mar. 1; Congress then has 30 days to endorse or challenge the report. The decertified country loses direct US economic aid, and the US automatically votes against international development loans; the US president can also impose trade sanctions. The aid Colombia receives from the US is mostly earmarked for fighting the drug trade; this is exempt from the decertification penalties and will be maintained. The real damage to Colombia would come from the automatic US vote against international loans; some $200 million is up for approval this year from the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) and another $300-400 million from the World Bank. US sanctions against Colombia's trade privileges could cost Colombia some $115 million this year. [Financial Times (UK) 2/29/96] Decertification may hasten the downfall of Colombian president Ernesto Samper, who is under investigation for alleged payoffs to his 1994 presidential campaign by the cocaine cartel based in Cali. The Washington Post reports that "[s]everal prominent [Colombian] political leaders, not speaking for attribution, acknowledged that they had urged the United States to take the measure [decertification] while at the same time publicly opposing it." [WP 3/2/96] The US certification process does not play well in Latin America. A Washington Post editorial notes that "however useful for American politicians," certification "may be counterproductive on the Latin ground." Mexicans were outraged by a Feb. 6 statement from US ambassador James Jones that the US had no drug cartels like the ones in Colombia and Mexico. John Saxe, an analyst at the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), argues that in fact "the big drug trafficking business is in the US market, the big money laundering organizations are there." Gregorio Urias of the Sinaloa Autonomous University says the level of drug consumption in the US "implies the existence of domestic organizations with complicated structures dedicated to drug distribution." "80% of the profits from drug trafficking stay in the US. The fight in that country is to ensure that the drug money doesn't leave," he says. [Inter Press Service 2/8/96] The Washington Post reports that a US federal grand jury is now investigating allegations that at least seven employees or former employees of US Customs have been bribed to let drugs pass across the Mexico-US border. [WP 2/20/96] According to Pacific News Service, testimony in the 1993 trials in Texas of four members of Juan Garcia Abrego's so-called "Gulf Cartel" implicated Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) agents in using INS buses to drive Gulf Cartel marijuana and cocaine from the border to Houston. [PNS, posted on New York Transfer 2/13/96] Meanwhile, two New York Customs agents are facing charges of kidnapping and beating a suspected drug dealer while trying to steal his cocaine and his money last September. [NYT 2/21/96] Peter Lupsha, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico, says that "there is a reluctance within the United States, as in any system, to let the dirty laundry hang out publicly. To do so would mean the drug war has not only failed on the supply side, it's failed on the demand side and in the interdiction side as well. That's very bad for public confidence." [PNS 2/13/96] On Feb. 24 Porfirio Munoz Ledo, the president of Mexico's center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), charged that US drug policy was not meant to fight drug trafficking but to improve the US trade and financial balance. He formally requested his party's congressional faction to propose a law for Mexico to certify or decertify US drug fighting efforts. [La Jornada (Mexico) 2/25/96] 9. MEXICO FLOPS ON GUERRERO COVERUP, RUIZ MASSIEU EXTRADITION... The US certification of Mexico's drug fighting efforts followed a series of embarrassments for the Mexican government. On Feb. 27 Oscar Alejandro Varela Vidales, special prosecutor in the southwestern state of Guerrero, finally presented his report on the June 28, 1995 massacre of 17 campesinos by state judicial and riot police at Aguas Blancas in Coyuca de Benitez municipality. Varela Vidales cleared Gov. Ruben Figueroa Alcocer and three other top officials of any responsibility for the killings, which he attributed to the "inexperience" of the police. [New York Times 2/29/96; El Diario-La Prensa 2/29/96 from EFE] The report came two days after Televisa, the pro-government television giant, broadcast a videotape supporting campesino claims that judicial and riot police ambushed and executed the victims, members of the leftist Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS). On Feb. 25 the "Behind the News" program on Televisa's Channel 2 (the "Channel of the Stars") showed a 16- minute police video of the massacre. On the night of the killings Televisa's "24 Hours" had broadcast a version of the tape which Guerrero authorities supplied to the network after editing it down to a little more than two minutes; the shortened version was used to support government claims that the OCSS members had attacked the police. [ED-LP 2/29/96 from AFP; La Jornada 3/2/96, electronic version] The center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) responded to the Guerrero report by threatening to pull out of ongoing talks on national electoral reforms. [NYT 2/29/96] This would leave the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) talking to itself, since the other main opposition party, the conservative National Action Party (PAN), walked out on the talks on Feb. 17, after the PRI refused to discuss charges of electoral fraud in the town of Huejotzingo, near Mexico City in the state of Puebla. [LJ 2/18/96; NYT 2/19/96] But on Feb. 29 PRD and PRI negotiators agreed that the Aguas Blancas case would be reopened and the talks would continue. [LJ 3/1/96, electronic edition] Meanwhile, joint Mexican-US efforts to return former Mexican special prosecutor Mario Ruiz Massieu to Mexico failed again on Feb. 28 when federal judge Maryanne Trump Barry ruled against a US request to deport Ruiz Massieu. In the past year, federal judges have thrown out four efforts to extradite Ruiz Massieu on charges of embezzlement and of misconduct in the investigation into the September 1994 murder of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the special prosecutor's older brother. Last fall the US State Department stepped in to request Ruiz Massieu's deportation under a rarely used provision to deport people whose presence in the US might cause "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" [see Update #308]. Judge Barry ruled that the provision violated Ruiz Massieu's constitutional right to due process. Ruiz Massieu remains in jail in New Jersey, where US Customs officials arrested him on Mar. 3, 1995. [NYT 2/29/96; ED-LP 2/29/96 from AP; Diario Las Americas 3/1/96 from EFE] And pressure is building on Mexican attorney general Antonio Lozano Gracia, the only PAN member in the cabinet, to resolve another open assassination case, preferably this month. Mar. 23 will be the second anniversary of the murder in Tijuana, Baja California, of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta. Lozano's office is now zeroing in on Gen. Domiro Garcia Reyes, the head of Colosio's official security force, and Fernando de la Sota Rodalleguez, the head of a special private security group for the candidate. At a Feb. 24 press conference, Gen. Garcia told reporters he didn't remember key events from the day of the assassination because he was upset at the time. His chauffeur, Othon Cortes Vazquez, is one of the two men convicted so far in the murder. [LJ 2/25/96] De la Sota was a paid informant for the US Central Intelligence Agency from 1990 to 1992 [see Update #288]. Correction: Update #316 reported that the PRD-governed municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez, Guerrero, was demanding the removal of state police and the army from the town and the establishment of a community-based police force. Indigenous towns in northeastern Guerrero have made similar demands. While the Atoyac government shares the other towns' demands for replacement of the judicial police by community police, it is asking for the return of the army, which had been stationed there until 1994, as protection against the judicial police and common criminals. Atoyac has had an average of five killings and one kidnapping a week over the last two years. [LJ 2/25/96] 10. EL SALVADOR COMMUNITY RADIO BACK ON THE AIR In early February, El Salvador's Supreme Court suspended the police order to close down 11 community radio stations and ordered the return of all equipment seized by police last Dec. 4 [see Update #306]. Most of the stations were able to return to the airwaves by Feb. 8, in time to cover the Pope's visit to El Salvador. The original order was issued by Juan Jose Domenech, then president of the National Telecommunications Association (ANTEL) and currently president of the ultra-right ruling National Republican Alliance (ARENA) party. Residents of Guarjila and Nejapa had successfully held off the National Civilian Police (PNC) agents who arrived to confiscate broadcast equipment from stations in their communities; nine other community stations remained shut down for two months. The president of the Association of Radios and Participative Programming of El Salvador (ARPAS) says ARPAS will demand compensation from ANTEL for any damage to the stations' equipment. A technical commission of representatives from ANTEL and ARPAS has determined that broadcast frequencies are available. However, ANTEL still refuses to grant licenses to the community radios, and interprets the Court's decision as requiring the return of equipment, but not authorizing the resumption of broadcasting. [Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) El Salvador Watch #47, March 1996] At the beginning of January, President Calderon replaced Domenech with Juan Jose Daboud. In his first press conference as the new ANTEL president, Daboud insisted that he will continue the privatization policy begun by Domenech, and denied the idea that there will be massive firings at ANTEL. [Flor de Izote Foundation Weekly Report-El Salvador Vol. 7, # 1, 12/18/95-1/9/96, from La Prensa Grafica] 11. GUATEMALAN UNIONISTS THREATENED, ATTACKED On Feb. 27 in Guatemala, Vilma Cristina Gonzalez was abducted and drugged by four armed men, who raped and tortured her for nearly four hours before releasing her. The men also threatened to kidnap and rape Gonzalez's daughters. Gonzalez is the sister of Reynaldo Federico Gonzalez, secretary general of the Federation of Bank and Insurance Employees Unions (FESEBS). Her abductors claimed that her brother had links to the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) guerrilla organization and warned that if she and her brother did not leave the country both of them, and their families, would be killed. Reynaldo Gonzalez had previously received death threats, reportedly because of his role in documenting worker rights abuses in Guatemala; he reported these threats before and after meeting with a US government trade delegation in November to discuss worker rights violations in Guatemala. Reynaldo Gonzalez' findings have been used by US groups in pressuring the US government to keep on probation Guatemala's duty-free trade benefits under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. Unionist Debora Guzman has also received letters recently threatening her with death if her husband, Felix Gonzalez, does not quit his work as a union leader at the Lunafil factory. Faxes urging protection for Guatemalan unionists and their families can be sent to President Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen (fax 011-502-2-537472 or 515667) and Labor and Social Security Minister Arnoldo Ortiz Moscoso (fax 011-502-2-513-559); send copies to US ambassador Marilyn McAfee (fax 011-502-2-310-564) and Assistant US Trade Representative Jon Rosenbaum (fax 202-395-3911) [Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala (NISGUA) Rapid Response Alert 2/29/96] In other human rights news, based on witness's testimonies, the Archbishop's Human Rights Office (ODHA) in Guatemala City has determined that President Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen's bodyguard murdered milk delivery driver Pedro Haroldo Sas Rompiche, shooting him to death although he knew Sas was unarmed [see Update #315]. Sas was shot by Presidential Military Guard member Obdulio Villanueva Arevalo, who is being held in a military prison in Quiche. A Public Ministry investigator reports that witnesses in the Sas case have received visits from heavily armed men who have forbidden them to testify. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA Human Rights Update #4, 2/23/96] 12. US MILITARY PREPARES TREELESS "NEW HORIZONS" IN PANAMA On Jan. 24, Panamanian president Ernesto Perez Balladares attended the inauguration ceremony for "Nuevos Horizontes" ("New Horizons"), a US military civic action project which will build a road in the remote northwestern province of Bocas del Toro. Environmentalists charge that the road will facilitate logging in nearby jungles and La Amistad National Park. The US Agency for International Development has argued that its environmental requirements would not have allowed it to execute such a project; "Nuevos Horizontes," however, falls within the Defense Department, which is not subject to the same regulations. The project will cost the US $1.2 million. [Central America Update (produced by the Washington-based Center for International Policy) Vol. II, #2, 1/16-31/96] 13. IN OTHER NEWS... Some 80 inmates at Venezuela's Barcelona prison began a hunger strike on Feb. 26 to demand that corporal punishment at the prison be stopped, that food be improved, and that new programs be developed to educate prisoners and prepare them for their return to society. [Diario Las Americas 3/1/96 from EFE]... On Feb. 26, oil workers from the southeastern Bolivian region of Camiri ended a 24-hour strike against privatization of the state- owned oil company YPFB, the government's largest and most profitable enterprise. The labor action was supported with a general civic shutdown by residents of Camiri, the center of Bolivia's oil industry, in protest against police repression ordered by the government against oil workers. On Feb. 25, the police had attacked a planned 300 km protest march by more than 200 Camiri oil workers to the city of Santa Cruz. The march had started a day earlier, but the workers only managed to walk 35 km before the police broke it up and arrested union leaders. Local residents had also supported the march with a send-off rally. The national oil workers unions have threatened to protest the police repression by shutting down the valves on the oil pipelines or stopping work at the production wells. [IPS 2/26/96, 2/24/96] Weekly News Update on the Americas (ISSN 1084-922X) is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A 1-year subscription is $25 within the US. Free one-month trial subscriptions are available; back issues and source materials available on request. Feel free to reproduce these updates or reprint information from them, but please credit us. The Update is also available electronically: contact us at nicanet@blythe.org for information. Check out our web site at http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/wnuhome.html MISS THE UPDATE'S CALENDAR OF EVENTS? 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