WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #319, MARCH 10, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Haitian Police Kill 11 in Port-au-Prince 2. Haitians and Puppets Join in Protests 3. Colombian Police Kill Fugitive Trafficker 4. US/Colombia Tensions Continue 5. Anti-Cuba Bill Passes US Congress 6. Cubans Still Being Repatriated, Complain of Harrassment 7. Ex-Police Agent Extradited to El Salvador 8. Mexican Scandals: Colosio Case, Ruiz Massieu, Citibank 9. Action Alerts: Mexican Journalist & Campesino Leader in Danger 10. Ecuadoran Elections Near With Center-Left Divided 11. Guatemalan Army Interferes with Exhumation 12. In Other News: Argentina, Dominican Rep., Guatemala, Noriega 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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HAITIAN POLICE KILL 11 IN PORT-AU-PRINCE At least 11 civilians were killed from Mar. 6 to Mar. 8 in an operation carried out by the newly formed Haitian National Police (PNH) in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Cite Soleil neighborhood against a gang known as the "Red Army." The fighting began early on Mar. 6 when Red Army members erected a barricade and beat and badly injured a police agent. A seven-hour battle followed between the PNH and the heavily armed gang members. Witnesses report that during the fighting police broke into houses where they thought Red Army snipers were hiding; the police allegedly fired indiscriminately inside the houses. Seven civilians were killed in the Mar. 6 shootout, according to the government. A reporter claims to have seen nine bodies on Mar. 7, and Cite Soleil residents say some corpses were hidden or thrown into the ocean. Several more deaths occurred on Mar. 8. Many of Cite Soleil's 100,000 residents say they have been assaulted and robbed by the Red Army, which reportedly includes former members of the rightwing paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) [see Update #305]. But Mireille Jean, a witness to the police action, says she now fears the PNH more than the criminals. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 3/10/96 from AP] The PNH's 6,200 members were trained by Canada, France and the US in a $54 million program; the course included two months of training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. PNH agents have been gradually taking over police functions since last June, replacing the UN occupation forces and an interim police recruited by the US when the US-UN military occupation began in September 1994. Since November the new police have been involved in a number of bloody incidents [see Updates #304 and 305]. On Feb. 21, PNH agents panicked when a civilian drew a gun near a float in the Carnival (Mardi Gras) parade in Port-au-Prince. The police fired into a crowd in the main plaza, killing two. [Associated Press 2/22/96] On Feb. 27 the PNH attacked students from the capital's Petion High School who had blocked the street to protest the authorities' failure to remove mounds of garbage. The police opened fire, wounding two students. There has also been violence between the new police and former members of the interim police, some of whom have been integrated into the PNH. The non- governmental Platform of Human Rights Organizations says that similar incidents "are observed in all the country's other departments." [Haiti Progres (NY) 3/6-12/96] Even before the latest police violence, the US-based Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) reported from Haiti that people there felt the new police were just "another army," referring to the despised rightwing Armed Forces of Haiti, which former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded last year. CPT noted that Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, a spokesperson for President Rene Preval, had charged that the PNH may have been infiltrated by agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see Update #314]. [CPT Notes 2/20/96] 2. HAITIANS AND PUPPETS JOIN IN PROTESTS Five giant puppets of peasant women and an evil-looking puppet named "Structural Adjustment" joined the traditional celebrations in Haiti's Feb. 19-21 Carnival. The procession was organized by a new coalition, the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA), with help from youth and artists' groups, students from the National Art School (ENARTS) and a member of the Vermont- based Bread and Puppet grassroots theater project. "One of our mandates is try to raise the level of awareness on economic policy and political economy in Haiti," a PAPDA director said, "with a particular reference to neoliberalism." The procession included the giant letters "I," 'M" and "F" (International Monetary Fund), and paraders carried banners with slogans such as "IMF = Misery." The unusual protest at the Carnival reflected a growing impatience with the government's economic policies. On Feb. 5 some 600-700 students from the Philippe Guerrier High School in the southwestern city of Les Cayes marched through the streets in solidarity with teachers who had not received six months' back pay. Chanting "Down with corruption," the students went to local government offices and forced them to close down briefly. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #8, 2/24/96] On Feb. 26 protesters in the Pond Rouge area of Port-au-Prince threatened to set 14 government tractors on fire if the authorities didn't clear a canal that had flooded the week before, killing three people and destroying hundreds of homes. Work crews had arrived on the scene but cleaned up an industrial complex instead of the residential area. [New York Times 2/27/96 from Reuter] On the same day, employees of the Information Ministry blocked traffic to protest the planned shutdown of their agency. Information is one of two ministries eliminated by the new Preval government, which is studying cutbacks for the remaining 15 ministries. [HP 3/6-12/96] 3. COLOMBIAN POLICE KILL FUGITIVE TRAFFICKER On the night of Mar. 5, Colombian police shot to death Jose Santacruz Londono, considered one of the top leaders of the Cali drug trafficking cartel, on a street on the outskirts of the city of Medellin. Santacruz had been arrested last July 4, but had escaped from a maximum security prison on Jan. 11 and was being sought by police [see Update #311]. According to national police director Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano Cadena, Santacruz was accompanied in a separate car by 11 bodyguards who opened fire and fled after the police stopped the group; Santacruz reportedly fired seven shots and was himself shot by police as he tried to flee. Police said they found a pistol on the trafficker's body. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/7/96 (partially from AP), 3/10/96 from AFP; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 3/9/96 from EFE] But Santacruz' lawyer Ricardo Villa Alzate denied that Santacruz was armed or protected by bodyguards; at the time he was killed he was accompanied only by his driver and did not resist police, according to Villa. "I'm going to request that the authorities investigate, because arrest orders can't just turn into execution orders," said Villa. [ED-LP 3/7/96, partially from AP] Bogota daily La Prensa reiterated some of the doubts surrounding the police version of the shootout: how did all 11 bodyguards manage to escape? why was no evidence produced that showed that Santacruz fired against the police agents? and why were no bullet shells from the traffickers found in the area? [ED-LP 3/10/96 from AFP] According to Gen. Serrano, at the time of his death Santacruz was negotiating with what remained of the Medellin cartel to establish a terrorist network and buy bombs from El Salvador. Serrano said that by attempting an alliance with the Medellin cartel, Santacruz probably "betrayed his partners of the Cali cartel." [ED-LP 3/7/96 from AP] As evidence of Santacruz' link with Medellin traffickers, Serrano mentioned the fact that Nicolas Escobar --the nephew of slain Medellin cartel chief Pablo Escobar Gaviria--took care of the arrangements to return Santacruz' body to Cali, contracting a private plane to transport the casket. [DLA 3/8/96 from AFP; ED-LP 3/7/96 from AP] The burial of Santacruz was postponed while his lawyer and family members requested a new autopsy by the Forensic Medicine Institute to clarify the circumstances of his death. [ED-LP 3/10/96 from AFP; DLA 3/9/96 from EFE] 4. US/COLOMBIA TENSIONS CONTINUE In a TV interview on Mar. 6, Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano said that the killing of Santacruz showed his government's determination to fight drug trafficking, despite the US government's move less than a week earlier to decertify Colombia's cooperation in the war on drugs [see Update #318]. Samper stressed that the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) played no role in the killing of Santacruz. Foreign minister Rodrigo Pardo said the killing proved the US made a mistake in decertifying Colombia and should change its mind. [Washington Post 3/7/96] Santacruz had four indictments against him in the US, including one in connection with the 1992 murder in Queens of Cuban-born journalist Manuel de Dios Unanue. [WP 3/7/96; ED-LP 3/7/96] [A day earlier, in response to the US decertification, Samper had ordered the police and army to review their bilateral agreements with Washington and present a report. [New York Times 3/6/96; WP 3/7/96] According to Gen. Serrano, the report would "analyze a possible suspension of cooperation with the United States in the fight against drug trafficking and study the participation of US agencies in running radar stations granted on national territory." [NYT 3/6/96]] On Mar. 7, US under-secretary of state for narcotics affairs Robert Gelbard told the US Congress that there are no longer doubts that Samper was elected president with the help of money from drug traffickers. Gelbard also said he questioned Colombia's commitment to fighting drug trafficking, doubted the government's statistics on the eradication of drug crops, and said that the killing of Santacruz and the previous captures of Cali cartel leaders were only undertaken after US pressure. [ED-LP 3/10/96 from AP] In his Mar. 1 announcement of the decertification, Gelbard also charged that "corrupt members of [the Colombian] congress" have blocked laws against drug trafficking. [WP 3/5/96] During a debate in the Colombian Senate on Mar. 8, leftist senator Jorge Santos responded to Gelbard's accusations by burning a US flag. Earlier in the week, Justice Minister Carlos Medellin had charged that US anti-drug aid to Colombia is "ridiculous," therefore the US has no right to question its results through the certification process. Gelbard responded on Mar. 7, telling journalists in Washington, "That was a ridiculous comment from the appropriately named minister Medellin" (a reference to the so-called Medellin drug cartel, based in Colombia's second-largest city). The justice minister replied on Mar. 8, "It doesn't offend me that he is ignorant of the origin of my last name, which I carry with pride...." [ED-LP 3/10/96 from AP] Meanwhile, US president Bill Clinton has asked Congress to transfer $250 million of the Pentagon's budget into the war against drug trafficking and drug consumption. Clinton announced his request at the swearing-in ceremony of Barry McCaffrey, new director of the Office of Drug Control Policy [see Update #315]. The White House anti-drug agency was created in 1988 by then- president Ronald Reagan; its budget for fiscal year 1996 (beginning Oct. 1) is $10 million, compared with $13.3 million for the previous fiscal year. [DLA 3/8/96 from AFP] 5. ANTI-CUBA BILL PASSES US CONGRESS On Mar. 5, the US Senate voted 74 to 22 in favor of a final compromise version of legislation tightening the US embargo on Cuba and punishing other countries that do trade with Cuba. The US House of Representatives passed the package, known as the Helms-Burton bill, on Mar. 6. US president Bill Clinton has promised to sign the bill into law. Earlier versions of the bill passed the House on Sept. 21 by a vote of 294 to 130 [see Update #295] and the Senate on Oct. 19 with 74 to 24 [see Update #299]; the legislation was then held up by a White House veto threat until the Cuban government's Feb. 24 downing of two small planes prompted Clinton to come to agreement with legislators on a compromise version of the bill [see Update #318]. [New York Times 3/6/96; Washington Post 3/7/96] On Mar. 6, the Russian parliament voted 291 to two, with one abstention, in favor of a declaration accusing the US of using the plane shootdown as a pretext for passing the Helms-Burton bill. The parliament found it "particularly alarming that US would approve a law imposing clauses of US national legislation on other countries." [El Diario-La Prensa 3/7/96 from AP] Numerous other countries have jumped in to condemn the bill, with Canada and the European Union leading the pack. The European Commission is considering filing a joint action against the measure with the World Trade Organization (WTO). [ED-LP 3/8/96 from AFP] Both the Panamanian and Nicaraguan governments were among those who expressed strong disagreement with the Helms- Burton legislation. [Diario Las Americas 3/9/96 from AFP] Speaking to a special session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on Mar. 6, Cuban foreign minister Roberto Robaina explained how two years of intrusions launched from the US into Cuban waters and airspace led to his government's decision to shoot down the two planes, operated by the Miami-based organization Brothers to the Rescue. Robaina said that a flight on Nov. 10, 1994, dropped leaflets over eastern Cuba after taking off from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. US officials acknowledged on Mar. 6 that Brothers to the Rescue had been allowed to fly to Guantanamo with lawyers to assist Cuban refugees then housed there. On its return, the plane flew over Cuba and the organization was barred from making any more flights to the base. [NYT 3/7/96] In an interview published Mar. 8 in the Miami Herald, Brothers to the Rescue president Jose Basulto announced that his group would fly to the Bahamas on Mar. 9 to take supplies to a camp of Cuban migrants there. Basulto added that the organization is planning new flights to search for balseros (Cubans who flee the island on small boats or rafts) in the Florida straits--although he admitted that his group has not spotted any balseros since last August. [There was no mention of what Brothers to the Rescue would do if they did find balseros, since US policy is now to repatriate any Cubans who try to enter the US illegally.] Asked whether the group was planning on violating Cuban airspace again, Basulto replied, "It is an option that will always be present and I'm going to reserve the answer to that question." When asked if the Cuban government's claims that Brothers to the Rescue had entered Cuban airspace 25 times were true, Basulto responded, "I haven't counted them." [ED-LP 3/10/96 from AFP] 6. CUBANS STILL BEING REPATRIATED, COMPLAIN OF HARRASSMENT While US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright was busy arguing at the UN General Assembly that the four pilots killed in Cuba's Feb. 24 shootdown of the two US planes were "full of...concern for the survival of those who might try...to flee the despotic regime of Cuba" [DLA 3/8/96, quote retranslated from Spanish], the government on whose behalf she was speaking seemed a bit lacking in concern for those fleeing Cuba. Cuban daily Granma, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party, reported on Feb. 13 that a total of 280 Cubans who attempted to emigrate illegally to the US have been repatriated to Cuba by US authorities since the Cuban and US governments signed accords on migration in May 1995. According to Granma, 220 of the repatriated Cubans were intercepted at sea, while another 60 were stopped attempting to approach the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. [Inter Press Service 2/13/96] Another five Cubans intercepted at sea were sent back to Cuba on Mar. 4. US officials said the migration accords had not been affected by the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes. [NYT 3/5/96 from Reuter] The New York Times reported on Mar. 10 that members of the first group of Cubans forcibly repatriated after the accords were signed last May now claim they are being harrassed by Cuban authorities--in violation of the terms of the accords--and that US authorities in Cuba are doing nothing to help them or prevent the abuse. [NYT 3/10/96] Meanwhile, the last 124 Cuban migrants to leave the detention camp at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay arrived at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida on a charter flight on Jan. 31. Military officials say the camp's cots--used to sleep the 29,000 Cubans and 21,000 Haitians held at Guantanamo during in the spring and summer of 1994--will now go to Atlanta for the Olympics, and the wood from hardback tents has been donated to Haiti and Panama for housing. But the base has kept materials to house about 10,000 migrants, in case the need arises again. [New York Times 2/1/96] In related news, authorities in Panama recently apprehended two of three Cuban migrants who escaped into Panama in 1994 from the US camp set up there to hold the overflow from Guantanamo. [Central America Update Vol. II, #2, 1/16-31/96] On Feb. 22, the Cuban government announced it will allow expatriate Cubans to travel freely to the island without requiring an entry permit for each visit. The new travel permits will be issued by Cuban consulates worldwide upon request; they will allow travelers to visit as often as they like and stay up to three months on each entry. The document will be valid for a period of two years and can be renewed twice. Those who have hostile attitudes toward the Cuban government or who have pending court cases in their country of residence will not be eligible for the new permit; the permit can be revoked at any time if the bearer becomes ineligible after receiving it. Anyone who does not wish to apply for the permit may continue to travel to Cuba under the existing regulations. [ED-LP 2/23/96 from EFE; Radio Havana Cuba 2/22/96] Over the weekend of Mar. 3, Cuban foreign minister Roberto Robaina announced in Harlem that his government had granted the first 100 of the new travel permits. [ED-LP 3/4/96] 7. EX-POLICE AGENT EXTRADITED TO EL SALVADOR On Mar. 6, Salvadoran former police agent Carlos Romero Alfaro was extradited from the US to El Salvador. Romero, a former agent of the National Civilian Police (PNC), was arrested on Sept. 13 in Houston, Texas, by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [see Update #294, 295]; he was sought by Salvadoran authorities in connection with the Oct. 25, 1993 murder in San Salvador of Francisco Velis, a top leader of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) [see Updates #196, 197]. "The extradition is a positive step," said FMLN leader Salvador Sanchez, "but we believe that the government has an obligation to arrive at the depths of the case." According to the FMLN leadership, more than 30 top and mid-level FMLN leaders have been murdered since the signing of the peace accords, and none of the cases have been resolved. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/8/96 from AP; Diario Las Americas 3/9/96 from EFE] Romero claims to be innocent; he says he is the victim of "blackmail" and "vengeance" by someone who was arrested for homicide in a case he investigated while working for the PNC's Criminal Investigations Division. [DLA 3/9/96 from EFE] 8. MEXICAN SCANDALS: COLOSIO CASE, RUIZ MASSIEU, CITIBANK Members of the Mexican legislative committee investigating the March 1994 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta have told the Mexico City daily La Jornada that Major Hector Eustolio Moran, a member of Colosio's official security force, is now being held in a military prison. Moran allegedly was given an order to arrest Mario Aburto Martinez in the southwestern state of Michoacan on Mar. 18, 1994, when Colosio was making a campaign swing through the state. He was later given an order not to make the arrest, according to the legislators. Five days later Colosio was killed in Tijuana, Baja California; Aburto is the convicted assassin. Upon being shown Aburto's photo after the murder, Major Moran reportedly said: "He was the one we were going after. If they'd given me 48 hours, nothing would have happened." He also allegedly said: "Hell, it wasn't worth it to kill him [Colosio]... Just making him sick would have been enough." Moran denies the charges but admits to being close to Gen. Domiro Garcia Reyes, the head of Colosio's security and the godfather of Moran's niece. Garcia Reyes is under investigation in the Colosio case, and his chauffeur, Othon Cortes Vazquez, was charged with shooting Colosio in the abdomen just after Aburto shot the candidate in the head. [La Jornada (Mexico) 3/5/96] [Cortes has been held in jail for a year but has not been convicted, as was erroneously reported in Update #318.] On Mar. 6 former Mexican assistant attorney general Mario Ruiz Massieu was released from a New Jersey prison after more than a year in custody. Over that year the Mexican government made four unsuccessful efforts to extradite Ruiz Massieu on charges of embezzlement and of obstructing the investigation into the September 1994 murder of his brother, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu; a deportation effort by the US government has also failed but is on appeal. Mario Ruiz Massieu will remain under house arrest during the appeal process and will have to wear an electronic identification bracelet; the $9 million he kept in two Texas bank accounts is being used for his bail. [New York Times 3/7/96] Upon being released, Ruiz Massieu said he had written two books during his time in jail, one about his experiences and one about the Mexican political system. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/8/96 from AP] According to the Los Angeles Times, last November Ruiz Massieu gave his lawyers an explanation for the $9 million he kept in Texas; the US charges this represents payoffs by drug traffickers. Ruiz Massieu reportedly told the lawyers that most of the money came from bonuses given him by then-president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, but that he also received some $3 million dollars in trust from the assassinated Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, who gave his younger brother the money in eight or nine suitcases. "He didn't want to have a bank account in the US, because of his political career," Mario said, but wanted to get the money out of Mexico in case of a devaluation of the peso (which came in December 1994). [LJ 3/5/96] At the time, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu was the general secretary of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has just marked its 67th year in power. The Mexican government charges Mario Ruiz Massieu with covering up the role of Carlos Salinas' brother Raul in Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu's murder. Raul Salinas himself has at least $80 million in Swiss bank accounts. The CBS television network reports that a US grand jury is investigating the possible role of the New York-based Citibank in transferring Raul Salinas' unexplained fortune to Switzerland. If the money comes from criminal activities and Citibank officials were aware of its origins, they could be charged under US laws against money laundering. Citibank spokesperson Richard Howe says that the bank does not discuss publicly the identity of its clients. [LJ 3/8/96, electronic edition] 9. ACTION ALERTS: MEXICAN JOURNALIST & CAMPESINO LEADER IN DANGER On Jan. 28 Aquilino Mendoza of the El Llano community in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz fired at the radio journalist Jose Barron Rosales, denouncing his work for Radio Huayacocotla. Barron Rosales was not wounded but he has continued to receive threats. Despite testimony by witnesses, no action has been taken against Mendoza. Radio Huaya is a Jesuit-sponsored shortwave station that broadcasts to campesino communities in the Nahuatl, Otomi and Tepahua languages. The federal government suspended its license briefly last year [see Updates #272, 274 and 291]. The Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Center (PRODH) and the London- based Amnesty International (AI) are asking for faxes to Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (011-525-271-1764) and Veracruz governor (011-52-282-82167) to express concern for Barron Rosales' safety and to call for an investigation of the threats and the Jan. 28 assault. [PRODH Action Alert 2/23/96; AI Action Alert 2/27/96] Angel Valdovinos Garza, a member of the militant Southern Sierra Campesino Organization (OCSS) of Guerrero, has not been seen since Jan. 26, when he was driven away from a bus station in Acapulco by members of the state Governance Secretariat. Valdovinos has been a leader in the struggle for 40 campesino families to keep their land in Las Antenas, Petatlan municipality. In May 1995 another OCCS leader, Gilberto Romero Vazquez, disappeared in Atoyac de Alvarez municipality; in June state judicial police ambushed a group of OCSS members near Atoyac, killing 17. AI is asking for faxes to Zedillo and Guerrero governor Ruben Figueroa Alcocer (011-52-747-23072 voice line; for fax, ask "Me puede dar tono de fax, por favor?") to express concern about Valdovinos Garza and to call for an impartial investigation. [AI Action Alert 2/23/96] 10. ECUADORAN ELECTIONS NEAR WITH CENTER-LEFT DIVIDED On Feb. 19, the registration period ended for candidates for Ecuador's May 19 general elections. According to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), 12 presidential candidates will be on the ballot. Five of the candidates are backed by one or more of Ecuador's 17 parties, while seven are independents. Voters will elect a president, vice president and 12 national-level deputies, all for four-year terms; 70 provincial legislators for two-year terms; and 21 prefects, 74 provincial council members, 27 mayors, 171 city council presidents, and 819 municipal council members. A runoff will be held on June 7 for any offices for which no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round. Constitutional reforms enacted in 1994 allow independent candidates to run for office. Before, only members of legally recognized parties could compete in elections. To run as an independent, a candidate must obtain 99,000 signatures of support--1.5% of the eligible voters. On Jan. 17, a spokesperson for the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) announced that Ecuador's indigenous population--about 40% of the country's total population of 11 million--will for the first time field candidates for national and provincial deputies, mayors, prefects, and city council posts in most of the country's provinces [see Update #312]. CONAIE president Luis Macas will run for national deputy as an independent. On Jan. 25, it was announced that former president Rodrigo Borja (1988-1992) had decided not to accept the presidential nomination of the Democratic Left (ID) party. Human rights groups, government employee unions, indigenous and women's groups, and various grassroots church organizations had urged Borja to run because they felt he had the best chance to beat rightist candidate and front-runner Jaime Nebot. Borja said his decision was made "for personal and political reasons." Sources close to Borja said his decision came, in part, because none of the other center-left candidates were willing to withdraw from the race, and he felt that dividing the vote among them would prevent any center-left candidate from being elected. When he announced his decision, Borja called on the other center-left candidates to set aside their personal ambitions and work toward "combining the forces of those in the center and those on the left to confront the right and the neoliberal agenda." On Jan. 31, ID national director Jorge Gallardo announced that he was withdrawing as running mate on the coalition ticket of presidential candidate retired Gen. Frank Vargas Pazzos, and that the ID was splitting away from Vargas' Ecuadoran Popular Revolutionary Action (APRE). Vargas gained notoriety in 1986 when he led a coup attempt against ex-president Leon Febres Cordero's administration. He was jailed, but a year later his supporters kidnapped Febres Cordero and forced him to release the general from prison. Congress later granted Vargas amnesty. Since then, he has been active in politics, identified with the center-left; he is presently a deputy from Pichincha province. On Feb. 2, Freddy Ehlers, a popular and well-known television journalist, announced his candidacy as an independent, backed by the New Country Movement, which includes CONAIE and several labor, nongovernmental and grassroots organizations. On Feb. 6, the ID also threw its support behind Ehlers, saying he is the best option to end widespread corruption in the country. The Socialist Party also announced that it will back Ehlers. Within days of announcing his candidacy, Ehlers had climbed to second place in several polls, including one conducted by the prestigious public opinion firm CEDATOS. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 2/23/96 from Inter Press Service, Reuter, Agence France- Presse] But on Feb. 22, CONAIE withdrew its support from Ehlers because his running mate--Rossana Vinueza de Tama, an environmentalist who served as vice minister of social welfare under the current administration--is connected with the far rightwing Catholic group Opus Dei. Vinueza, who was "Miss Ecuador" in 1969, founded the Natura Foundation, one of the most important national environmental organizations. CONAIE said it was considering switching its support to Vargas. According to Valerio Greffa, a founding member of CONAIE, the 10 indigenous ethnic groups of Ecuador represent 1,350,000 votes, 39% percent of the national total. [IPS 2/22/96] Leading the polls with about 30% support is Jaime Nebot, running on the Social Christian Party ticket. Nebot, a Guayaquil lawyer who lost to President Sixto Duran Ballen in 1992, is considered almost certain to be one of the candidates in an expected June 7 runoff; he has significant financial backing and is considered the protege of Guayaquil mayor and former president Febres Cordero (1984-1988). [LADB Notisur 2/23/96 from IPS, Reuter, AFP] Late in the week of Mar. 4, TSE president Carlos Pardo announced that an attempt at fraud had been detected, and that he had asked army intelligence to investigate. Pardo said some 20% of the nearly one million voters of Guayaquil, Ecuador's biggest city, are improperly registered; as an example, he showed that one person was registered seven times with different identity card numbers. In addition, said Pardo, thousands of blank voter identity cards were lost by the Civil Registry. [Diario Las Americas 3/9/96 from AFP] 11. GUATEMALAN ARMY INTERFERES WITH EXHUMATION Forensic experts said on Feb. 27 that they had finished exhuming a mass grave containing the charred remains of 167 indigenous Quiche Guatemalans in the village of Agua Fria, Quiche province. "From a forensic point of view it will be very difficult to identify the victims because the army burnt the bodies," said forensics expert Juan Alberto Chamaley. Agua Fria is one of more than 400 indigenous villages wiped off the map in the early 1980s at the height of the Guatemalan army's scorched-earth campaign. The same forensic team so far has exhumed 11 mass graves in Guatemala but said hundreds more still have to be excavated. [Reuter 2/27/96] Members of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Team (EAFG) reported that armed men posing as journalists visited the excavation site at Agua Fria, videotaping the excavations and interviewing survivors of the September 1982 massacre in the village. The men, thought to be army intelligence agents, left after being questioned by the team. EAFG and National Human Rights Coalition (CONADEHGUA) members working in Agua Fria expressed their fear of reprisals against massacre survivors resulting from the incident. EAFG director Fernando Moscoso said the team also found that the grave site was dug up recently, possibly to hide evidence of the massacre. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #9, 2/29/96] 12. IN OTHER NEWS... At least seven people were injured and five arrested during a street clash between police and local residents in Ezeiza, Argentina, late in the week of Mar. 4. The police were carrying out a judicial order to accompany workers from the energy company EDESUR, who were to install high tension towers in the area. Dozens of angry residents tried to block the workers; the protesters argue that the installation of 132,000-volt cables at a height of 22 meters represents a serious danger for the heavily-populated neighborhood. [Diario Las Americas 3/9/96 from EFE]... Former president of the Dominican Republic Jacobo Majluta died on Mar. 2 at the Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. He was 61. His body was shipped back to Santo Domingo and buried with honors on Mar. 6; President Joaquin Balaguer declared Mar. 4-6 an official period of national mourning. Elected vice president in 1978, Majluta became president on July 4, 1982, when then-president Antonio Guzman Fernandez committed suicide; he served only 43 days before president-elect Balaguer took office on Aug. 16. Majluta left the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) and founded the Independent Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1990. On Jan. 26 of this year Majluta signed a pact with PRD presidential candidate Jose Francisco Pena Gomez and brought the PRI into the Santo Domingo Accord, the coalition supporting Pena Gomez' candidacy. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/4/96 from AP; DLA 3/8/96 from EFE]... On Mar. 7, US lawyer Jennifer Harbury filed a $25 million lawsuit in US District Court in Washington against several current and former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials, State Department officials and other US national security officials. The lawsuit claims that the officials-- including former CIA directors Robert Gates and R. James Woolsey, and current CIA director John Deutch--obstructed Harbury's efforts to save her husband, Guatemalan guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, by failing to tell her that he was still alive. The suit, filed by attorneys Beth Stephens and Anna Marie Gallagher, also charges that the officials later knew Bamaca had been killed but kept that information a secret from Harbury. [Washington Post 3/8/96]... US federal judge William Hoeveler is now conducting hearings in Miami on a request for a new trial by former Panamanian military leader Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega. On Mar. 4 Hoeveler heard testimony from two unidentified witnesses from Colombia's Cali drug cartel who said that the cartel had paid star witness Ricardo Bilonick $1.25 million for his 1992 testimony against Noriega. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/5/96 from AP; New York Times 3/5/96; Washington Post 3/5/96] On Mar. 6 convicted Colombian drug trafficker Carlos Lehder appeared in court to withdraw his testimony against Noriega, charging that he had made a deal with US prosecutors which they did not honor. [Diario Las Americas 3/8/96] CORRECTION: Some editions of last week's Update #318 were incorrectly dated. The correct publication date is March 3, 1996.