WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #324, APRIL 14, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. El Salvador: Police Violently Evict Squatter Community 2. Deja Vu in Mexico: Police Ambush Morelos Protesters 3. Mexican Rebels Host Continental Meeting 4. UN Backtracks on Neoliberalism; IMF Discovers "Ordinary People 5. Brazil: 1,000 Claims Filed Against Indigenous Lands 6. Prisoners Get Pardon in Brazil 7. Argentine Prison Rebellion Ends 8. Argentine Rebels Attack Dirty War Targets 9. Peacemaker Mayor Threatened in Colombia 10. Guatemalan Attorney General Resigns Under Pressure 11. Leftist Legislators Under Attack in Guatemala 12. Guatemalan Journalists Attacked 13. Guatemalan Army: From Jaguars to Pussycats 14. In Other News: Colombia, Chile, Immigration, Haiti & More ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. 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NOW AVAILABLE: The long-awaited Annual Update Index! Available for each year from 1991 through 1995. Ascii text versions free to subscribers via electronic mail. Send your request to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org NOW AVAILABLE: "Immigration in the USA One Year After Proposition 187," a Weekly News Update on the Americas special report, accompanied by a resource list and organizing leaflet. Ascii text version free to subscribers via email. Send your request to nicajg@nyxfer.blythe.org 1996 SOURCE LIST NOW AVAILABLE: A list of sources commonly-used in the Weekly News Update on the Americas, along with abbreviations and contact information. Free to subscribers. Send your request to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org *1. EL SALVADOR: POLICE VIOLENTLY EVICT SQUATTER COMMUNITY On Apr. 10, anti-riot troops from El Salvador's National Civilian Police (PNC) violently evicted 153 families who had been occupying privately-owned land for the past three years in the Nuevo Amanecer (New Dawn) community in Ilopango, 7 km east of San Salvador. Three community leaders were arrested during the police action, and some 20 women and children were hospitalized after being beaten and tear gassed by the police agents. Most of the men of the community were away at work at the time of the eviction. The police had arrived in the morning to begin the eviction, but met with resistance from several residents armed with machetes and iron pipes. After talks with the community leaders failed to produce results, the police began the eviction at midday, throwing tear gas canisters and other objects at the residents and confiscating their machetes. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 4/12/96 from AFP] *2. DEJA VU IN MEXICO: POLICE AMBUSH MORELOS PROTESTERS On Apr. 10 marches and other protests by Mexican campesino and leftist organizations marked the 77th anniversary of the assassination of revolutionary campesino hero Emiliano Zapata. In Mexico City thousands of demonstrators marched to the Monument of the Revolution. A few dozen campesinos broke away to pelt the US embassy with cow dung they had brought in plastic bags; the group was protesting the Apr. 1 beating of two Mexicans by sheriff's deputies in southern California [see "In Other News...", item #14 on page 6]. [Associated Press 4/11/96] President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon was to attend the official commemoration at the town of Tlaltizapan, Zapata's headquarters during the Revolution, about 45 miles south of Mexico City in Morelos state. According to the left-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Zedillo's military security instructed state police to prevent any anti-government demonstrations during the president's visit. The situation in Morelos has been tense since last September, when residents of Tepoztlan municipality drove out state police and the town government to stop the construction of a golf club by the powerful Grupo KS company in a nearby national park. The Tepoztecos (Tepoztlan residents) then defied the state government by electing a new municipal government, composed of members of the Tepozteco Unity Committee (CUT), a nonpartisan group formed to fight the golf club plan [see Update #314]. On Apr. 10 up to 500 Tepoztecos--many of them older women--set off on buses for Tlaltizapan to present Zedillo with a letter asking his intervention to resolve the conflict. About 60 state police stopped the protesters on the highway at the town of San Rafael. In the ensuing confrontation, one Tepozteco was shot dead, several dozen were injured and 34 were arrested. State authorities claimed the police were unarmed, but Tepoztlan's CUT government produced a videotape showing the police shooting at and beating the demonstrators, who could be heard begging to be allowed to turn back to Tepoztlan. Reporters found signs that police had tampered with evidence at the site; the body of the protester who died--Marcos Olmedo Gutierrez, a 65-year CUT and PRD leader known to his friends as "The Shark"--was found hours later 20 kilometers away in the town of Jojutla. The arrested protesters were all released by Apr. 11. On Apr. 12 the Morelos government filed charges ranging from homicide to abuse of authority against state Preventive Police director Juan Manuel Arino Sanchez and 54 other police agents. The same day Television Azteca broadcast an interview in which Grupo KS head Francisco Kladt Sobrino announced that his company was cancelling the golf club project because "last Wednesday's acts of violence" created a climate where it was not possible to "guarantee the investment." CUT and state PRD members are now demanding a special prosecutor and the resignation of Gov. Jorge Carrillo Olea. [La Jornada (Mexico) 4/12/96, 4/13/96, electronic editions; New York Times 4/13/96] Ruben Figueroa Alcocer, governor of the southwestern state of Guerrero, was forced to resign on Mar. 12 after a videotape proved that state judicial police were responsible for a similar but even bloodier massacre of 17 campesino protesters near Acapulco last June [see Update #320]. Meanwhile, at least one campesino has died during three weeks of growing tension in the town of Sabanilla, near Tabasco in the southeastern state of Chiapas. On Mar. 22 the local PRD, which boycotted last October's municipal elections, ousted the town government and occupied the municipal building. The protesters entered into negotiations with the state government, but members of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who are probably a minority in Sabanilla, retaliated with several attacks on PRD supporters. The federal army also reportedly intervened on the PRI's side on Apr. 10. Chiapas human rights groups are asking for faxes to President Zedillo (011-525-271-1764) to demand that the authorities act to prevent further bloodshed and to reestablish negotiations. [Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center Action Alert 4/11/96] *3. MEXICAN REBELS HOST CONTINENTAL MEETING More than 400 delegates from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, the US and Venezuela attended the Apr. 4-8 "Continental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism" hosted by Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) in the village of La Realidad, deep in Chiapas' Lacandona Forest. The meeting, focused on the Americas, was the first in a series of five to be held in Berlin, Sydney, Tokyo and an undetermined location in Africa in preparation for an "Intercontinental Meeting" at the end of July. The delegates in La Realidad received letters of support from well-known intellectuals and activists such as Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano and Argentina's Hebe de Bonafini, leader of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. [Reuter 4/3/96, 4/8/96; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update #66-67, 4/10/96 from Reforma 4/7/96] The meeting opened on Apr. 4 with a statement by EZLN leader "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos." Marcos reminded the delegates of the example of the Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara: "Twenty-nine years ago those in power told us that history was over" with Guevara's death in 1967. "They said that the possibility of a different, better reality was destroyed. They said that rebellion was over." Marcos then ran through a list of labor, community and campesino protests reported by wire services on Mar. 28 in Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Venezuela, Peru and Costa Rica. "All this took place in only two days...30 years later. Has rebellion stopped?" Marcos asked. [Draft Translation by Monique Lemaitre 4/8/96] The meeting was to divide into five working groups to produce a public declaration criticizing neoliberal policies. [Reuter 4/5/96] The EZLN has been maneuvering to bring together a broad front of opposition to neoliberalism both inside and outside Mexico. On Mar. 21 the rebels sent Amalia Solorzano de Cardenas 3,000 pesos (about $480) from their resistance fund as a donation to Petroquimicas Mexicanas, a "social enterprise" being created to buy petrochemical plants which would otherwise be privatized to foreign investors. Solorzano is the widow of President Lazaro Cardenas, who nationalized the oil industry in 1938, and mother of PRD leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, who is to head the company [see Update #321]. In her public letter of thanks, Solorzano offered the rebels her "affection and warm friendship" and noted that the donation must have been made "in conditions of extreme sacrifice." [LJ 3/31/96] Cardenas and Solorzano are now issuing bonds for the new company at 100 pesos ($16) each; the stocks too will be issued at 100 pesos. [Mexico Update 4/10/96] The rebels have also been courting celebrities. In late March Marcos hosted Hollywood director Oliver Stone in La Realidad. Stone posed for photos wearing Marcos' trademark ski mask and smoking his trademark pipe. Shortly after Stone's arrival his current movie, "Nixon" was removed from all Mexican theaters. [Mexico Update 4/10/96] *4. UN BACKTRACKS ON NEOLIBERALISM; IMF DISCOVERS "ORDINARY PEOPLE" In a report to be released in Costa Rica at its biannual meeting, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean concludes that more than a decade of free market adjustments has "created a fundamental transformation in the region's process of development" but has failed to lower unemployment and poverty levels and in some cases has worsened these problems. "This presents a not-too-healthy social panorama," the study says, "with latent problems that could make it difficult to sustain the process of development." The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the report, notes that "frustration over the economic model is now one of the principal causes of civic unrest in the region, responsible for the peasant uprising in Mexico as well as periodic riots in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and elsewhere." The UN commission recommends tax breaks to increase business investment, easier credit terms to small and medium businesses, relaxation of forced savings through pensions, and more funding for social programs. [WP 4/13/96] The admission of problems with neoliberal policies comes as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claim to be modifying their policies to give more support to local credit unions and small businesses. The New York Times, a major proponent of the neoliberal model, now says that international lending to "big projects...which often prove ruinous even though they mean fat supply contracts for companies in the donor countries...is giving way to an emphasis on projects to improve the welfare of ordinary people." [NYT 4/7/96] *5. BRAZIL: 1,000 CLAIMS FILED AGAINST INDIGENOUS LANDS On Apr. 8, Brazilian ranchers, loggers, local and state governments, and squatters all rushed to meet the 90-day deadline for filing land claims with the government's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), as established by a Jan. 8 decree that allows challenges to indigenous lands [see Updates #311, 312, 314]. Over 1,000 complaints relating to some 70 different indigenous areas have now been filed. The Rondonia state government--which received $167 million from the World Bank for land use zoning and indigenous land protection (see below)--has called for the reduction of four of its indigenous areas; both the Rondonia and Para state governments challenged all of the indigenous lands open to contest within their boundaries. The Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA), the federal government's environmental agency, challenged 18 areas, covering more land than any other single claimant. When informed in Washington of the agency's action, IBAMA president Raul Jungman reportedly ordered the challenges withdrawn. FUNAI will have 60 days to prepare responses to the challenges, after which time the Justice Ministry will have 30 days to decide on the disputed areas. Justice Minister Nelson Jobim can then take a further 90 days before making a final decision to gather new information if he deems it necessary. "The claims against Indian land lack all legal merit," said Marcio Santilli, former FUNAI president and current executive secretary of the Social Environment Institute (ISA). Santilli believes the land claims will be rejected because claimants have not presented the required evidence--based on anthropological field studies-- showing that the areas in question were not occupied by indigenous people when first identified by FUNAI. [ISA & Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) press release 4/9/96] [On Jan. 25 the World Bank's Executive Board rejected an appeal by Brazilian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to have the Bank's inspection panel formally investigate the Bank's $167 million project in Rondonia. The 18-month-old inspection panel had itself endorsed the appeal after a visit to the Rondonia Agricultural, Livestock and Forestry (PLANAFLORO) project last summer. Instead, the board decided to endorse a plan put forward by the Bank management which promised to monitor implementation of the PLANAFLORO project more closely. The board also said it will review the project in the next six to nine months and will ask the inspection panel to assist in that process, according to sources close to the board. [Inter Press Service 1/25/96]] *6. PRISONERS GET PARDON IN BRAZIL A week after inmates seized hostages and negotiated their breakout from a prison in Goias state [see Update #323], Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso has issued a decree allowing state judicial authorities to pardon prisoners serving sentences for common crimes. The new law, which took effect on Apr. 12 when it was published in the official government newspaper, could benefit between 15,000 and 18,000 prisoners, about a tenth of the country's current prison population. Under the decree, prisoners who are serving sentences of six years or less, who are not considered dangerous, and who have shown good behavior in prison will be eligible for release after completing one sixth of their terms. Their release will be conditional for a two-year probationary period, and their criminal records will not be cleared. A justice ministry spokesperson explained that the pardon will help reduce overcrowding in Brazil's prisons. Excluded from the pardon are those convicted of such crimes as homicide, armed assault, rape, kidnapping or other violent acts. [El Tiempo (Colombia) 4/13/96 from Reuter, via World Wide Web; Diario Las Americas 4/13/96 from AFP] Leonardo Pareja, who led the prison uprising in Goias, has reappeared after three days of being incommunicado and announced at a press conference that four of his companions had left Brazil by plane after the breakout. Pareja said he decided to surrender a few hours after beginning his escape, because he plans to finish his sentence and win his freedom. Pareja reportedly won the affection of many of the 25 judges and officials he held as hostages during the week-long rebellion, and of much of the public; various fans asked for his autograph and even for kisses when they saw him on the streets of the city of Goiania during his days as a fugitive. [DLA 4/9/96 from EFE] *7. ARGENTINE PRISON REBELLION ENDS Inmates at the Sierra Chica prison in Buenos Aires province, Argentina, ended a week-long rebellion [see Update #323] on Apr. 7 after reaching an agreement with government officials that there would be no reprisals for the rebellion. On the same day, 27 hostages--including judge Maria Mercedes Malere, her secretary and three pastors--were released unharmed and solidarity rebellions ended at other prisons, including those in the cities of Olmos, La Plata, Bahia Blanca, Dolores, Azul, Junin (all in Buenos Aires province), Mendoza and Bariloche. Judge Malere told reporters that she and the other hostages were "treated with respect. We were not harmed in any way." The 12 leaders of the Sierra Chica rebellion left in a bus for another prison. [Reuter 4/9/96; Washington Post & New York Times 4/8/96 from Reuter; Diario Las Americas 4/9/96 from EFE; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/8/96 from AP] On Apr. 9, law enforcement officials said they had found human skulls, thigh bones and other body parts in the ovens of the prison. As of Apr. 9, the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service (SPB) had confirmed three inmate deaths--two at Sierra Chica and one at Mercedes, Buenos Aires province--and 97 injuries in the rebellions. Buenos Aires governor Eduardo Duhalde told reporters that seven prisoners were still missing and are presumed to have been killed by other inmates. The law enforcement officials said prison records showed that the seven missing inmates all had excellent or good conduct reports. The officials said that based on interviews with other inmates, the seven were killed because they opposed the rebellion. [Reuter 4/9/96; NYT 4/10/96; DLA 4/9/96 from EFE; ED-LP 4/10/96 from EFE] There were conflicting reports on concessions made to the prisoners. Duhalde said none were made beyond promising the quick and widespread application of a law deducting two days from sentences for every day served awaiting trial. But newspapers said the rebels were also promised a prison commission with inmate representatives, and more lenient sentences for car theft. [Reuter 4/9/96] SPB confirmed later in the week that 37 inmates, many of whom are considered dangerous and are thought to have led the prison rebellions, were transferred to different police stations around the capital district. French news service Agence France Presse reported that the official prisoner death toll of the rebellions rose to seven, although rumors were circulating among inmate relatives that the number of dead could be more than 30. [DLA 4/12/96 from AFP] *8. ARGENTINE REBELS ATTACK DIRTY WAR TARGETS On Apr. 11, explosives experts found a homemade bomb outside a Buenos Aires naval hospital where a doctor accused of human rights violations was in critical condition after an assassination attempt. Interior Minister Carlos Corach told a news conference that a police bomb squad detonated the device in a controlled explosion. The People's Revolutionary Organization (ORP), a leftist guerrilla group, took responsibility for the Apr. 4 shooting attack against Dr. Jorge Berges, who was convicted and sentenced in 1986 to six and a half years in prison for having tortured pregnant prisoners and sold their babies for adoption during the military regime, but was later freed under a general amnesty. [Reuter 4/11/96] Speaking at the Olivos presidential palace one day after Argentina's security forces were put on a state of alert, Corach said that a recent series of threats and attacks appeared to be aimed at creating "a sense of insecurity for all." However, Corach told reporters, "there is no situation whatsoever posing a serious public security risk." The series of seemingly unconnected telephone threats and attacks on schools, soccer stadiums, businesspeople, artists, journalists and airlines seemed to have been be planned to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Mar. 24, 1976 military coup that ushered in Argentina's infamous "dirty war" against accused leftists. [Reuter 4/11/96] Corach emphasized that the ORP claimed responsibility for "only two concrete actions": the attack against Berges and the bomb at the naval hospital. [Diario de los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 4/12/96 from DYN] [In late 1992, the ORP claimed responsibility for several bomb attacks against automated teller machines at banks--see Updates #145, 147, 149.] On Apr. 10, the ORP threatened to blow up an Austral airline domestic flight [Reuter 4/11/96] to Bahia Blanca; the threats at the Jorge Newberry airport in Buenos Aires seemed directed at Capt. Alfredo Astiz, who serves at the General Belgrano naval base in Bahia Blanca. A French court tried and convicted Astiz in absentia for the 1977 disappearance of two French nuns, Alice Domon and Leoni Duquet. Astiz' name appeared on a list--published in the Montevideo daily La Republica--of people who the ORP says it will "bring to justice." [ED-LP 4/11/96 from EFE] Others who have recently received threats include television talk-show host Bernardo Neustadt, radio journalist Julio Lagos and the Independiente soccer club. [Reuter 4/11/96] Actress Georgina Barbarrosa and cartoonist Nik both received threats a week after appearing on a television show together in which the anniversary of the coup was discussed. [Diario de los Andes 4/11/96 from DYN] *9. PEACEMAKER MAYOR THREATENED IN COLOMBIA According to information supplied to the Colombia Support Network (CSN) in Madison, Wisconsin, three assassins who use the names "El Tigre," "El Burro" and "El Alacran" were reportedly in the Colombian municipality of Apartado on Apr. 9 with the explicit mission of murdering Apartado mayor Gloria Isabel Cuartas Montoya. There was a rumor the previous week of a 50 million peso (approximately $50,000) contract out on Cuartas. The rumors follow an attack in Apartado on Apr. 3 in which 10 people were killed; "El Tigre," whose name is Albeiro Guisao, was also linked to that attack [see Update #323]. [An attack seemingly carried out by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and directed at Cuartas took place in Apartado on Jan. 10--see Update #316.] Apartado is located in Antioquia department, in the heart of the banana-growing region of Uraba, where numerous massacres in recent years have been blamed on the FARC and on paramilitary groups linked to large landholders. [Posted 4/13/96 on CSN web page (http:// www.igc.apc.org/csn/csn.html); CSN Urgent Action 4/7/96] Cuartas, who has been leading efforts for a negotiated peace in Uraba, won a "Woman of the Year" award on Mar. 8 from the organization CAFAM. [Noticol 622, 3/11/96, from El Espectador 3/9/96, posted on CSN web page] Edgar Mauricio Plazas, secretary to Mayor Cuartas, was assassinated on Oct. 10, 1995. Plazas was a member of the Hope, Peace and Liberty (EPL) party, and had served as Cuartas' secretary for five months. The murder took place while Cuartas and Antioquia governor Alvaro Uribe Velez were in Europe seeking international oversight for Uraba [see Updates #300, 310]. Mario Agudelo Vasquez, EPL deputy for Antioquia, blamed the "Bolivarian militias"--linked to the FARC--for the murder. [Noticol 535, 10/11/95, from El Tiempo, posted on CSN web page] A former mayor of Apartado, university professor and lawyer Ramon Elias Castillo Marulanda of the leftist Patriotic Union (UP) party, was murdered on Feb. 19 in Manizales, Caldas department. [Peace Brigades International Equipo PBI-Colombia Informacion-Catorce dias #43, 2/12-25/96, from El Espectador] CSN has learned from independent sources that Gen. Ivan Ramirez Quintero, the army commander now in charge of Uraba, has had long-standing ties with death squads in the Magdalena Medio region and elsewhere. From September to December of 1983, Ramirez took a "strategic intelligence course" at a US military institution in Washington, DC. The military commander in Apartado is now Rito Alejo del Rio Rojas [CSN Urgent Action 4/9/96], who took the "Cadet Orientation Course" at the School of the Americas in 1967. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights' 1992 report "State Terrorism in Colombia," Del Rio was implicated in paramilitary activities, including the theft of an army weapons shipment, in 1985. [La Lagartija/Info SOA list of SOA graduates 7/95] *10. GUATEMALAN ATTORNEY GENERAL RESIGNS UNDER PRESSURE Guatemalan attorney general Ramses Cuestas Gomez resigned his post on Apr. 10, a day after Congress modified the Public Ministry Law to allow the executive branch to remove him. The 44 deputies of the ruling National Advancement Party (PAN), along with one deputy from the Democratic Union and another from the National Liberation Movement, voted to modify Article 14 of the law, giving the president more options for removing the attorney general, a post which previously had full autonomy during a five- year term. [ED-LP 4/11/96 from AP] The attorney general heads the Public Ministry, which supervises the judicial system. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14, 4/11/96] Cuestas told journalists that he had presented his "irrevocable resignation," effective May 15. He urged President Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen to veto the new Public Ministry law, "in order to safeguard the state of law, the democratic regime, the autonomy and the independence of the Attorney General's office and the Public Ministry, so that we can continue advancing and achieve greater justice in Guatemala." [ED-LP 4/11/96 from AP] In his letter of resignation to Arzu, Cuestas said that he decided to leave his post because of "publicity-related and political pressures." [Diario Las Americas 4/12/96 from AFP] Cuestas had opposed the proposed reforms to the Public Ministry law, and had threatened on a number of occasions to resign if the reforms were approved. As a lawyer, Cuestas said, once out of office he will make efforts to test the constitutionality of the reforms. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14, 4/11/96] Meanwhile, Guatemala's Supreme Court ruled on Mar. 20 that three high-ranking military officers accused of ordering the 1990 murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang should be tried in a military court, not a civilian one. Helen Mack Chang, a lawyer and the victim's sister, has been seeking to have the case tried in a civilian court. The new ruling contrasts with the Supreme Court's Jan. 31 decision to try the case of the October 1995 massacre by soldiers of 11 returned refugees in Xaman in a civilian court--a decision that Attorney General Cuestas had praised [see Update #315]. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #13, 3/27/96] *11. LEFTIST LEGISLATORS UNDER ATTACK IN GUATEMALA On Apr. 11, four heavily armed men with their faces covered entered and ransacked the home of Amilcar Mendez, a well-known community activist and deputy in Congress for the leftist New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG). His daughter, Micaela Matelo, was alone in the house at the time. The girl, who is a minor [no sources gave her age], was found drugged and naked after the assailants left; a medical examination is under way to determine her condition. Robbery has been ruled out as a motive in the attack, as nothing was taken from the house. The attack occurred one day after Mendez received several letters from the "Jaguar Justiciero" (JJ) death squad, calling him a communist and threatening his life. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission (CDHG) Urgent Action #6, 4/11/96] The attack against the Mendez home occurred just a week after the Interamerican Human Rights Commission (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) made recommendations for government protection for four FDNG legislators who have been receiving death threats from the JJ [see Update #311]. They include extra measures to end ongoing intimidation campaigns against FDNG deputies Rosalina Tuyuc and Manuela Alvarado, both indigenous women who are particular JJ targets. Also included is the establishment of rapid response telephone numbers for emergency situations. Mendez had welcomed the recommendations, saying they oblige the government to take direct responsibility for the safety of the threat victims. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14, 4/11/96] Mendez told Agence France Presse that he will "seriously" consider "retiring from all political activity." Mendez explained, "When it comes to the extreme of putting one's own family at risk, one seriously considers retiring from politics, in a country like Guatemala where the most fundamental human right--the right to life--is not respected." [Diario Las Americas 4/13/96 from AFP] Letters demanding an immediate investigation into the attack on the Mendez home, and protection for FDNG legislators and their families, should be faxed to President Arzu (502-2-29968); Defense Minister Julio Balconi (502-2-317084); Human Rights Prosecutor Jorge Garcia LaGuardia (502-2-81734); and Jorge Arranz at the Presidential Human Rights Commission (COPREDEH, 502-2- 341615 or 341407). [Guatemala Human Rights Commission (CDHG) Urgent Action #6, 4/11/96] In other human rights news, Vilma Cristina Gonzalez, sister of exiled union activist Reynaldo Federico Gonzalez, left Guatemala on Mar. 28 with her three daughters after having been abducted on Mar. 17 and tortured, including being burned more than 70 times with cigarettes. Vilma Gonzalez had been abducted and raped on Feb. 27, and her 16-year old son was abducted on Mar. 8 but released unharmed Mar. 10 [see Updates #318, 320]. Her brother Reynaldo Gonzalez was secretary general of the Federation of Bank and Insurance Employees Unions (FESEBS); he left Guatemala on Mar. 15 after he and his family received numerous death threats. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14, 4/11/96; Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC/USA) Guatemala Human Rights Update #6/96, 3/22/96] *12. GUATEMALAN JOURNALISTS ATTACKED Attacks against journalists have increased recently in Guatemala. Vinicio Pacheco, a reporter with Radio Sonora, was abducted on Feb. 28 in Guatemala City and tortured psychologically and physically--his forehead and chest were burned with cigarettes and his feet were slashed--before being released the next day. Radio Sonora director Eduardo Mendoza said Pacheco's assailants played tapes for him of his radio reports on kidnappings and car thefts. "Freedom of the press has its price," they said. In another incident, unidentified assailants threw homemade bombs at the house of Amilcar Julio Nuila, a Coban correspondent for several Guatemala City news sources. Two days later, another assailant tried to stab Nuila with a knife. Nuila was not injured in either attack, although his house was damaged by the bombs. Nuila had been reporting on kidnappings and other crimes in Coban. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA Guatemala Human Rights Update #5/96, 3/8/96] El Grafico reporter Ervin San Juan and his wife were bound and gagged on Apr. 9 in their home by unidentified armed attackers, who threatened San Juan and told him that "the press is getting involved in things that are none of its business." Later, while searching him, one of the assailants mentioned that they had the wrong victim, and the other said they would kill him anyway, since "all journalists are the same thing." Ricardo Gatica, representative of El Grafico management, charged that early on Apr. 9 the newspaper's phone operator received a number of phone calls warning of attacks against the paper's staff or its installations. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission (CDHG) 4/10/96] *13. GUATEMALAN ARMY: FROM JAGUARS TO PUSSYCATS From Apr. 4 to Apr. 7, a time of heavy travel during the Easter week vacations, the Guatemalan army had its usual patrols set up on the country's highways. But in contrast to previous years, this time the soldiers kept their rifles slung idly over the backs, and they handed flowers and balloons to travelers. According to a story by Agence France Presse, "vacationers... did not hide their surprise" when approached by the smiling soldiers, who stopped each car to give carnations of different colors to the women and balloons to the men and children. The soldiers also told travelers to drive carefully, gave them tips on highway safety, recommended using seat belts, offered brochures of vacation advice and wished them "happy traveling." [Diario Las Americas 4/9/96 from AFP] *14. IN OTHER NEWS... The Constitutional Court of Colombia has overturned three articles of an 1890 law that defined indigenous people as "savages" without rights and allowed them to be punished if they lacked Christian morals. The legisation established the way in which "savages who are converting to civilized life should be governed." [Diario Las Americas 4/12/96 from EFE]... On Mar. 23 specialists from Chile's Legal Medical Institute identified the second of three bodies discovered in an army training camp in Peldehue last December [see Updates #307, 321]. The remains belong to Orlando Gonzalez Espinoza, a Communist Party (PC) student leader arrested and disappeared in 1975 at age 22. On Mar. 23, PC leaders asked that specialists search the entire area surrounding the Peldehue base for more bodies. PC leader Alejandro Toro recalled that the remains of three other disappeared persons--including former PC deputies Vicente Atencio and Carlos Cantero--were found in the area several years ago. "All of this means that the Army base was converted into a clandestine cemetery, where many other victims of the repression, now disappeared, may be buried," said Toro. [CHIP News 3/25/96]... Two sheriff's deputies in Riverside, California, have been placed on paid leave pending the outcome of investigations by federal and local authorities into their brutal beating of two undocumented Mexican immigrants after a 80 mile highway chase on Apr. 1. [New York Times 4/3/96] The incident provoked widespread protests, particularly within the Latino community in California. Outrage was heightened by a second incident on Apr. 6 in which seven undocumented Mexican immigrants were killed and 18 injured when their vehicle crashed in Riverside County as they tried to escape pursuit by agents of the US Border Patrol. The Mexican foreign ministry has asked the US to carry out a "review" of methods and procedure in the enforcement of immigration laws. [La Jornada 4/7/96]... A US Congressional group working to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the Comprehensive Antiterrorism Act of 1995 now seems likely to restore measures imposing severe penalties on US-based supporters of foreign groups the president designates as terrorist. These measures, proposed by the White House, were passed by the Senate in June 1995 but were dropped from the House version passed this Mar. 14 after intensive lobbying by an unusual coalition of rightwing and civil liberties organizations. In a radio talk on Apr. 13 US president Bill Clinton implied that he would veto any bill without the measures against solidarity groups. Congress is hoping to pass a final version by Apr. 19, the first anniversary of a terrorist bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. [New York Times 4/14/96]... The neoliberal policies of Haiti's new government are creating tensions within the ruling Lavalas coalition. Two close associates of Lavalas' founder, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have formed a new organization that has harshly criticized the privatization plan. On Mar. 27 Lavalas members in the Chamber of Deputies broke with the government to vote against a controversial education loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IBD), which the government supported and the Senate had already passed. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #11, 4/5/96] Corrections: Update #322 should have attributed the statement that "Haiti will go ahead without hesitation with the privatization process" to Haitian finance minister Fred Joseph, not to President Rene Preval, who was at the meeting and applauded Joseph's remarks. Also, the third paragraph of item #8- -about Peru--in last week's Update contained a typographical error. The first sentence of that paragraph should have referred to "...prostitutes and battered women..." not "...prostitutes y battered women..."