WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #326, APRIL 28, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Bolivian Workers Sign Pact, End Protests 2. Campesinos on Strike in Colombia 3. Coup Attempt Fails in Paraguay 4. Cuba Marks Old and New Invasions 5. US Threatens Abstainers in Cuba Human Rights Vote 6. Cuba Fast for Life Supporters Arrested 7. US Nun Starts Fast for Guatemala Information 8. "Antiterrorism": US Enacts Law as Peru Hosts Conference 9. Mexican "Terrorists" Step Up Celebrity Offensive 10. Mexico: Governor Canned, Colosio Case Ex-DA Murdered 11. Brazil Names New Agrarian Reform Minister 12. Four Convicted in Nicaragua Arms Cache Case 13. Other News: Honduras, Argentina, El Salvador, Panama 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@nyxfer.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@nyxfer.blythe.org CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/wnuhome.html http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/nsnhome.html *1. BOLIVIAN WORKERS SIGN PACT, END PROTESTS During the weekend of Apr. 21, the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) signed an accord accepting the government's original offer of a 13% salary increase for teachers and 9% for the public sector. The basic monthly salary was fixed at $44, just $4 more than before; the COB had been pushing for a salary increase based on a family's monthly needs, about $300. The COB failed to win any gains on its demands to halt privatization of the state oil company and to stop forced eradication of coca plants. The agreement put an end to the COB's month-long general strike, an even longer hunger strike and nearly constant street protests [see Updates #320-323, 325]. The government's tactic, which eventually succeeded in wearing down the COB, was to negotiate separately with each union sector involved while crushing worker protests with a "Citizen Security Plan" that used military police and army troops to arrest unionists and otherwise "maintain order." [Inter Press Service 4/23/96; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/22/96 from Notimex] On Apr. 23, Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Cesar Gaviria arrived in Bolivia to award President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada with the International Leadership Award, given each year by the Panamerican Development Foundation to leaders in economic reform and social change. Spokespeople of the Foundation, which Gaviria heads, said Sanchez was given the award because of the neoliberal economic reforms carried out under his administration, especially the "capitalization" (partial privatization) of state firms. [IPS 4/23/96] *2. CAMPESINOS ON STRIKE IN COLOMBIA More than 50,000 Colombian campesinos began an open-ended strike on Apr. 25, blocking highways in the departments of Caqueta and Huila that join Bogota with the rest of Colombia. The strike was also in effect in the departments of Tolima, Putumayo, Cauca and Meta. The campesinos are demanding that the government create and capitalize an Agricultural Solidarity Fund to help relieve the crisis of the heavily indebted rural sector, or that it at least fix new payment schedules. The campesinos are also demanding the release of new credits, resources to market their products better, and an end to the legal actions taken against them by the state-owned Agrarian Bank and the privately owned Coffee-Grower Bank. According to the Colombian Farmers' Society (SAC), the neoliberal economic policies begun in 1990 have caused a 518,495- hectare reduction in cultivations, which has led to job cuts and a lower quality of life for campesinos. The government announced that it will suspend the fines of campesinos whose debts do not exceed $3,000, but only on condition that they lift the strike, which has frozen the distribution of agricultural products to Bogota. [Inter Press Service 4/26/96; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 4/27/96 from AFP] *3. COUP ATTEMPT FAILS IN PARAGUAY On Apr. 22, Paraguayan president Juan Carlos Wasmosy asked Gen. Lino Cesar Oviedo to resign his command as chief of Paraguay's army. (As president, Wasmosy is also the commander of the armed forces.) Oviedo reportedly responded by giving Wasmosy an ultimatum of three hours to reconsider the decision. Wasmosy then called an emergency cabinet meeting and asked the Congress president, Sen. Rafael Milciades Casabianca, to help mediate the conflict. Both Oviedo and Wasmosy are members of the ruling Colorado Party, officially called the National Republican Association (ANR). One current of the ANR, led by Sen. Blas N. Riquilme, began to prepare demonstrations of support for Oviedo. This current of the ANR supports the candidacy of Oviedo for the 1998 presidential elections. Oviedo has been criticized by the opposition for interfering in politics [El Diario-La Prensa 4/23/96 from EFE], most notably during the 1993 elections. At that time, the army's coup threats were thought to have influenced the results of the voting, in which Wasmosy won despite having been shown as consistently behind two other candidates in opinion polls [see Updates #170-172]. On the night of Apr. 22, more than a dozen ambassadors, including US ambassador Robert Service and the papal nuncio, went to the presidential palace to support Wasmosy. Oviedo had demanded Wasmosy's resignation as a condition for his own retirement, and according to Service, Wasmosy was so convinced that resisting the general would result in violence that he gave "serious consideration" to resigning. "There was a tremendous amount of confusion," said Service. "I think that, practically without exceptions, the foreign ambassadors were opposed to his resignation and told him so." When Service went with the ambassadors of Argentina and Brazil to army headquarters to try to reason with Oviedo, the general refused to meet with them. As midnight approached amid threats from Oviedo that he would attack the presidential palace at 12:30 am, Service invited Wasmosy to stay at the US embassy, less than a block away. Wasmosy accepted the offer, and spent most of the night at the embassy talking to advisers and embassy personnel. US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott put in a call to former Colombian president and current OAS secretary general Cesar Gaviria, who was on a visit to Bolivia. Gaviria phoned Wasmosy at the embassy at around 3 am on Apr. 23, as Wasmosy was still considering resigning. "Whether he should resign or not was finally resolved when he got the call from Gaviria," Service said. [Washington Post 4/28/96] Gaviria arrived in Paraguay on Apr. 23, as did Argentine foreign minister Guido Di Tella. [ED-LP 4/24/96 from AFP] In an emergency session on Apr. 23 in Washington, the OAS unanimously passed a resolution expressing its full and decided support for Wasmosy and condemning Oviedo's threat to constitutional order. [Diario Las Americas 4/25/96 from AFP] Not only did Wasmosy have outside support against Oviedo's threats, but he was also supported by Paraguay's navy, air force, congress and a large segment of the population. [Asociacion Latinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI) 4/26/96] The military proposed a compromise solution: Oviedo would resign as army chief, but would be named defense minister. Under the Paraguayan constitution, the defense minister must be a civilian, so Oviedo would have to resign from the army first. Wasmosy agreed, and on Apr. 24, Oviedo resigned, naming Gen. Oscar Diaz Delmas to replace him as army chief. [ED-LP 4/25/96 from AP] The compromise was extremely unpopular: both houses of congress rejected Oviedo's designation as defense minister, and thousands of Paraguayans took to the streets of Asuncion to protest Wasmosy's decision. On Apr. 25, after diplomatic efforts failed to persuade Oviedo to decline the defense minister job, Wasmosy announced in a television and radio address--just five minutes before Oviedo's swearing in was to take place--that he had changed his mind and would not go ahead with the appointment. Oviedo, now a civilian, no longer had troops under his command and was powerless to force the issue. [WP 4/28/96; ED-LP 4/26/96 from AFP] Oviedo said on Apr. 25 that he had never sought the cabinet position and that at no time had he begun an insurrection. "I have never gone against the orders of my superiors but now I can put on what I have so long wanted to put on," said Oviedo, donning a red kerchief, symbol of the Colorado party. As a military officer, Oviedo had been officially banned from seeking office or making political statements. [New York Times 4/26/96] But Wasmosy confirmed on Apr. 26 that Oviedo had in fact sought to carry out a technical coup and replace him with Congress president Casabianca. Casabianca told Wasmosy that Oviedo offered him the presidency on the night of Apr. 22, and that if he accepted, he could have been sworn in at 8 am on Apr. 23. Casabianca said he would accept the presidency only if Wasmosy resigned and only to avoid bloodshed. [ED-LP 4/26/96 from AFP] Paraguayans rallied in the streets again on the night of Apr. 26 to celebrate the end of the crisis. [WP 4/28/96] The street demonstrations, called by leftist and union sectors, were attended by nearly 6,000 primarily young people. Some 5,000 people attended a rally the next day in a stadium on the outskirts of Asuncion to celebrate the departure of Oviedo from the army. [ED-LP 4/28/96 from EFE] The four main union federations announced on Apr. 25 that they would not cancel their plans for a 48-hour general strike on May 2 and 3. [ED-LP 4/26/96 from AFP] Judge Alcides Corbeta told the press on Apr. 26 that an investigation had been opened into Oviedo's actions, and that he could be tried for sedition in the civil courts. [ED-LP 4/28/96 from EFE] Finance Minister Raul Cubas Grau, a friend and close collaborator of Oviedo's, submitted his resignation on Apr. 27, only 10 days after taking the post. Wasmosy is to decide on Apr. 29 whether or not to accept his resignation. [ED-LP 4/28/96 from Notimex, AFP] *4. CUBA MARKS OLD AND NEW INVASIONS Several thousand Cubans arrived at Playa Giron on Apr. 19 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Cuba's defeat of the 1961 CIA- sponsored "Bay of Pigs" invasion there by Miami-based Cuban emigres. One group of young people and veterans rode on bicycles for three days to reach the site, 90 miles southeast of Havana. [Washington Post 4/21/96] Castro, speaking at another celebration in the city of Matanzas, insisted that his government does not want war with the US, even though "our neighbors keep getting crazier and stupider." [El Diario-La Prensa 4/18/96 from Notimex] The celebrations and demonstrations are part of a mobilization building up to May 1, when the Cuban government hopes that one million people will participate in a May Day parade to condemn the Helms-Burton law that tightened US economic sanctions against Cuba [see Updates #319, 320]. [Diario Las Americas 4/26/96] On Apr. 25, the provincial court of Santa Clara, 300 km east of Havana, sentenced Humberto Real Suarez to death for his participation in an armed attack launched from Florida on Oct. 15, 1994, in which one civilian died. The Florida-based rightwing Democratic National Unity Party (PUND) claimed responsibility for the action at the time [see Update #247]. Real was accused of having shot to death a fisher who had tried to stop the intruders from stealing his vehicle shortly after they landed. The other six members of the commando--Miguel Diaz, Armando Sosa, Jose Falcon, Jesus Rojas, Pedro Guisao and Lazaro Gonzalez--were sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to dissident Elizardo Sanchez Santacruz, president of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and Reconciliation (CCDHRN). Sanchez said that three representatives from Cuban human rights groups were allowed to observe the trial, which began on Apr. 23. [ED-LP 4/26/96 from AFP] On May 3, at 12 noon, New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani plans to preside over a ceremony at the corner of 37th Street and Lexington Avenue--in front of the Cuban Mission to the United Nations (UN)--to name a portion of the street after the rightwing Cuban emigre group "Brothers to the Rescue." Brothers to the Rescue president Jose Basulto--who will be the Grand Marshall of this year's Cuban Parade in New York--will also be at the ceremony. [ED-LP 3/27/96] The Brothers to the Rescue pilots have become heroes to the rightwing Cuban-American community since the Cuban government downed two of the group's planes on Feb. 24 over what the Cuban government insists were its territorial waters, killing four crew members [see Updates #317, 318]. On Apr. 24, rightwing emigre groups sent a small flotilla of boats just off the Florida coast to commemorate the shootdown of the planes. The groups are planning to send a larger flotilla to the edge of Cuban waters on May 1 to coincide with the celebration of International Workers Day in Cuba. [DLA 4/26/96] *5. US THREATENS ABSTAINERS IN CUBA HUMAN RIGHTS VOTE On Apr. 22, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva voted for the fifth year in a row to approve a resolution condemning Cuba's human rights record. This year's resolution included a specific mention of the Feb. 24 shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue planes. As usual, the resolution was proposed and promoted heavily by the US government, which this year sent Cuban-American US Rep. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) to be its representative at the UNHRC. In the five minutes he had to present the Commission with his arguments in favor of the US proposal, Menendez found time to mention that the US Congress was taking this vote very seriously and that bilateral relations between the US and other countries might be affected by how they vote. In Washington on his return from Geneva, Menendez said he would request a meeting with Clinton to discuss this issue. Menendez pointed out that some of those nations which abstained or voted against the resolution receive economic or other kinds of aid from the US, and therefore "we must restate our relations" with them. The vote was 20 in favor of the resolution, five against and 28 abstentions. Among those voting in favor were Canada, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Voting against were Cuba, China, India, Indonesia and Zimbabwe. Among those abstaining were Angola, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. Last year the vote was 22 in favor, eight against and 23 abstentions. [Diario Las Americas 4/24/96, 4/25/96] The Cuban delegate called the participation of Menendez a US electoral ploy, and added he would not be surprised if Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse walked in during the Commission proceedings. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/25/96 from AFP] On the same day as the UN vote, the foreign ministers of the 15 member nations of the European Union (UE) voted at a meeting in Luxemburg to condemn the US Helms-Burton law, and warned that they will take actions to defend their right to trade with and invest in Cuba. [ED-LP 4/23/96 from Notimex] *6. CUBA FAST FOR LIFE SUPPORTERS ARRESTED Over 100 people demonstrated at the US Treasury Department in Washington on Apr. 19 to support the "Fast for Life" and demand that Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin order the release of 400 medical computers destined for Cuba. Five demonstrators-- including faster Lisa Valanti of Pittsburgh--were arrested by Secret Service police after blocking the entrance to the Treasury Department. Valanti, along with Rev. Lucius Walker, Jr, Brian Rohatyn and Jim Clifford, have been on a liquid-only fast since Feb. 21 [see Updates #318, 320, 323]. The demonstration in Washington follows similar protests on Apr. 15 in San Francisco and New York in which a total of 22 people were arrested. [Fast for Life Press Release 4/19/96] Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and Pastors for Peace, organizers of the Fast for Life, are urging supporters to step up calls. IFCO reports that the Treasury Department has installed a Pastors for Peace hotline to process all the calls they are getting. Calls are now urged to National Security Advisor Anthony Lake at 202-456-9481 (fax #202- 456-2883); Secretary of State Warren Christopher at 202-647-5291 (fax #202-647-7120); senators and representatives (ask them to call Treasury and the National Security Council); and the media (ask them why they aren't covering the Fast for Life--IFCO notes that even former chief of the US interests section in Cuba Wayne Smith, who generally has access to the editorial pages of major newspapers, has been unable to get newspapers to print a letter about the Fast for Life). For more info call IFCO at 212-926-5757 (NY) or 202-544-3825 (DC); or Pastors for Peace in Minneapolis at 612-870-7121. *7. US NUN STARTS FAST FOR GUATEMALA INFORMATION In an Apr. 22 statement, US nun Dianna Ortiz announced that she is beginning a bread and water fast in conjunction with her silent vigil in front of the White House to demand the US release all its information relating to human rights violations in Guatemala. Ortiz began her vigil in Lafayette Park on Mar. 31 [see Update #323]. [Ortiz statement 4/22/96, posted on internet; Diario Las Americas 4/24/96 from AFP] State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies announced on Apr. 22 that the US government "is continuing" to examine the investigations on the case of Ortiz and of "other US citizens murdered, disappeared or abused in Guatemala since 1984." [DLA 4/24/96 from AFP] Even before the fast, Ortiz reports that she lost 10 pounds in the first 22 days of her vigil. "While some US officials may have been moved by my vigil," she writes, "others have stated to me that I seem comfortable in the park. Others, still, have relegated my vigil to the category of irrational whim. One official remarked, `Declassification will happen. It's too bad that Dianna feels like she has to sit in front of the White House in the meantime. It's her choice.' "But is it my choice?" asks Ortiz. "For six years, I've been told to wait. ... I still do not have my documents. If I am in the park, it is because I need the truth, and my options have been gradually eliminated." [Ortiz statement 4/22/96] The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA (GHRC/USA) is asking supporters to continue phone calls and letters to President Bill Clinton to demand the full release of US information about Guatemalan human rights violations. Supporters in Washington are also planning to hold quiet civil disobedience actions every Monday in support of Ortiz and her demands. For more information, contact the GHRC/USA at 202-529-6599. US lawyer Jennifer Harbury testified before the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva, where she charged the Guatemalan army and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with human rights violations, basing her charges on US documents she received recently [see Update #317]. Harbury also managed to get about 50 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to sign on to a petition for declassification in support of Ortiz. [Letter from Jennifer Harbury 4/25/96, posted on internet] In a consensus resolution issued Apr. 19 in Geneva, the UNHRC extended the mandate of independent human rights expert Monica Pinto to monitor Guatemala's progress for another 12 months and called on the government to follow her recommendations. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #16, 4/25/96] *8. "ANTITERRORISM": US ENACTS LAW AS PERU HOSTS CONFERENCE On Apr. 24 US president Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Antiterrorism Act into law. The legislation, passed by Congress the week before, gives the president the power to designate a foreign group as "terrorist," prosecute US groups or citizens for raising funds for the group and waive due process in deporting foreign residents suspected of connections to the group. The law also eliminates appeals in some deportation cases and sharply reduces habeas corpus appeals for death-row prisoners. Republican Senate leader and presidential candidate Bob Dole (R- KS) stood behind the president as he signed the bill; Clinton proposed the legislation and his rival steered it through Congress. [New York Times 4/25/96; Washington Post 4/25/96] The signing coincided with an Apr. 24-27 conference in Peru on joint Latin American efforts to keep "terrorists" from crossing borders and from getting funding from abroad. Interior ministers, foreign ministers and military experts from the 34 member countries of the Organization of American States (OAS) attended the meeting in Lima's Sheraton Hotel, while 2,000 police patrolled outside to prevent any attack by the Communist Party of Peru (also known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) guerrilla organization. Closed sessions were devoted to such themes as "regional cooperation to prevent and eliminate terrorism" and "political and judicial developments to prevent terrorism." Beatriz Ramacciotti, Peru's representative to the OAS, said that her country would propose measures to keep guerrilla organizations from establishing sanctuaries in neighboring countries, such as those instituted by Peru to keep Peruvian guerrillas from taking refuge in Bolivia. OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria arrived on Apr. 26 to close the conference the next day. [Inter Press Service 4/25/96; Diario Las Americas 4/27/96 from AFP, EFE] Lima was chosen as the conference site because of its 15 years of experience in fighting the PCP. [IPS 4/25/96] On Apr. 21, right before the conference, the Peruvian government announced that it had formally approved a 1990 agreement with the US for extraditing accused drug dealers from the two countries. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/22/96] The Peruvian government's counterinsurgency experience includes both the Maoist PCP and the pro-Cuba Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). The anti-guerrilla drive gained momentum after President Alberto Fujimori and the military disbanded the legislative and judicial branches in an April 1992 "self-coup." The Peruvian government's "antiterrorist" measures include trials before military courts with hooded judges and unnamed accusers, as was done with US activist and MRTA supporter Lori Berenson in December 1995. That month also brought the arrest of alleged MRTA member Carlos Martin Serna Ponce by Bolivian security forces [see Updates #306, 307, 309]. *9. MEXICAN "TERRORISTS" STEP UP CELEBRITY OFFENSIVE The Mexican government and the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) held another round of peace talks Apr. 20- 25 in the town of San Andres Larrainzar (Sakamch'en de los Pobres) in the southeastern state of Chiapas. The round produced no new agreements, and the government negotiators complained that the rebels were using "delaying tactics...to drag out in an artificial way the Chiapas negotiation and pacification process." The next round is scheduled for June 10-15; the EZLN insisted on the long delay before the next session so that it could hold a national "Forum on Democracy and Justice" in the nearby city of San Cristobal de las Casas May 28-June 3. [Reuter 4/26/96] The talks were upstaged by a stream of international activists and celebrities visiting the EZLN-controlled village of La Realidad in southern Chiapas. EZLN leader "Sub-Commander Marcos" welcomed French intellectual Regis Debray to the mostly Tojolabal village on Apr. 13. Debray accompanied Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara during his failed 1967 guerrilla operation in Bolivia, and spent three years in jail there after Guevara's execution by the Bolivian military. Later Debray renounced armed struggle and became an adviser to late French Socialist president Francois Mitterrand during the 1980s. "I think the tactics of the Zapatistas are better, more peaceful and more realistic than ours in the 1960s," Debray told reporters when he arrived in Mexico on Apr. 12. [Reuter 4/14/96] Mitterrand's widow, human rights activist Danielle Mitterrand, made the same tour a few days later. More than a thousand EZLN supporters greeted Mitterrand in La Realidad on Apr. 18. Referring to Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, the campesinos chanted: "Zedillo, listen: Danielle is in the struggle." "It's true what they say," Mitterrand told the villagers. "Danielle is in the struggle with you." "This is a struggle that suits me," she said to reporters later. "I can defend this cause." Marcos arrived in the evening. Calling himself a "paper knight," the leader presented Mitterrand with a paper flower. On Apr. 20 Mitterrand visited the peace talks in San Andres, making a short speech praising both sides for their willingness to negotiate. The congressional Commission for Concord and Pacification in Chiapas (COCOPA) complained afterwards that Mitterrand had violated the ban in Article 8 of the Constitution on foreign intervention in internal Mexican conflicts. The EZLN answered that "solidarity isn't forbidden in Mexico"; besides, the rebels said, the prohibition is in Article 9. [Reuter 4/19/96; La Jornada (Mexico) 4/21/96; Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update #69, 4/23/96 from LJ 4/19-20/96] Zapatista chic seems to have taken on a life of its own. The US monthly Harpers reports that Marcos recently turned down an offer to pose for advertisements for the Italian clothing firm Benetton. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/28/96 from AFP] But some Mexican analysts defend the EZLN's celebrity tours as a serious effort to keep international attention focused on Chiapas, preventing a new military offensive by government forces. [Christian Science Monitor 4/24/96] The EZLN is also working hard at more conventional solidarity work. Hebe de Bonafini, the leader of Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights organization, visited the Zapatistas at the same time as Mitterrand. [ED-LP 4/21/96 from EFE; LJ 4/21/96] And on Apr. 7, Marcos sent a letter--signed by 200 participants in the EZLN-sponsored Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism--to US president Bill Clinton to demand "the immediate and unconditional freedom of Leonard Peltier," a US indigenous leader imprisoned for 20 years on questionable charges in connection with the 1975 deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in South Dakota. [Letter 4/7/96, posted by PeaceNet Prison Issues Desk] The military remains active in Chiapas. Right before the latest round of negotiations, the army carried out a four-day operation in the pro-Zapatista town of Oventic, San Andres municipality, purportedly to eliminate 11 marijuana farms in the area. [Mexico Update 4/23/96 from LJ 4/17-19/96] At an Apr. 24 news briefing following talks between Mexican defense secretary Gen. Enrique Cervantes Aguirre and US defense secretary William Perry, the two countries announced that they were near agreement on a deal giving Mexico several dozen US military UH-1 "Huey" helicopters. Some 10-20 of the aircraft will probably be shipped by the summer. Under the agreement the Hueys are to be used to fight drug trafficking. [Reuter 4/24/96] *10. MEXICO: GOVERNOR CANNED, COLOSIO CASE EX-DA MURDERED Socrates Rizzo Garcia, governor of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, resigned on Apr. 18 after meeting for several hours with federal officials. Rizzo had been plagued by corruption scandals, a leftist past (including links to the "Communist Spartacus League") and a close connection to former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), who engineered his nomination by the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in 1991. Rizzo was considered responsible for the PRI's loss of the state capital, Monterrey, to the conservative National Action Party (PAN) in the 1994 elections; the PAN is expected to win the governorship in 1997. [LJ 4/21/96; Mexico Update 4/23/96] Although President Zedillo says that he has broken with Salinas' tradition of forcing troublesome PRI governors out of office, Rizzo is the third governor to resign since Zedillo became president in December 1994: Chiapas governor Eduardo Robledo Rincon resigned on Feb. 14, 1995 as Zedillo called off a military offensive against the EZLN, and Guerrero governor Ruben Figueroa Alcocer quit on Mar. 12 of this year after Zedillo, a personal friend, had the federal Supreme Court review the case of the June 1995 massacre of 17 campesino activists by Guerrero state police at Aguas Blancas ford near Acapulco [see Updates #264 and 320]. On Apr. 23 the Supreme Court announced the results of its investigation: Figueroa and several other important state officials "had responsibility" at least for the coverup that followed the massacre. There was no ruling on whether Figueroa ordered the massacre or whether he should be formally charged. [ED-LP 4/24/96 from AP] Meanwhile, still more questions arose about the March 1994 assassination of PRI presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta with the murder on Apr. 17 of the former regional director for the federal Attorney General's Office (PGR) in the northwestern state of Baja California Norte. A lone assailant killed former prosecutor Jose Arturo Ochoa Palacios with seven shots while Ochoa was taking an early morning jog at a Tijuana sports facility. Ochoa had supervised the first interrogations of Mario Aburto Martinez, the convicted assassin, after Colosio was killed at a campaign rally in Tijuana. Ochoa gave the still- unexplained order for the rally to be videotaped; this videotape, which shows the shooting but not the assassin's face, was initially identified to television stations as the work of an Argentine news crew. Several days after the killing, Ochoa ordered the release of Jorge Antonio Sanchez Ortega, a federal intelligence agent arrested at the scene. Sanchez Ortega, who looked remarkably like Aburto, was covered with Colosio's blood and tested positive for having smoked marijuana and fired a gun. Tijuana police chief Federico Benitez Lopez was murdered a month after Colosio's death; he was conducting an independent investigation of the assassination [see Update #222]. Last year a key witness's lawyer died in a car crash. [Reuter 4/18/96] The PGR says it is discounting any connection between the Ochoa killing and the Colosio case; the prosecutors are checking out a possible love triangle. [LJ 4/21/96] *11. BRAZIL NAMES NEW AGRARIAN REFORM MINISTER Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso confirmed on Apr. 25 that the new extraordinary minister of Agrarian Reform will be leftist economist Raul Jungmann, who currently heads the Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA) [see Update #324]. Jungmann, a member of the Popular Socialist Party (PPS), will now be in charge of the government's National Institute for Colonization and Agrarian Reform (INCRA), which will now no longer be directly under the control of the Ministry of Agriculture. This separation had been one of the demands of the Landless Movement (MST) [see Update #325]. But according to MST leader Jose Rainha Junior, the government has simply created another bureaucratic organ, without giving any guarantees that agrarian reform will be carried out. On Apr. 25, in his first interview after being named to the new post, Jungmann announced the creation of a National Council of Agrarian Reform, made up of representatives from union, business and church sectors and from civil society. Jungmann is to take office on Apr. 29, and on May 2 he is scheduled to meet with representatives of the MST. [Inter Press Service 4/26/96; Diario Las Americas 4/26/96 from AFP] *12. FOUR CONVICTED IN NICARAGUA ARMS CACHE CASE Early on Apr. 13, after 33 hours of deliberation, a Nicaraguan jury declared three Salvadorans and one Spanish citizen guilty in connection with an arms cache that exploded in the Santa Rosa neighborhood of Managua on May 23, 1993, causing at least two deaths [see Updates #174, 175]. Sentences were expected to be handed down the following week. Spanish citizen Eusebio Arzalluz (known in Nicaragua as Miguel Antonio Larios Moreno) is a fugitive; he was tried in absentia and found guilty on six charges. Salvadoran Elvira Ayala Gonzalez was also tried in absentia after she failed to show up for court on Apr. 11; she reportedly fled Nicaragua with her three-year old son while under house arrest. The other two Salvadorans are Antonio Martinez and Horacio Gomez. All three Salvadorans are members of the Popular Liberation Forces (FPL), one of five groups that formerly made up the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) guerrilla organization. [La Prensa 4/13/96 from Nicnews; Diario Las Americas 4/13/96 from EFE; La Jornada 4/14/96 from EFE, AFP] On Apr. 11, as the jury began its deliberations, the FMLN requested that all four accused be released, arguing that "they were only the caretakers of the site and had no responsibility in the functioning of the [arms cache]." FPL leader Salvador Sanchez Ceren said that if the verdict turned out to be "negative, we will seek the mechanisms of appeal because the companeros are innocent." [DLA 4/13/96 from "Del Noticiero Nicaraguense"; El Diario-La Prensa 4/12/96 from EFE] *13. IN OTHER NEWS... On Apr. 22, indigenous Lenca and Chorti people from western Honduras won concrete commitments from President Carlos Roberto Reina to resolve many of their demands within six months. The protesters had arrived in Tegucigalpa on Apr. 17 to press their demands [see Update #325]. Salvador Zuniga of the Committee of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of the West (COPIN), who led the talks with the government, warned that if the new deadlines are not met, "we will begin a massive exodus that will show the world that indigenous patience is not everlasting." The accords commit the government to provide food and basic grains for planting to avoid a famine in the indigenous communities; put together a fleet of buses, controlled by the indigenous people; build a stretch of highway; construct health centers; and hand over land titles. [Inter Press Service 4/22/96]... Some 1,500 inmates at the Villa Devoto in Buenos Aires, Argentina, rebelled on Apr. 23 and took eight guards hostage. Their demands included the speeding up of judicial processes; commutation of sentences of prisoners with AIDS; better prison conditions; and application of the "two for one" law, crediting each day served without sentencing as two days. The prisoners ended the rebellion and released the hostages 14 hours later, after receiving promises that no reprisals would be taken against them. The protest came just two weeks after a wave of prison uprisings spread across Argentina [see Updates #323, 324]. [Diario Las Americas 4/24/96 from EFE, 4/25/96 from AFP]... A powerful car bomb made with C-4 explosives blew up on Apr. 25 in front of the US embassy in San Salvador, close to the home of former Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani. There were no victims. The leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) strongly condemned the action, and blamed it on "groups that oppose peace." [El Diario- La Prensa 4/28/96 from AP]... Some 100 unemployed residents of the Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City blocked the Inter- American highway for an hour in a protest over the high price of basic foods. The demonstrators, accompanied by their children, improvised a kitchen and made soup during the protest. [DLA 4/25/96 from AFP] The Chorrillo neighborhood was bombed heavily by US troops during the December 1989 invasion of Panama. (END) MISS our calendar of events? Check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/creed.html (if you don't have web access, write to nicadlw@nyxfer.blythe.org for info). 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