WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                   ISSUE #329, MAY 19, 1996
       NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
     339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

1. Dominican Republic: Finally, Ballots Without Balaguer
2. Dominican Military Chiefs Replaced
3. Foreigners Flock to Haiti Privatization
4. Maquiladora News: Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti
5. Mexican Maquilas Boom, Productive Sector Shrinks
6. Guatemalans Reject Military Service
7. More Murders, US Troops on Colombian Border
8. Colombians Form New Alliance Against Extradition?
9. Cuba: Bad Day for Basulto
10. Some Computers Released, but Cuba Fast Continues
11. Ecuador: Social Security Unions Crushed in Election Week
12. Peru Rebels Bomb Shell Oil
13. Other News: Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, El Salvador, Bolivia...
 
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*1. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: FINALLY, BALLOTS WITHOUT BALAGUER

Jose Francisco Pena Gomez of the Dominican Revolutionary Party
(PRD) led the polls in presidential elections held May 16 in the
Dominican Republic. Because Pena Gomez did not win more than 50%
of the vote, he will have to face his closest opponent--Leonel
Fernandez of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD)--in a runoff on
June 30. The winner will serve a two-year term, as established by
an accord reached after the 1994 elections were challenged on
charges of fraud. On midday of May 18, with 95.27% of the votes
counted, the Central Electoral Board (JCE) announced results for
the first round as 45.84% for the coalition backing Pena Gomez;
38.85% for the PLD; 15.17% for the ruling Social Christian
Reformist Party (PRSC); and 0.13% for the Dominican Social
Alliance (ASD). Voter turnout was 75.12%; 1.54% of the ballots
were blank or voided. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/19/96] 
 
A majority of electoral observers, both Dominican and foreign,
have said that there were no major irregularities in the
balloting and have certified the vote as valid. [Diario Las
Americas (Miami) 5/18/96 from EFE] Pena Gomez charged that two
PRD activists were killed in election day incidents in the
interior of the country. One of the deaths was blamed on a PRSC
militant who was subsequently arrested, according to police. A
total of 10 people were killed in fighting between political
parties during the three-month campaign period, making it one of
the least violent campaigns in years. [ED-LP 5/17/96 from AFP]
 
Under a new electoral system, voting was divided by gender: women
voted between 8:30 am and 1:30 pm; men voted from 1:30 to 6:00
pm. Current president Joaquin Balaguer, who was banned from
running for reelection, did not vote; it had long been rumored
that he did not support his party's presidential candidate,
Jacinto Peynado. [ED-LP 5/17/96] According to Daily News reporter
Juan Gonzalez, many suspect that Balaguer's secret intention is
to engineer a victory for Fernandez by having the PRSC back him
in the runoff. Gonzalez also suggested that Balaguer arranged the
separate voting for women because he is more popular among women
and wanted to influence them away from Pena Gomez. [Daily News
(NY) 5/16/96] [Balaguer did not vote in the PRSC primaries last
Oct. 1, either; the PRD has been charging since at least last
September that Balaguer has been backing Fernandez in order to
weaken the PRD, and that the PRSC and the PLD planned to form an
alliance to defeat the PRD in the elections--see Update #297.]
Balaguer--who once authored what the New York Times called "a
notoriously racist tract" about Haiti--and his supporters have
consistently used the race card in campaigning against the dark-
skinned Pena Gomez, who they accuse of being Haitian. [NYT
5/19/96; Independent (UK) 5/16/96] Balaguer is white; Fernandez
is mulatto. In his final pre-election speech on May 12, Balaguer
urged voters to support the candidate who was "most authentically
Dominican." [NYT 5/18/96]
 
Many Dominicans living in the US returned to their homeland to
vote. Local leaders estimated that as many as 50,000 Dominicans
returned from the US over the few weeks before the elections in
order to vote. Many came on charter flights organized by their
political parties. Roberto Cabral of the Dominican Lawyers
Association estimated that one third of the $30 million in
campaign funds raised by the three major parties has come from
Dominicans in the US, especially from the business community.
[Daily News 5/17/96] Fernandez lived in New York for much of his
childhood, attending elementary school, junior high and some high
school in New York before returning to the Dominican Republic to
finish high school. [Daily News 5/16/96]
 
*2. DOMINICAN MILITARY CHIEFS REPLACED

On May 13, just three days before the elections, Balaguer
replaced the national chiefs of the police and army in a surprise
move. Armed forces chief Rear Adm. Ivan Vargas Cespedes was
replaced by army chief of staff Maj. Gen. Ivan Hernandez Oleaga;
police chief Maj. Gen. Segundo Imbert Tesson was replaced by
Balaguer's military advisor, retired general Enrique Perez y
Perez. From 1966 to 1978--years of heavy repression--Perez y
Perez served successively as police chief, army chief and armed
forces chief. Human rights groups say Perez y Perez helped
Balaguer consolidate his power during this period by supervising
the murder of some 3,000 opposition members, and the exile and
imprisonment of many more. The change in the military and police
command prompted a wave of rumors and fears of a new wave of
repression, since many opposition supporters believe Balaguer
does not want to leave the presidency. [DLA 5/15/96 & 5/16/96
from AFP; New York Times 5/18/96] This would seem to be confirmed
by the statements made by Perez y Perez at his swearing in on May
14, when he said "so long as Dr. Balaguer is alive, so long as he
can put his capacities, experience and efforts at the service of
the fatherland, he should continue directing the destiny of the
country." [Independent 5/16/96] Balaguer is in his seventh term
as president; this was the first election in 35 years in which he
was not on the ballot. [WP 5/17/96 from Reuter]
 
In other news, 11 inmates were killed and 50 others injured in a
six-hour uprising on May 11 in a Dominican prison. Inmates who
wanted to be moved to another prison set fire to mattresses and
took over several wings of the jail in Najayo, 19 miles south of
Santo Domingo, police said. Army troops were called in to quell
the riot and regained control of the jail by early afternoon, the
director general of the Dominican prison system, Bernardo Santana
Paez, said. The jail houses 600 prisoners. The army said its
troops did not fire on the prisoners and were not responsible for
the deaths and injuries. Doctors at the Juan Pablo Pina hospital
in San Cristobal, where the dead and wounded were taken, told a
local radio station that the victims had burns and knife wounds,
but no bullet wounds. Police said they believed the riot was
started by a group of inmates who had been moved to Najayo from
another prison where they had organised riots that left several
inmates dead. [Reuter 5/11/96]
 
*3. FOREIGNERS FLOCK TO HAITI PRIVATIZATION

According to the New York-based weekly Village Voice, the
government of Haitian president Rene Preval is close to
finalizing a controversial plan for privatizing the country's
nine state enterprises, although the Parliament has still not
approved the program. Implementing the privatization plan will
release some $800 million in support from international lending
institutions, with $130 million earmarked for repaying debts.
 
Preval has set up a Mixed Economy Corporation, headed by Prime
Minister Rony Smarth, to oversee the transformation of the state
enterprises into joint ventures with foreign companies. So far
AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and Southern Bell from the US, Telecom from
France and BT from the United Kingdom have expressed interest in
TELECO, the Haitian phone company. Smith Co-generation, EDF and
Hydro-Quebec are looking for a share in Electricite d'Haiti
(EDH), the electric utility. France's Bordeaux Airport Authority
wants to run the Port-au-Prince airport; Holder Bank, La Farge
and Mexico's Cemex have an eye on the cement company; Jamaican
Flour, Maple Leaf and Continental are interested in the Minoterie
(flour mill); and a Baltimore firm may end up managing Haiti's
ports. The Voice's James Ridgeway, who dismisses privatization
opponents as "leftist do-gooders in the US," writes that "[a]
little bit further into the future, Haiti is looking to rebuild
its tourist industry...as well as its assembly plants
[maquiladoras]..." [Voice 5/14/96]
 
Privatization supporters were heartened by the low turnout at a
May 1 demonstration against the selloffs [see Update #327].
[Privatization opponents say that despite a heavy, intimidating
police presence, the demonstration brought out more than 2,000
people, not the few hundred reported elsewhere. [Haiti Progres
(NY) 5/8-14/96]] But the privatization forces still can't get the
support of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the founder
of President Preval's Lavalas party. Once considered Preval's
"Siamese twin," Aristide said little for the first three months
after leaving office on Feb. 7. But on May 7 he broke his silence
to tell Radio Nationale: "Privatization is a trap on several
counts...[It]l isn't good for the dispossessed... We mustn't give
too much, or take too little." [HP 5/8-14/96]
 
On May 9 he was more explicit in an interview with Agence
Haitienne de Presse (AHP). "When we observe privatization's
effects abroad, it has never improved the lot of the citizens of
any country," he said, "which is why we should be prudent about
approaching this subject." He noted that the coup that overthrew
him in September 1991 was both political and economic, and that
his return by US troops in October 1994 ended the political coup
but not the economic control by Haiti's elite. At the same time,
Aristide did not endorse the anti-privatization movement. [Haiti
en Marche (Miami) 5/15-5/21/96 from AHP]
 
*4. MAQUILADORA NEWS: HONDURAS, NICARAGUA, HAITI

On Apr. 29 Charles Kernaghan of the US-based National Labor
Committee (NLC) testified to a US congressional committee that
the Global Fashion maquiladora (assembly plant) in Choloma,
Honduras had employed children and pregnant women to stitch
clothes for Wal-Mart's Kathie Lee Gifford Collection, named after
the host of a top-rated syndicated TV morning show, "Live with
Regis & Kathie Lee." On the May 1 edition of her show, Gifford
choked back tears and said she'd been unaware of labor conditions
in the plant. But when a reporter asked her the next day whether
she felt anguish over children being paid 31 cents an hour to sew
clothes bearing her name, Gifford started to say: "No, I
don't..." Her husband, Frank Gifford, abruptly terminated the
interview. Wal-Mart spokesperson Dale Ingram denied there were
problems at the plant but said the operation had been moved to
Nicaragua. Later he told a reporter that there were abuses but
that Wal-Mart had cancelled its contract with Global last fall.
The NLC's Kernaghan says that conditions are even worse for
maquiladora workers in Nicaragua. [New York Daily News 5/3/96]
 
Speaking at events sponsored by the Haiti Support Network (HSN)
in the New York area during the first week of May, Kernaghan
charged that maquiladoras in Haiti are being managed by former
members of two rightwing paramilitary groups, the Front for the
Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) and the Tontons
Macoute, a group set up by dictator Francois ("Papa Doc")
Duvalier in the 1960s. "At Classic Apparel, which produces for US
companies, the chief of personnel is a former FRAPH person,"
Kernaghan said, "and at a factory called Seamfast
[Manufacturing], the owner is a former Macoute, and the workers
tell us you go into his office and he's there in his gleaming
blue uniform with the red stripes [the Macoute uniform]. He's
very proud of himself." [Haiti Progres 5/8-14/96] The Haiti-based
biweekly Haiti Info reports that Seamfast, which stitches for K-
Mart and J C Penney, has been paying some of its workers $0.08 an
hour, about one-third Haiti's legal minimum wage. [Haiti Info,
Vol. 4, #12, 4/20/96]
 
*5. MEXICAN MAQUILAS BOOM, PRODUCTIVE SECTOR SHRINKS

The maquiladora industry is one of the few sectors doing well in
Mexico since the current economic crisis began in December 1994.
The sector grew by 6.6% between March 1995 and March 1996, while
the number of employees jumped by 13% to 696,577. The
maquiladoras import 98% of the materials they assemble, mostly
from the US, so that they do little to lift the rest of Mexico's
economy, which has been devastated over the same period. [Equipo
Pueblo Mexico Update #71, 5/8/96] Gross domestic product (GDP)
fell 1% during the first quarter of this year, on top of dramatic
declines in 1995, when the growth rate went down to an
unprecedented -10.6% during the second quarter. [La Jornada
(Mexico) 5/18/96, electronic edition] The decline for the first
quarter might have been worse if the government hadn't changed
its method of measuring GDP this year, possibly shaving 0.5% off
the number. [New York Times 5/18/96]
 
The crisis in the industrial sector "has caused a decline in
working conditions for all kinds of laborers," the New York Times
writes. "Safety inspections and maintenance of storage equipment
are often the first functions to be postponed as a result of the
crunch." On May 7 a factory making soap and cooking oil was
leveled by an explosion in the eastern part of Mexico City, near
the international airport. [NYT 5/8/96] One person was killed and
41 wounded; the Federal District attorney general's office blamed
the explosion on lack of maintenance. [Diario Las Americas
5/16/96 from AFP]
 
The National Union of Regional Autonomous Peasant Organizations
(UNORCA) says per capita consumption of corn, wheat, fruits and
vegetables has fallen by 29% over the past six years. UNORCA
charges that the two-year old North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA), which cuts tariffs on agricultural products, has ended
the country's self-sufficiency in food and is putting 80% of
Mexico's rural producers in jeopardy. Mexico will import 33% of
the food it consumes this year, according to the group. [Mexico
Update #71, 5/8/96] Even children understand the depth of the
crisis. A poll by Mexico City's conservative opposition daily La
Reforma found that 74% of the city's children between eight and
11 consider the economic situation "very bad"; 30% think it is
Mexico's biggest problem. [Inter Press Service 5/1/96]
 
Correction: Update #328 referred to San Jeronimo Bachajon,
Chiapas as "Bachalon" and called it a town. Officially Bachajon
is an ejido (agrarian cooperative) in Chilon, a municipality 28
kilometers from Ocosingo with a population of about 66,000,
mostly members of the Tzeltal Mayan group. Bachajon's history
goes back almost to the Spanish conquest, but the town was
devastated by epidemics after the Tzeltal rebellion of 1712.
Bachajon was designated an ejido rather than a town during the
agrarian reform of the 1940s, but it is now large enough to
maintain four schools. The center-left Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) won the Chilon municipal elections in October
1995 and the Bachajon ejido elections this spring. [Fray
Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center Report, 5/13/96]
 
*6. GUATEMALANS REJECT MILITARY SERVICE

On May 15, more than a thousand young Guatemalans marched to the
National Palace to demand legal recognition of the right to
refuse military service. In the third annual march organized by
the National Coordination of Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) to
commemorate the International Day of Conscientious Objection,
more than 100 youths joined a growing list of unrecognized
objectors. The marchers also condemned the recent decision by the
congressional defense committee to refuse passage of a bill that
would eliminate obligatory military service, legalize
conscientious objection and provice for voluntary social or
military service. The bill, sponsored by CONAVIGUA, has been
before Congress for almost three years. Members of the Mayan
Defense Council, the University Student Association (AEU), the
Mutual Support Group for Relatives of the Disappeared (GAM) and
campesino groups also marched in support of the bill. [Cerigua
Weekly Briefs #19, 5/16/96]
 
Meanwhile, a medical examination of Tomasa Mateo Taquiej (also
known as Micaela Mateo), the 16-year old adopted daughter of
grassroots activist and national legislator Amilcar Mendez,
determined that the girl was raped during an assault on the
Mendez home on Apr. 11. She was alone when four heavily-armed
intruders entered the house, and she was later found drugged and
naked in the house [see Update #324]. [Guatemala Human Rights
Commission/USA Guatemala Human Rights Update #7-#10/96 5/17/96]
 
*7. MORE MURDERS, US TROOPS ON COLOMBIAN BORDER

At least nine campesinos were murdered on the night of May 11 in
the village of Coredo in northwestern Colombia. The massacre
occurred in the coastal municipality of Jurado, located at the
base of the Darien isthmus in Choco department, near the
Panamanian border and on the edge of the banana-growing region of
Uraba. According to police and army sources cited by Agence
France Presse and Notimex, the assailants were thought to be
members of a paramilitary group, and the victims were killed for
allegedly being guerrilla supporters or guerrilla informants.
Reuter cited police sources blaming the massacre on "leftist
guerrillas." All sources mentioned that the area has a heavy
presence of guerrillas--particularly of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been blamed for a number of
massacres in Uraba--and also of drug traffickers. [Diario Las
Americas 5/14/96 from AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 5/13/96 from
Notimex; Reuter 5/12/96] 
 
On May 9, Panamanian government and justice minister Raul
Montenegro informed the Legislative Assembly that his government
had "authorized short-term US military operations on the border
with Colombia" to prevent guerrilla actions. The news quickly
reached Colombia's senate--which was in the middle of a heated
debate about the future of Uraba--provoking an uproar. Colombian
foreign minister Rodrigo Pardo denied that Panama had authorized
US troop operations in the Darien. President Ernesto Samper
Pizano called Panamanian president Ernesto Perez Balladares, who
explained that the US actions were only programs of cooperation
in the fight against drug trafficking. The US army Southern
Command (Southcomm) denied that its troops had been mobilized,
although it admitted that "humanitarian" efforts were being
carried out jointly with Panamanian authorities to assist
impoverished sectors of the Darien jungle area. Samper was forced
to state publicly that Colombia would not allow the interference
of foreign troops in its territory; he ordered Defense Minister
Juan Carlos Esguerra to send Colombian combat reconnaisance
planes to patrol the Panamanian border. [Inter Press Service
5/16/96; La Jornada 5/12/96 from AFP, DPA, EFE, IPS, Prensa
Latina, ANSA]
 
[The Panamanian government authorized the US Southern Command to
perform military exercises in Panama from Feb. 5 to July 15. The
exercises, including flights between locations throughout the
country, have the stated goal of maximizing US capability to
protect and defend the canal. The US has 8,000 troops currently
stationed in Panama. [Central America Update Vol. 2, #3,
2/1-15/96]]
 
"They're one meter away from invading," insisted Colombian
senator Fabio Valencia, a member of the Conservative Party. "The
constant declarations by US organizations about how drug
trafficking centers like Uraba and the island of San Andres
affect their internal security just prove it." Some people in
Apartado, Uraba's principal urban center, are suggesting that the
new wave of violence is being stirred up by people working for
the US banana companies. "I see no risk of a US invasion," said
Antioquia governor Alvaro Uribe Velez on May 13, "but one can't
underestimate the unilateral intervention of a foreign country
when Colombian sovereignty has been so weakened." [Inter Press
Service 5/16/96]
 
Colombia has one of the highest murder rates in the world. In
1995, a total of 25,273 people were murdered out of a population
of 36 million. When all forms of violent deaths are considered,
the 1995 count jumps to 39,375. [ED-LP 5/18/96 from AFP] In Uraba
alone, there were 952 murders and 52 disappearances reported in
1995 out of a total population of 700,000; so far this year there
have been 165 murders in the region, which is made up of 230,000
hectares within the jurisdiction of the departments of Antioquia,
Choco and Cordoba. [IPS 5/16/96]
 
*8. COLOMBIANS FORM NEW ALLIANCE AGAINST EXTRADITION?

A clandestine group calling itself "Dignity for Colombia" has
demanded that Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary
General Cesar Gaviria Trujillo make a statement about the US
troop presence in the Darien. The group--which has claimed
responsibility for kidnapping Gaviria's brother, the writer Juan
Carlos Gaviria, last Apr. 2--insisted that it will not allow US
or Panamanian forces to enter Colombian territory, and declared
US citizens or companies in Colombia to be "military targets."
Colombian intelligence sources claim that drug traffickers of the
North Valle cartel--a split from the Cali cartel (Cali is located
in Valle del Cauca department, commonly referred to as El Valle)-
-are behind the kidnapping group, which recently cut off
negotiations for the release of Juan Carlos Gaviria. According to
press reports, the North Valle cartel paid $2.3 million to
finance Dignity for Colombia. The same reports indicate that the
group is made up of former members of Colombia's three principal
guerrilla groups, and that the alliance between drug traffickers
and ex-guerrillas is based on a common goal of preventing the
renewal of extraditions of accused criminals to the US. [El
Diario-La Prensa 5/12/96 from AFP; La Jornada 5/12/96 from AFP,
DPA, EFE, IPS, Prensa Latina, ANSA]
 
To this end, Dignity for Colombia has threatened judges of the
Constitutional Court over the court's recent ruling that an
extradition treaty signed with the US in 1984 remains in force--
despite the fact that Colombia's 1991 constitution expressly
prohibits handing Colombian nationals over to the justice systems
of other countries. The court ruled that the prohibition in
article 35 of the Constitution only applies to international
accords signed after July 7, 1991, when the new charter took
effect. The Constitutional Assembly included the ban on
extradition in the 1991 charter after the armed wing of the
Medellin drug cartel carried out a lengthy and extremely violent
campaign against extradition. In legal circles it has been
speculated that an eventual resignation of President Samper--over
charges that he received campaign money from drug traffickers--
could lead his successor to reestablish extradition as a symbol
of a tougher stand against the drug mafia. [DLA 5/10/96 from EFE;
La Jornada 5/12/96 from AFP, DPA, EFE, IPS, Prensa Latina, ANSA] 
 
Cesar Gaviria has been engaged in private efforts to obtain the
release of his brother from the kidnappers since at least Apr.
20. In a communique during the week of Apr. 15, Dignity for
Colombia urged Gaviria to resign from his post as secretary
general of the OAS to return to Colombia to fight corruption.
Unsurprisingly, Gaviria rejected the suggestion. In the same
communique, the group proposed that former presidential candidate
Maria Eugenia Rojas--daughter of the late dictator Gustavo Rojas
Pinilla (1953-57)--take power. Rojas rejected the proposal and
condemned the kidnapping. In a second communique on Apr. 22, the
group proposed famous Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez as
a replacement for current president Ernesto Samper Pizano. [ED-LP
4/23/96 from Notimex]
 
Garcia Marquez also rejected the proposal. "No one who knows me
and knows the real prostration of the country can expect that I
would take on the irresponsibility of being the worst president
of the Republic," said Garcia Marquez in a communique. The author
urged the kidnappers to "free Juan Carlos Gaviria, bury your
weapons, take off your masks and go out to promote ideas of
renovation with the protection of constitutional order." Garcia
Marquez has been working for the past three years on a nonfiction
book called News of a Kidnapping, which was to be released on May
8 or 13 at the International Book Fair in Bogota. [ED-LP 4/28/96
from AFP; ED-LP 5/12/96 from Cambio 16] 
 
*9. CUBA: BAD DAY FOR BASULTO

On May 16 the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revoked
the pilot's license of Cuban-American Jose Basulto, leader of the
rightwing group Brothers to the Rescue, just as he was about to
lead another flight mission to drop flowers near the edge of
Cuban waters in memory of four pilots who were shot down by the
Cuban government last Feb. 24. Basulto continued on the mission
as a co-pilot. [Diario Las Americas 5/17/96] Basulto says he will
appeal the FAA's decision. The FAA says Basulto ignored its
repeated warnings and violated Cuban airspace on July 13, 1995,
and on Feb. 24 of this year. Basulto admitted entering Cuban
airspace last July, but denied he entered it during the February
incident. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/18/96 from AP]
 
Meanwhile, the Cuban government has presented the United Nations
(UN) with a formal complaint against the US for allowing New York
mayor Rudolph Giuliani to give the name "Hermanos al Rescate
Esquina" (Brothers to the Rescue Corner) to the street outside
Cuba's Mission to the UN, at 38th Street and Lexington Avenue
[see Update #327]. [ED-LP 5/15/96 from Notimex] New York city
councilmember Tom Duane--whose district includes the corner--says
the street sign "shows the mayor's total disregard for the City
Charter," which mandates that street name changes be approved by
the relevant community board and city council. The mayor is
allowed to rename streets on a short-term basis, and one New York
City Department of Transportation employee told the Village Voice
that the sign's blue color means it's only temporary (permanent
street signs in New York are green). But according to Brothers to
the Rescue leader Basulto, "It's supposed to be permanent. They
told me it's going to be up there for as long as Castro is in
power." [VV 5/21/96]
 
*10. SOME COMPUTERS RELEASED, BUT CUBA FAST CONTINUES

Four North American activists remain on hunger strike in the US,
demanding the release of 400 computers donated for a Cuban
medical information project, which were confiscated by the US
Treasury Department as a violation of the US embargo against
Cuba. On May 13, the Treasury Department told a delegation of
religious leaders it would release 23 of the computers brought to
San Diego by Canadians in transshipment to Cuba [IFCO/Pastors for
Peace Emergency Action Alert 5/15/96]. On May 17, the
administration of US president Bill Clinton authorized export of
the 23 Canadian computers to Cuba. 
 
In a May 17 letter to faster Lucius Walker, Richard Newcomb,
director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets
Control, "invited" an application for a license to export "goods
for humanitarian use, such as the computers you wish to export
for use solely in the Pan American Health Organization's InfoMed
system." Senior Treasury officials said the letter was intended
to signal that a license would probably be granted for the
computers if a group would seek one on their behalf. The
Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) and
Pastors for Peace--the organizations sponsoring the Fast for Life
campaign--refuse to apply for a license because they feel it
would legitimize the US embargo. Walker said his "spirits were
lifted" by the release of the Canadian computers, but said the
fast would continue. [Washington Post 5/18/96]
 
*11. ECUADOR: SOCIAL SECURITY UNIONS CRUSHED IN ELECTION WEEK

Ecuador's high council has ruled in favor of the elimination of
108 unions within the state-run Ecuadoran Institute of Social
Security (IESS), it was announced on May 16. Under the new
measure, 3,000 IESS workers will have to be represented by a
single organization and a single contract, according to the
Ecuadoran labor code; another 12,000 IESS bureaucrats who are not
considered workers under the labor code will be completely denied
the right to unionize and will have to observe the regulations of
the Law of Civil Service and Administrative Careers. The
elimination of the unions is based on a constitutional reform
approved last January, in which a new labor relationship was
established between the state and its workers. The minister of
public welfare praised the council's decision as an "historic"
step toward the "de-bureaucratization" of public agencies.
Marcelo Proano, secretary of the former National Union of IESS
Workers, announced that all of the Institute's 15,000 employees
will began a total work stoppage soon to reject the ruling.
[Inter Press Service 5/16/96]
 
Campaigning ended on May 17 in Ecuador, and voters go to the
polls on May 19 to elect a new president, a new vice president,
12 national-level deputies, 70 provincial legislators, 21
prefects, 74 provincial counselors, 27 mayors, 171 city council
presidents, and 819 municipal council members [see Update #319].
[Latin America Data Base Notisur 2/23/96 from Inter Press
Service, Reuter, AFP] If no candidate wins more than 50% of the
vote, there will be a second round on July 7. [ED-LP 5/17/96 from
Notimex] Leading opinion polls for the presidency is Jaime Nebot
Saadi of the rightwing Social Christian Party (PSC). Center-left
journalist Freddy Ehlers Zurita--backed by a coalition of
grassroots, labor and indigenous groups--has stirred such intense
support in last-minute campaign rallies across the country that
analysts believe he is running at a par with Nebot. [ED-LP
5/12/96] Other candidates with possibilities of making it to a
second round against Nebot are populist Abdala Bucaram and
centrist Christian Democrat Rodrigo Paz Delgado. [Diario Las
Americas 5/18/96 from EFE]
 
*12. PERU REBELS BOMB SHELL OIL

A 33-pound car bomb exploded on May 16 at a Shell Oil Company
storage center in the La Victoria district of Lima, Peru,
injuring 10 people and damaging several buildings, according to
police. Police said the 10 people injured--one seriously--
included passers-by and security guards. In a note found at the
scene, the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero
Luminoso or Shining Path), claimed responsibility for the action.
The attack came on the eve of the anniversary of the PCP's
uprising against the government. Police said they found a note at
the scene that read, "The 16th anniversary of the people's war
... against the dictatorship and foreign imperialism." It was
signed with a red hammer and sickle. [Associated Press 5/16/96 or
5/17/96 (undated), posted on NY Transfer News Collective 5/17/96
by Luis Quispe of Nueva Bandera, affiliated w/PCP; El Diario-La
Prensa 5/18/96 from Notimex] The explosion also came the day
before Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Mobil Corporation signed a 40-
year agreement with the Peruvian government to develop the huge
Camisea natural gas reserves in the Amazon jungle. [NYT 5/18/96
from Bloomberg Business News]
 
*13. IN OTHER NEWS...

Brazil's Military Police (PM) authorities have brought homicide
charges against all 155 of the PM agents involved in the Apr. 19
massacre of 19 landless campesinos in Para state [see Updates
#325 and 327], local media reported on May 11. Human rights
groups object that the collective charges will keep the case from
ever being tried, while the Landless Movement (MST) says that the
PM is actively destroying evidence. Two landowners have charged
that other landowners bribed the PM with $100,000 to execute the
campesinos. [La Jornada 5/11/96 from AFP, EF, ANSA, DPA]... On
May 17 the Brazilian Catholic Church's Pastoral Land Commission
(CPT) announced that three more bodies had been discovered of
campesinos massacred in Rondonia state by PM agents and
mercenaries on Aug. 9, 1995, bringing the official death toll
there to 14 [see Updates #289, 290]. [LJ 5/18/96 from EFE, ANSA,
DPA, AFP]... Striking workers at the Chuquicamata division of
Chile's state copper company CODELCO voted on the night of May 11
to end a strike that began May 2 [see Update #327]. The final
tally was 4,542 voting in favor of the contract and 1,326
against. The final three-year contract stipulates an "end-of-
strike bonus" of $1.5 million pesos ($3,700) for each worker, a
3% wage increase over the rate of inflation, improvements in
productivity bonuses, a commitment by Codelco to construct a new
hospital and an option for low-interest company-financed loans
for as much as $2,100. After the vote results were announced,
some 200 workers who opposed the contract gathered to accuse the
union leadership of betrayal. "We were better under [ex-dictator
Gen. Augusto] Pinochet," they chanted. [CHIP News 5/13/96]...
Uruguay's only union federation has accepted the Association of
Public Prostitutes of Uruguay (AMEPU) into its membership after
recognizing prostitutes as "sex workers" with the same rights as
other workers. The decision to approve AMEPU's request for
affiliation was adopted unanimously by the federation's executive
leadership. [Diario Las Americas 5/18/96 from AFP]. Meanwhile, an
accord between the French gas company Gaseba and the union
representing its workers in Uruguay has ended a 25-day hunger
strike by three of the union's leaders. Luis Puig, Homero
Llagaria and Miguel Mascarello--who had been fired by the
company--have been admitted to a hospital to begin their physical
recovery under medical supervision. [DLA 5/7/96 from EFE]... El
Salvador's Supreme Court has closed the case of three former
guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation
(FMLN) who were accused of killing three US soldiers on Jan. 1,
1991, in the area of Lolotique. Two of the US soldiers died when
their helicopter was shot down by the rebels, and the third,
seriously injured, was shot to death on the ground. In January of
1992, the Legislative Assembly approved an amnesty law
exonerating those responsible of political and war crimes during
the 12-year armed conflict; this amnesty was applied to the case
of the three ex-guerrillas, who had surrendered to authorities
months earlier. [DLA 5/18/96 from AFP]... Police in La Paz,
Bolivia used tear gas and rubber bullets to break up a May 17
demonstration by teachers during a 24-hour strike. The La Paz
Urban Teachers Federation was protesting the refusal of education
authorities to pay their salaries for days spent on strike in
April. One teacher was seriously injured by a tear gas canister.
The teachers union is also planning to take part in a 24-hour
national strike and mobilization on May 29 to defend the social
security system, called by the Bolivian Workers Central (COB).
[El Diario-La Prensa 5/18/96 from Notimex]... On May 13, civil
rights officials announced that federal prosecutors are
investigating charges that a US Border Patrol agent raped two
Guatemalan women who had been captured crossing the Rio Grande
from Mexico. The women were arrested on Mar. 7 and taken to an El
Paso, Texas detention center where they were raped by a Border
Patrol agent while his supervisor stood guard, attorney James
Scherer said. The agent then gave the women one dollar each for
bus fare and told them to leave town. Scherer said he plans to
file a civil lawsuit on behalf of the women, who are frustrated
by the slow pace of the federal probe. Border Patrol spokesperson
Doug Mosier declined comment pending completion of the Justice
Department probe. Susan Kern, spokeswoman for the Border Rights
Coalition, said the women "are cooperating with the investigation
and have already pointed out their abuser in a lineup." [Reuter
5/13/96]

END

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