WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                   ISSUE #332, JUNE 9, 1996
       NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
     339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

1. Guatemalan Judge Suspended in Xaman Massacre Flap
2. Human Rights Abuses in Guatemala
3. Nicaragua: Recontras Running Wild 
4. Helms-Burton: Cuba's Investors Talk The Talk & Walk Away
5. Alleged Zapatistas Freed, Mexican Peace Process Revived
6. Is Mexican President Fighting Salinas Conspiracy?
7. Salinas and Citibank Loot Mexico, Mexicans Loot Maseca
8. Dominican Republic: Alliance To Stop Black Social Democrat
9. Activists and Journalists Attacked in Northern Haiti
10. IMF Head Lobbies in Haiti, Constant Still in US
11. Peru Importing & Exporting Alleged Guerrillas
12. Chilean Right Rejects Constitutional Reforms
13. Chile: More DINA Impunity News 
14. Three Argentines Charged in Ecuador Arms Sales
15. Battered Woman Sacrificed To US Anti-Immigrant Policy 
16. In Other News: Cuba, Chile, Colombia, Canada, Puerto Rico
 
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*1. GUATEMALAN JUDGE SUSPENDED IN XAMAN MASSACRE FLAP

On June 6 Guatemala's Supreme Court announced the suspension of
Judge Victor Hugo Jimenez Ruiz, who was presiding over the Xaman
massacre case, in which 24 soldiers and one officer are accused
of killing 11 returned refugees last Oct. 5 [see Updates #315,
297, 298]. His suspension came a week after he released eight of
the defendants--including the officer--on bail, causing protest
from grassroots organizations and government officials. Nobel
Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum called the release of the
soldiers a "legal monstrosity" and "a prize for human rights
violators," while the special prosecutor in the Xaman case told
the daily La Republica that he was "extremely disillusioned with
the justice system." The general command of the Guatemalan
National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) rebels issued a communique
saying that those behind the release of the soldiers are
stimulating impunity and putting the peace process at risk. 
 
Questions have also been raised about a defense witness, Miguel
Gallego Raymundo. Gallego was scheduled to testify about the
massacre the same day, but did not appear. According to members
of the Xaman community, Gallego is a paid military informer who
was not present at the massacre. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #22
6/6/96]
 
*2. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN GUATEMALA

On May 19, an unidentified man beat and attempted to rape Maria
Tuyuc Velasquez, an activist of the National Coordination of
Guatemalan Widows (CONAVIGUA) and sister of national deputy
Rosalina Tuyuc. CONAVIGUA leader Maria Canil and the Tuyuc
sisters blamed paramilitary groups for the incident. As they left
the CONAVIGUA offices after the press conference, reporters from
Cerigua and ACAN-EFE--despite having identified themselves--were
pushed against the wall and searched at gunpoint by agents of the
National Police, who claimed there had been a robbery nearby.
[Cerigua newsfeed 5/20/96; Cerigua Weekly Briefs #20, 5/23/96]
 
On Apr. 2 the Mayan Defense Committee accused members of the
Civilian Self-Defense Patrols (PACs), a local village mayor and a
former military commissioner of attempting to burn alive human
rights activist Julio Ixmata in the village of Guineales, Santa
Catarina Ixtahuacan, Solola province. Ixmata, hospitalized as a
result of the attack, has been campaigning against the PACs and
denouncing their human rights abuses. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14,
4/11/96]
 
On Mar. 28 a crowd in Santa Elena, Peten province, seized, beat
and set fire to a suspected criminal. A video shot by Associated
Press TV shows the crowd being egged on by people whose faces
were covered. The incident was the latest in a series of public
lynchings by street crowds. Guatemalan archbishop Prospero
Penados del Barrio and Ronalth Ochoeta, head of the Archdiocesan
Human Rights Office (ODHA), have both expressed concern that the
lynchings may not be spontaneous. Democratic Front for a New
Guatemala (FDNG) legislator Nineth Montenegro suggested on Mar.
30 that the instigators could be former members of the National
Police or the army who are angry at having been purged or
suspended. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #14, 4/11/96]
 
Pedro Chuc Ruiz, a disabled leader of the Highland Campesino
Committee (CCDA) in the community of Pampojila, San Lucas
Toliman, Solola, was murdered in his home on May 20. As promoter
of development in his community and leader of the rural workers
of the Altiplano region, Chuc Ruiz was working for the recovery
of lands in the San Francisco farm, after its workers were
violently evicted by the security forces. According to the
National Coordinator of Small and Medium Producers (CONAMPRO),
the killing was carried out by a paramilitary armed group
financed by local farmowners. During the killing, one of the
attackers, Mario Herrarte Hernandez, was also killed. He was 
apparently a worker at the San Antonio Mopan farm in Patulul,
Suchitepequez. [International Secretariat of OMCT/SOS-Torture
Human Rights Defenders Special Appeal Case GTM 240596 5/24/96]
 
*3. NICARAGUA: RECONTRAS RUNNING WILD 

On June 7, an armed group of former contras took over rightwing
Nicaraguan radio station Radio Corporacion in Managua to
broadcast their demand that Fabeo Gadea Mantilla resign as the
head of the Nicaraguan Resistance Party (PRN), which was formed
by former contras. They also demanded that Enrique Quinonez and
Noel Rivera be the party's candidates for president and vice
president in national elections coming up Oct. 20. Gadea Mantilla
said that both Quinonez and Rivera had been expelled from the PRN
for committing fraud in the party's congress in January. Police
sub-commander Juana Burghis said that the contras were armed and
carried what looked like Molotov cocktails. [El Diario-La Prensa
(NY) 6/8/96 from AP]
 
Cynthia Gersony, who was abducted by recontras (rearmed former
contras) in the north of Nicaragua and released on June 1 [see
Update #331], was in Nicaragua working for the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) as an election observer.
Gersony and her Nicaraguan guide Antonio Moncada (himself a
former contra) were captured by fifteen armed men under the
command of Alejandro Moncada in the Wiwili area of Jinotega
department. The recontras were ostensibly demanding that
electoral tables and materials be available in the area, close to
the Honduran border. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/2/96 from AP, DPA,
EFE, AFP and Reuter; ED-LP 6/8/96 from Notimex]
 
*4. HELMS-BURTON: CUBA'S INVESTORS TALK THE TALK & WALK AWAY

The Organization of American States took a rare anti-US
government position on June 5, criticizing the Cuban Liberty and
Democratic Solidarity Act, commonly known as Helms-Burton, as a
probable violation of international law because it punishes
third-party countries for trading with Cuba. The vote was nearly
unanimous: out of thirty-four member countries, 32 co-sponsored
the bill, with only the US dissenting and Dominica not attending.
US delegate Harriet Babbitt called the resolution an act of
"diplomatic cowardice." A spokesperson for the Cuban Foreign
ministry said the resolution was "really a surprise." [New York
Times 6/6/96]
 
Despite the vote, the new law's chilling effect continues. Cuban
Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina announced on June 1 that the
Cuban government will no longer disclose which foreign firms have
investments in Cuba, to protect them from Helms-Burton sanctions.
He mentioned that a company was alleged to be pulling out of
Cuba--thought to be a reference to Mexican cement company Cemex,
which US State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns had said
was withdrawing because of Helms-Burton. [La Jornada 6/2/96 from
ANSA, PL, EFE] At the end of May, the US government sent letters
to numerous companies doing business with Cuba, warning them that
they could face sanctions unless they divested within 45 days.
Seven Chilean firms were on the list: Ingelco, New World Food,
Pole (all owned by Max Marambio), Santa Cruz Real Estates, Latin
Exim and Santa Ana. Marambio said the law does not technically
apply to his operations because they are not using confiscated
property. "In any case," he added, "the law is unjust and its
consequences do not worry us. It is a pretext to beat up on
anyone who wants to invest in Cuba." The Chilean government has
joined Mexico, Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands and others
in condemning the US law. [CHIP News 5/31/96 from El Mercurio, El
Diario] The private sector estimates Chilean investments in Cuba
between 1990-1995 to be $61 million. Last year, Chilean exports
to Cuba grew 18.2 percent to $17.5 million. [CHIP News 6/3/96
from El Mercurio, El Diario] Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue
Service is investigating the affairs of the Bacardi family--anti-
Castro Cuban-Americans who helped draft Helms-Burton--to
determine whether their intricate system of holding companies and
off-shore trusts has defrauded the US government out of millions
of dollars in income taxes. [NYT 5/26/96]
 
On June 3, in a new move to open to foreign capital, President
Fidel Castro Ruz signed a decree to permit free trade zones and
industrial parks in Cuba. [ED-LP 6/7/96] And on June 8, Cuban
Central Bank president (BNC) Francisco Soberon went to a meeting
of central bank presidents of industrialized nations, from which
the BNC had been excluded for the past 7 years. [ED-LP 6/9/96]
Free trade zones, in which foreign companies have no tax burden
and lax labor restrictions, are heavily promoted by international
lending institutions like the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF).
 
*5. ALLEGED ZAPATISTAS FREED, MEXICAN PEACE PROCESS REVIVED

On June 6 Mexican federal judge Enrique Duran Martinez of the
20th Circuit in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, cleared videomaker
Javier Elorriaga Berdegue and indigenous activist Sebastian
Entzin Gomez of charges of terrorism and rebellion. The judge
dropped all counts against Elorriaga; he upheld one count against
Entzin but reduced the penalty to a fine of 300 pesos (a little
more than $40). On May 2 a local judge had sentenced Elorriaga to
13 years and Entzin to six years. [La Jornada 6/7/96, electronic
edition; New York Times 6/7/96]
 
Entzin and Elorriaga were arrested in January and February 1995
during a crackdown on the rebel Zapatista National Liberation
Army (EZLN); the government had charged them as EZLN members, an
accusation denied by the defendants and the rebel group. The May
2 sentencing derailed peace negotiations between the government
and the EZLN, which had been scheduled to resume June 5. Sixteen
other alleged Zapatistas remain in prison [see Updates #327, 328,
331]. As soon as the convictions were overturned, the EZLN
announced that it would meet on June 9 with the Concord and
Pacification Commission (COCOPA), a congressional commission
established to facilitate the negotiation process.
 
The Mexican government had made the Elorriaga-Entzin case one of
the largest in the country's history; the trial papers total
5,000 pages and weigh 60 kilograms. Upon being released on June
7, Elorriaga told reporters he would go on working as a writer
and videomaker; he plans to join the EZLN's civilian movement,
the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN), "like any other
citizen." Entzin said he would return to his town in Altamirano,
Chiapas to "to work my milpa [cornfield] with my brothers." [LJ
6/7/96]
 
*6. IS MEXICAN PRESIDENT FIGHTING SALINAS CONSPIRACY?

Several sudden reversals by the Mexican government, as in the
Elorriaga-Entzin case, have led people to wonder who is in
charge. The EZLN military commander, "Insurgent Sub-Commander
Marcos," complained to reporters in early June that "[t]he peace
talks are being held hostage to a fight for power within the
government... The problem is we are talking peace with the
executive branch while the other powers of government...directly
contradict the executive." [Reuter 6/3/96] In May the US-based
Journal of Commerce carried an article by DC investment adviser
Christopher Whalen predicting new economic problems for Mexico
and drastic changes in the government after Dec. 1. [LJ 6/2/96
from Notimex] [Whalen, once an adviser to 1988 and 1994 center-
left presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano,
correctly predicted Mexico's December 1994 economic crash, saying
US investors were trying "to get in and out before disaster
strikes." [CounterPunch 12/1/94]]
 
On June 2 Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who is favored to win the
national presidency of the center-left Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) in party elections next month, announced that a
conspiracy had formed both inside and outside the country to
overthrow President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon. Three days
later, he blamed the conspiracy on the so-called Atlacomulco
Group, a conservative faction in the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) that includes billionaire former
agriculture secretary Carlos Hank Gonzalez, Veracruz governor
Patricio Chirinos, Puebla governor Manuel Bartlett Diaz and
Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo Pintado--who defeated Lopez
Obrador in the 1994 gubernatorial race. [El Diario-La Prensa
6/7/96 from AFP]
 
Federal deputy Tonatiuh Bravo (independent) made similar charges
on June 3, also naming Maseca, an industrial giant that cornered
much of the tortilla market under former president Carlos Salinas
de Gortari (1988-1994). Most members of the Atlacomulco Group
prospered under Salinas. Lopez Obrador called for the PRD to
support Zedillo against the PRI right, setting off charges from
his rivals that he making an offer for the PRD to join Zedillo's
government. [LJ 6/4/96, 6/5/96, electronic editions]
 
On June 7, Mexican attorney general Antonio Lozano Gracia, a
member of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), filed
charges relating to a year-old complaint Lopez Obrador brought
against Tabasco governor Madrazo for allegedly spending 237
million pesos (more than $70 million at the 1994 exchange rate)
on his 1994 election campaign, 60 times the legal limit [see
Update #281]. The Attorney General's Office (PGR) found that
Madrazo's election committee spent "128 million pesos [about $38
million] just between June 7 and Nov. 20, 1994" to defeat Lopez
Obrador. The PGR confirmed reports that much of the money--13.44
million pesos--came from former Cremi-Union bank head Carlos
Cabal Peniche, who has been a fugitive since September 1994, when
he was charged with fraudulently lending himself $700 million
from his own bank [see Update #242]. [LJ 6/7/96, electronic
edition]
 
*7. SALINAS AND CITIBANK LOOT MEXICO, MEXICANS LOOT MASECA

PRI conservatives are also facing fresh scandals involving former
president Salinas' brother Raul, currently facing charges of
ordering the 1994 murder of PRI general secretary Jose Francisco
Ruiz Massieu. On June 3 Mexico City's conservative opposition
daily La Reforma published a transcript of testimony Raul Salinas
gave Swiss investigators at the end of last year concerning the
more than $80 million he was keeping in secret bank accounts in
their country. He denied the money came from drug trafficking but
couldn't explain its origin. [ED-LP 6/4/96 from AFP]
 
On June 5 the New York Times ran a front-page story partly based
on the same testimony. Salinas reportedly laundered the money by
sending a courier every few weeks in 1993 to Citibank's Mexico
City headquarters with a cashier's check for several million
dollars, usually drawn on Cabal Peniche's Banca Cremi (later
merged with Banco Union to form Cremi-Union). Salinas says he
turned to Citibank in 1993 on the advice of Carlos Hank Rhon, one
of Hank Gonzalez's sons. Citibank officials, including Salinas'
"personal banker," the Cuban-American Amy Elliott, "came up with
a whole strategy" for shipping the money through Cayman Islands
accounts into Switzerland, Salinas told investigators. Citibank
continues to deny any wrongdoing, but the US Justice Department
said in early June that the bank was now being investigated. [NYT
6/5/96] [The New York Times account failed to note Banca Cremi's
connection to Cabal Peniche.]
 
In other news, on May 30 about 300 residents of an impoverished
neighborhood of Monterrey, in the northern state of Nuevo Leon,
used large wooden sticks to block an early morning train carrying
corn flour belonging to Maseca, the tortilla giant linked to
former president Salinas. The crowd unloaded the train's
contents--some 40 tons, according to Radio Red--before police
arrived. Seven looters were arrested; most escaped with their
sacks of flour. [Reuter 5/30/96]
 
*8. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: ALLIANCE TO STOP BLACK SOCIAL DEMOCRAT

On June 2, Dominican president Joaquin Balaguer and former
president Juan Bosch formally announced the alliance of their
parties, the Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC) and the
Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), in a "National Patriotic Front"
to support PLD presidential candidate Leonel Fernandez in runoff
elections to be held June 30. Fernandez is running against Jose
Francisco Pena Gomez of the social-democratic Dominican
Revolutionary Party (PRD). In his speech, Balaguer called on
voters to "not let the country fall into the hands of those who
aren't truly Dominicans"--Pena Gomez is Dominican born and black,
and previous campaigns have frequently accused him of being
Haitian, and of intending to open the borders to Haitians.
Balaguer and Bosch, who are white, have been enemies for decades
[El Diario-La Prensa 6/3/96, 6/8/96]; Bosch founded the PRD in
1939 but left in 1973 to found the PLD. 
 
The Revolutionary Forces party (FR), formed in February from four
Dominican left parties, is not supporting either candidate. While
respecting Pena Gomez's leftist origins and his stature as a
leader of the Socialist International, the FR argues that the PRD
proved itself to be as corrupt as Balaguer when it ruled the
country from 1978 to 1986. In 1984, the army fired on 600
protesters who were opposing a 200% price rise in basic
foodstuffs and medicines, killing 112 of them. [Green Left Weekly
#228, 4/24/96]
 
*9. ACTIVISTS AND JOURNALISTS ATTACKED IN NORTHERN HAITI

On May 22 two members of the National Popular Assembly (APN), a
Haitian grassroots organization formed after the 1986 overthrow
of dictator Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier, were attacked and
seriously injured by unidentified assailants in Le Borgne, a town
about 30 miles west of Cap-Haitien in northern Haiti. In
response, the APN national leadership organized a delegation of
some 20 APN members, journalists and human rights activists to
accompany the victims to a hospital. The delegation--which
included Ben Dupuy, publisher of the New York-based leftist
weekly Haiti Progres--was authorized by a letter from North
Department commissioner Bell Angelot. Regional police chief Jean
Moise and Limbe police chief Renan Etienne went with the
delegation, as did five police agents and two members of the
United Nations Mission in Haiti (MINUHA).
 
The group arrived in Le Borgne on May 28, presenting Angelot's
letter to Judge Gaston ("Koni") Obas. Limbe police chief Etienne
was injured in a scuffle that ensued between Obas and
journalists. The delegation then proceeded to the small town of
Petit Bourg Au Borgne, where they picked up the two wounded APN
members, but on the way back to Cap-Haitien the group was blocked
by about 50 people armed with guns and machetes. The delegation
was held there for several hours while the assailants stole
valuables, struck delegation members and delivered death threats.
The national government's vice-delegate, Marc Lamour, arrived
later; after a long discussion with Dupuy, he called off the
attackers and accompanied the delegation through several other
roadblocks. However, Judge Obas jailed one APN member, Luckner
Charles.
 
Le Borgne is the site of repeated conflicts between peasant
groups and big landowners; it suffered especially severe
repression under the 1991-94 military government [see Updates
#222 and 227], which Lamour, the leader of the Movement of Le
Borgne Peasant Groups (MGPB), resisted in collaboration with the
local APN. More recently he has seemed to be allied with Judge
Obas against the APN, which says it is still willing to meet with
Lamour. According to Dupuy, the rightists are "seeking to create
division and a clash between groups like APN and MGPB. It is
similar to what happened in Jean Rabel in 1987 where the Macoute
[Duvalierist] landowners organized peasants to fight among
themselves, and thus there was a massacre." The APN is asking for
faxes to President Rene Preval (011-509-123-5334), Prime Minister
Rosny Smarth (011-509-145-1361) and others. [Haiti Progres 5/29-
6/4/96; "This Week in Haiti," HP English section 6/5-11/96,
electronic edition]
 
*10. IMF HEAD LOBBIES IN HAITI, CONSTANT STILL IN US

International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Michel Camdessus
visited Haiti May 23-24. The original plan was for Camdessus and
President Preval to sign an accord for IMF funding and the
privatization of nine Haitian state enterprises. With the accord
still not finalized, Camdessus used the occasion to proclaim his
"complete identity of view" with Preval and to lobby for
privatization. "[T]he objective of our program is the betterment
of the human condition," he told listeners to Radio Haiti Inter.
"I am here to share with you only what really works all over the
world." National Assembly vice president Fritz Robert St. Paul
reported that in a meeting with lawmakers Camdessus "said there
are 181 countries in the world that have done structural
adjustments, and their economies did fine...and we asked for
examples. He gave us Bolivia, he gave us Peru. We disagreed..."
[Haiti Info Vol 1, # 15, 6/1/96]
 
Meanwhile, paramilitary leader Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant has now
spent more than one year in detention in the US, even though he
has exhausted his appeals to avoid deportation and legally could
be sent back to Haiti at any time. Constant, a former Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) informant and the founder of the
murderous Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti
(FRAPH), was arrested in New York City on May 10, 1995. "He may
be the first Haitian in history to be placed subject for
deportation whom the United States government didn't deport,"
says US attorney Ira Kurzban, who works as general counsel for
the Haitian government. Asked when Constant might be repatriated,
Kurzban answered: "You would have to ask the CIA, because he
works for the CIA." [Inter Press Service 5/8/96]
 
*11. PERU IMPORTING & EXPORTING ALLEGED GUERRILLAS

Julian Salazar Calero is being held in prison in New York,
awaiting a formal request from the Peruvian government. He is
accused of belonging to the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP,
commonly known as "Sendero Luminoso" or "Shining Path") and
participating in an action in Jan. 1991 in which six police were
killed. Salazar Calero denies any connection with the PCP; he
entered the US illegally in 1991, filed a petition for political
asylum which was refused in 1995, and has been held in detention
by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service awaiting
deportation ever since. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/8/96]
 
Meanwhile, Japanese national Kazue Yoshimura, accused of
belonging to the leftwing Red Army armed movement, was deported
from Peru to Japan on June 5. She was arrested on May 25;
according to Gen. Carlos Dominguez, Yoshimura entered Peru in
1993 with false documents and had no link with either the PCP or
the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). On the same day,
alleged PCP leader Osman Morote Barrionuevo was sentenced to life
in prison under the terms of Peru's antiterrorism law. [ED-LP
6/9/96] 

*12. CHILEAN RIGHT REJECTS CONSTITUTIONAL REFORMS

On Apr. 11, Chile's Senate rejected a proposal for constitutional
reforms presented by the administration of President Eduardo Frei
eight months ago [see Update #291]. Hardline senators of the
rightwing National Renovation (RN) and Independent Democratic
Union (UDI) parties joined with the far rightwing designated
senators--eight non-elected, "institutional" senators appointed
by former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet--to defeat the so-called
"Frei proposal II." The 21 senators of the ruling Concertacion
coalition were joined by four RN senators in supporting the
initiative. A quorum of 31 on a first round of voting and 28 on a
second are required to approve constitutional amendments.
 
The profile of the reforms changed greatly since they were first
proposed by Frei. A change to the armed forces structural law to
allow the president to call military officers into retirement was
eliminated early on, as an idea not even RN reformers would
endorse. The repeal of the institution of designated senators
remained as the greatest point of contention. The terms of the
current designated senators expire in 1998, when they are to be
replaced through a complicated nomination process that assures
that at least a majority of their replacements will be pro-
Pinochet. [CHIP News 4/12/96, 4/9/96]
 
On May 21, Frei introduced a new package of educational reforms,
including construction of 2,000 new classrooms and extending
class time from half to full days. The program would cost $1.4
billion over the next five years, to be paid for by continuing
the 18% value-added tax, and by the sale of the state-owned
electric company, Colbun. The tax was supposed to be reduced to
16% in 1997. Federal deputy Jorge Schaulsohn, president of the
Party for Democracy (PPD), opposed the continuation of the 18%
rate, saying that business taxes should be raised instead: "We
could then create the conditions to establish some justice in the
tax system and achieve real equality.  The Concertacion, and
especially its progressive sectors, should be calling on the
business sector to make a contribution.  It is up to the right
parties, and not the Concertacion parties, to defend the
interests of the business sector." But in a meeting of the four
parties making up the ruling Concertacion coalition--the PPD, the
Christian Democratic party (PDC), the Socialist Party (PS), and
the Radical Social Democratic Party (PRSD)--Frei's proposal was
universally approved. [CHIP News 5/27/96 from La Epoca, La
Nacion; 5/28/96 from El Mercurio, El Diario]
 
*13. CHILE: MORE DINA IMPUNITY NEWS 

On June 4, a civilian judge in Chile closed the case of murdered
Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, citing a 1978 amnesty passed by
the military junta led by current commander-in-chief Gen. Augusto
Pinochet. Judge Eleodoro Ortiz dropped charges against two former
agents of the DINA--Pinochet's secret police--and military
officers. Although the amnesty covers all human rights violations
committed prior to 1978, international treaties still take
precedence; the Spanish government had threatened to break
diplomatic relations if the case was not resolved. Soria was
found dead in Chile on July 16, 1976; the death was ruled an
accident, but in 1991 the Rettig Commission revealed new evidence
showing that Soria died from torture in the basement of ex-DINA
agent Michael Townley's house. [See Update #331] Attorney Alfonso
Insunza, who represents the slain diplomat's daughter Carmen
Soria, called the ruling "aggravating" and said he would appeal
to the Supreme Court. [CHIP News 6/4/96 from La Nacion, La Epoca]
 
In an interview in Hoy Magazine, Eduardo Bonilla said that the
death of his father, Chilean Gen. Oscar Bonilla, in 1975 was not
an accident as officially claimed. He said a few years after his
father died in a helicopter crash, an Army general informed him
that evidence of an explosive device had been found in the
wreckage. The army conducted an investigation at the time, but
its conclusions were never made public or revealed to the Bonilla
family. Top military officials made haste to deny Bonilla's
claims. 
 
Gen. Bonilla was known to differ with former DINA chief Manuel
Contreras over the methods employed to fight "subversives."
Before the DINA had been created, Bonilla had once ordered
Contreras arrested when a surprise visit to a detention camp
revealed a large number of detainees "in deplorable conditions."
Bonilla's popularity among the military was another source of
conflict between him and Pinochet. He was soon removed as
Interior Minister and appointed Minister of Defense. Eugenio
Velasco, former dean of University of Chile law school, said that
Bonilla had spoken to him just a few months before his death. "He
told me he had confirmed human rights abuses and asked me to help
the government root out the people who were committing them."
Socialist Party president Camilo Escalona said the Bonilla family
could count with his party's full support should they decide to
re-open the investigation into the general's death. [CHIP News
6/4/96 from La Nacion, Hoy]
 
Correction: Due to an editing error, Update #331 omitted the full
name of former Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-
1961).
 
*14. THREE ARGENTINES CHARGED IN ECUADOR ARMS SALES

Revelations of Argentine arms sales to Ecuador last year have
presented President Carlos Saul Menem with the biggest diplomatic
scandal of his seven years in office. The Argentine arms maker
Fabricaciones Militares (FM) sold 8,000 FAL automatic rifles and
a large quantity of ammunition to a fake Venezuelan company in
February 1995. The weapons ended up in Ecuador during that
country's border war with Peru, a war which Argentina ostensibly
tried to stop through diplomatic means. [El Diario-La Prensa
6/7/96 from Notimex]
 
Argentine federal judge Jorge Urso ordered the seizure of
$400,000 from FM's Col. Edberto Gonzalez de la Vega at the end of
May for the colonel's part in the arms sales. The charge also
includes sales to Croatia in violation of a United Nations ban on
arms sales to the Balkans. [Diario Las Americas 5/29/96 from AFP]
FM's auditor, Luis Sarlenga, had been charged previously, and on
June 6 Judge Urso arraigned FM's programming director, Col.
Carlos Franke, in the affair. [ED-LP 6/7/96] Air Force head
Brigadier General Juan Paulik has threatened to resign if any of
his subordinates are charged. President Menem and Defense
Minister Oscar Camilion both say they knew nothing about the
shipments. But Comilion admits that Paulik alerted him to reports
on the sales. [ED-LP 6/3/96 from AP]
 
*15. BATTERED WOMAN SACRIFICED TO US ANTI-IMMIGRANT POLICY 

Cuban-American immigrant Mariella Batista was shot and killed by
the father of her son on May 7, after she was unable to get an
order of protection because of recent immigration legislation. An
item in the 1996 budget signed by US President Bill Clinton on
Apr. 26 forbids any legal assistance from any government agency
to immigrants lacking legal status. Batista had frequently told
Legal Services officials that she feared Felipe Mirabal would
kill her, but Legal Services officials told her they were now
unable to represent her. She and Mirabal had each entered the US
from Cuba in 1992; she had "protected parole" status and was due
to receive legal permanent resident status in another month.
Mirabal had served time in a Cuban jail for repeated spousal
abuse; he was shot dead by police right after he killed Batista.
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) says he will introduce a measure which
would change the law to make an exemption for battered women. [WP
6/5/96]
 
*16. IN OTHER NEWS....

Three Cuban rafters (balseros) who had escaped into Panama after
being moved there from the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
and who had subsequently been caught in Panama, were returned to
the Guantanamo base more than a year after their initial escape.
Danilo Sanchez complained bitterly of his return: "We risked our
lives on the sea and in the jungle so that we wouldn't have to
return to Guantanamo, we have been hungry and had other troubles
in Panama. It is not fair that they return us." [Central America
Update Vol. 2, #3, 2/1-15/96]... On the Chilean island of Rapa
Nui (Easter Island), a group of 40 young people armed with sticks
and machetes forced entry into the small claims court on Apr. 18,
wounding court secretary Bernardo Toro and a police agent, and
rescuing Mateo Tuki Atan, leader of the Moai Messengers of Peace
sect, who was in custody for drug trafficking. Tuki was arrested
on Apr. 17 when the Rapa Nui Anti-Narcotics Brigade seized and
incinerated 600 marijuana plants growing on land belonging to the
sect. Two other people arrested in the raid were released later
in the day. Rapa Nui has a population of 3,000, 20 Carabineros
police agents, and no prison. [CHIP News 4/22/96]... As the
corruption trial of Colombian President Ernesto Samper Pizano
heads toward likely exoneration by Congress, which is controlled
by Samper's Liberal Party, anti-Samper businesspeople are
considering either a military coup or a national business strike
to force him from power. [New York Times 6/8/96] Samper is
accusing of knowingly accepting large contributions from drug
traffickers in his 1994 electoral campaign; his opponent, Andres
Pastrana admitted on June 7 that he himself had received campaign
money from drug trafficker Harri Beda, who was arrested June 5 in
Bogota. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/8/96]... Gilberto Rodriguez
Orejuela pleaded guilty on June 7 to drug trafficking charges; he
was captured by Colombian authorities on June 9, 1995, suspected
of being the leader of the Cali cocaine cartel [see Update #280].
[ED-LP 6/8/96] Although the normal sentence would be 18 to 24
years, he is expected to have three or four years trimmed in
exchange for pleading guilty. [New York Times 6/8/96]... Canadian
prime minister Jean Chretien has joined a lawsuit to prevent the
province of Quebec from holding future referenda on independence.
A referendum last Oct. 30 narrowly rejected independence [see
Update #301], and federalists fear that a future vote could lead
to secession. Quebec premier and independentist Lucien Bouchard
said, "The question of whether Quebec has the right or not to
determine its own future is political... The courts should not be
involved." [Washington Post 6/3/96]... More than one thousand
lesbians and gay men tied up traffic in the touristy Condado
section of San Juan, Puerto Rico, for several hours on June 2
during the island's sixth annual Gay Pride Parade. Demonstrators
demanded equal rights including the right to same-sex marriage.
[ED-LP 6/3/96]

END 

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