WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #334, JUNE 23, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Brazil: General Strike A Disappointment 2. Special Deal: US Frees Haitian Death Squad Leader 3. Haitian Economy: Sweatshops and Letter to IMF 4. More US Companies Implicated in Mexican Money Laundering 5. Argentina: IBM Scandals, Unemployment, Soros Gets Richer 6. Nicaragua: Another Recontra Kidnapping 7. Where Are They Now: Three Contragate Figures In The News 8. "Death Lottery" in Salvadoran Prison 9. Guatemala: Officers Indicted for Planning Mack Murder 10. Cuba To Be Criticized by UN Investigation 11. Videotape Reveals Venezuelan Police Lied About Killings 12. Bomb Deactivated in Honduran Supreme Court 13. Chile: Gas Company Reaches Truce With Community 14. Chile: International Outcry Over Soria Case Impunity 15. Colombian Police Fire On Student Demonstration 16. Panama's President "Samperized" 17. Other News: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador 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. To subscribe, send a check or money order for US $25 payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. Please specify if you want the electronic or print version: they are identical in content, but the electronic version is delivered directly to your email address; the print version is sent via first class mail. For more information about electronic subscriptions, contact nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org. Back issues and source materials are available on request. (Many of our source materials are accessed through NY Transfer News Collective; back issues are also available on NY Transfer's OnLine Library. 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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. BRAZIL: GENERAL STRIKE A DISAPPOINTMENT On June 21 three Brazilian union federations joined in a 24-hour national strike against unemployment. Although the leftist Workers Central (CUT) and centrist General Workers Confederation (CGT) had joined together in general strikes in 1986 and 1991, this was the first time the rightist Union Force (FS) federation joined in. Union leaders were projecting that 12 million workers would not report to work, about one third of the economically active population. [O Globo (Rio de Janeiro) 6/21/96, Prensa Latina 6/21/96] The strike fell short of expectations, particularly in the transport sector. According to most sources, the strike was about 35% successful in Brazil's major cities, while in the rest of the country it had little impact. Although bus terminals were completely shut down in Sao Paulo, about 70% of buses were operating, as well as one out of three subway lines. Sao Paulo's metalworking shops were completely shut down. In Rio de Janeiro, the subway and 75% of bus lines were operating. The government closed schools throughout the country, and 50,000 military troops were readied, ostensibly to prevent violent incidents and land takeovers. In the cities of Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre, several buses were damaged. CUT leader Vincente da Silva, or Vincentinho, said that the strike was successful "although I would have wanted, and I always will want, more workers to support the action." Finance Minister Pedro Malan rejected union statistics showing unemployment at between 13.2% and 17.6% in the major cities. He said that the employment rate was beginning to recover due to lower interest rates, and called the strike "inopportune." President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, preparing to meet with 27 governors to discuss agrarian reforms, dismissed the action as "political." [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/22/96 electronic edition from Reuter, Ansa, AFP, EFE, DPA] *2. SPECIAL DEAL: US FREES HAITIAN DEATH SQUAD LEADER On June 14 the US government released Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant, the head of the notorious Haitian paramilitary group Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), after holding him for 13 months in a Maryland detention center while a deportation order was being processed. The US insists that Constant will remain under supervision despite being freed. According to his lawyer, Susan Bryant, Constant was released in a special deal he made with the Justice Department. Bryant told the New York-based weekly Haiti Progres that one of the conditions of the deal is that she and Constant cannot reveal the conditions. Constant founded the FRAPH around the middle of 1993, during the 1991-1994 period of military rule. The Haitian government and human rights observers charge the organization with hundreds of murders of grassroots activists. In the fall of 1994 investigative journalist Allan Nairn published articles in the US weekly Nation with evidence--including Constant's own statements- -that he had been a paid agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Haitian government issued a warrant for his arrest in December 1994, but Constant entered the US through Puerto Rico that month and remained at large until May 1995, when US agents arrested him in New York City. The Haitian government has requested his extradition, and he has long since exhausted his appeals against deportation proceedings [see Update #332]. US government spokespeople have given a variety of reasons for the release. Russ Bergeron of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) said that the time was not "opportune" for executing the deportation order, while an anonymous State Department official said that Constant's deportation "for now would be a potential source of instability" for Haiti. [Haiti Progres 6/19-25/96] "We believe that his return to Haiti at this time would place an undue burden on Haiti's judicial and penal system," State Department spokesperson Lee McClenny told the New York Times. The US will wait "while Haiti's capacity to deal with a case of this nature is further strengthened." [NYT 6/22/96] But Michael Ratner, an attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) working on the Haitien government's case against Constant, says that a team has assembled "solid" evidence that Constant personally directed the burning of part of Port-au-Prince's Cite Soleil neighborhood in December 1993 [see Update #205] and participated in various acts of torture. "We were ready to try him," Ratner says. "He would have gone to jail for a good long time with the evidence we had." Ratner says that the US deal with Constant "is probably some pact demanding of Constant that he not say anything more about belonging to the CIA." The US and Canada-based Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) issued a statement on June 18 noting that the "US government is intent on prosecuting war criminals in Bosnia, but it has just released...Constant. The Lord hates weighted scales." [HP 6/19- 25/96, quotations retranslated from French] *3. HAITIAN ECONOMY: SWEATSHOPS AND LETTER TO IMF The biweekly Haiti Info has obtained a "nearly final draft" of a letter of agreement and Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policies the Haitian government presented the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on June 12. In addition to the well-known and unpopular plan for privatizing the country's nine state-owned enterprises, President Rene Preval's left-populist government agrees to continue cutting government programs for the next three years. "[G]overnment spending will be reduced sharply in the second half of FY95/96 [fiscal 1995-1996] and FY96/97 following overruns in FY94/95 and the first half of FY95/96," says the memo, which is written in English. A "wage bill freeze [for government employees] will remain in effect during the three-year period." The new agreements continue an earlier agreement made public in August 1995, the Policy Framework Paper (PFP), which complained about government programs with inadequate "cost recovery." The PFP singled out Haiti's "virtually free" medical services--even though the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that 3.4 million Haitians, half the population, have no access to medical care. Both the PFP and the new agreement emphasize the importance of the export sector in economic recovery. The PFP noted that although the legal minimum wage was raised to 36 gourdes ($2.20) a day in June 1995, more than twice the level in effect since the mid-1980s, "[t]he new level falls well short of the real and US dollar equivalent minimum wage of 10 years ago, and should not affect the good prospects of the export sector." About 12,000 Haitians work in the export sector, composed largely of assembly plants (maquiladoras) that stitch garments for US companies. A worker at Classic Apparel, which belongs to Haiti's wealthy Behrmann family and sews clothes for Walt Disney Company, the US media giant, told Haiti Info that of her 36 gourde minimum wage salary, 4.5 gourdes go each day to transportation and 19 to meals she eats during the day, leaving her 12.5 gourdes (less than $1) for rent and for feeding her three children. Workers in the factory zones say employees are routinely fired for complaining about working conditions or making any efforts to organize. At one plant four workers were fired recently after a flier appeared demanding clean drinking water. Workers laughed when asked about seeking help from government inspection teams. However, small committees at some plants are circulating materials about workers rights. Classic Apparel employees recently succeeded in getting pay they were legally entitled to for a holiday. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #16, 6/15/96] *4. MORE US COMPANIES IMPLICATED IN MEXICAN MONEY LAUNDERING The US Justice Department is now investigating a total of 70 bank accounts in seven countries reportedly used by Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas (1988-1994), according to a report scheduled to appear on the CBS program "60 Minutes" on June 23. Raul Salinas is currently in Mexico's Almoloya maximum security prison on charges of illegal enrichment and of masterminding the 1994 assassination of former brother-in-law Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. Salinas reportedly used New York-based Citibank to transfer some $80 million to secret Swiss bank accounts in 1993 [see Updates #319, 332 and 333, in which "Almoloya" was misspelled]. According to a CBS release promoting the June 23 program, Salinas also used Bankers Trust and Chase Manhattan Bank for the transfer of millions of dollars whose source he can't explain. Earlier this month Mexican, Swiss and US investigators secretly questioned Amy Elliott, Salinas' "personal banker" at Citibank, who said that Salinas told her the money came from the sale of a construction company. "To have asked more," Elliott said, "would have been like asking the Rockefellers where they got their money." The investigation is reportedly also turning up evidence against Ricardo Salinas Pliego, who heads Television Azteca, Mexico's second largest television network. A June 21 Miami Herald article by conservative reporter Andres Oppenheimer says that part of Raul Salinas' money may have come from bribes that Salinas Pliego (who is not related to the Salinas de Gortari brothers) paid to be able to buy TV Azteca for $650 million when it was privatized in 1993. Salinas Pliego denies the charge, saying that he is simply "a friend of Raul Salinas." [NBC bought a stake in TV Azteca in 1994. [New York Times 6/17/94]] Meanwhile, NBC's "Nightly News" reported on June 21 that Carlos Salinas had personally called Amy Elliott to discuss his brother's secret Swiss accounts. Salinas denied any connection with the accounts. NBC found him in New York in front of the offices of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he was apparently about to attend a meeting. [La Jornada 6/22/96, electronic edition] The former president is now living in Dublin, according to Mexican intellectual Jorge Castaneda, a former adviser to Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) 1994 presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano. Castaneda, who has a reputation as a moderate leftist, revealed on June 17 that he and Salinas had lunch together, along with their wives, in a Dublin restaurant on May 6. Castaneda says he agreed with Salinas not to disclose details of their conversation, but that they avoided discussing rumors that current president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon may resign [see Update #332]. [Reuter 6/17/96] On June 20 Mexico's ambassador to Ireland, Agustin Gutierrez Canet, revealed that his government was removing him for allegedly setting up the lunch meeting. Gutierrez Canet was offered the ambassadorship; he declined, and is retiring from the diplomatic service. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 6/21/96 from EFE] *5. ARGENTINA: IBM SCANDALS, UNEMPLOYMENT, SOROS GETS RICHER On June 15 Argentine vice president Carlos Ruckauf indicated that he was in agreement with opposition calls for Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo to be questioned by Congress about the IBM bribery scandal. IBM executives allegedly bribed Economy Ministry officials in order to win several multimillion dollar contracts, principally with the state-owned Banco Nacion but also with Banelco, the General Taxation Directorate (DGI) and other institutions [see "$50 Billion Missing in Latin American Financial Scandals," Update supplement, 5/12/96]. Government investigators are now looking at the role of former DGI director Ricardo Cosio in a $515 million contract between IBM and the Banelco bank for work initially estimated at $33 million. Ruckauf's remarks suggest that President Carlos Saul Menem may be tiring of Cavallo, the architect of Argentina's neoliberal program. Cavallo recently had to travel to Brazil, Argentina's main trading partner, to play down statements by US economist Roger Dornbusch of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that Brazil is "skirting" the sort of economic crisis that hit Mexico in December 1994. Argentina itself continues to suffer from a large deficit, with payments on the external debt reaching 10% of government spending. The official unemployment rate remains near 17%, and Menem has failed to produce any of the 300,000 jobs he promised in July 1995 when he started his second presidential term. [La Jornada 6/16/96] [The current rate is only slightly down from the record 18.6% hit last July. Menem promised on June 14, 1995 that he would "pulverize" unemployment; see Updates #282 and 287.] Meanwhile, international financier George Soros has struck it rich on the Argentine real estate market. Six years ago Argentine property developer Eduardo Elsztain talked US citizen Soros into investing $10 million in a development project. Their joint ventures, principally Inversiones y Representaciones, SA (IRSA), now have assets worth $350 million. Holdings include Cresud SA, which with 840,000 acres is the largest rural landowner in Argentina. [Wall Street Journal 6/19/96] *6. NICARAGUA: ANOTHER RECONTRA KIDNAPPING On Friday, June 21, 33 Nicaraguan election observers were freed by heavily armed former contras. The recontras had kidnapped the observers--members of the country's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE)--on June 19 in northern Nicaragua, and carried them across the border into Honduras after being confronted by army troops. [Honduras was the main staging ground for the US-funded contra war in the 1980's.] Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Ernesto Leal announced on June 22 that the release was negotiated after the army agreed to withdraw from the area. The observers were seized while carrying voter registration materials for the upcoming Oct. 20 national elections from small border towns to the capital of Jinotega department. The recontras are reportedly led by Jorge Rivera, known as "Licenciado." The kidnapping comes three weeks after another election observer, US national Cynthia Gersony, was kidnapped and released by recontras in nearby Wiwili. [Reuter 6/19/96] According to the CSE's preliminary electoral list, there are 32,000 candidates for president, vice president, deputies, Central American Parliament deputies, mayors, vice-mayors, and council members. This indicates that nearly one out of every 100 Nicaraguans is running for some office. [Central America Update 6/15/96] *7. WHERE ARE THEY NOW: THREE CONTRAGATE FIGURES IN THE NEWS Eugene Hasenfus, who inadvertently blew the cover off the Iran- Contra scandal in 1986 when his plane was shot down by the Nicaraguan army, is still seeking compensation from the US government for services rendered. Hasenfus was a cargo handler on the Oct. 5, 1986 contra resupply flight; after he parachuted to safety he was arrested and held 73 days by Sandinista authorities before being released. At that time, the Reagan Administration was banned from raising money to support the contras by the Boland Amendment; after the Hasenfus incident it became clear that administration officials had engaged in a pattern of deception, including illegal fundraising and an arms for hostages swap with the Iranian government. Several officials were convicted in the subsequent scandal, although none of them served as much as one day in jail because of appeals, convictions overturned on technicalities, and an eleventh-hour pardon in 1992 by outgoing US President George Bush. Hasenfus' lawyer, Mark Kinard, has pursued various legal channels to get government money for his client, including a petition to the Labor Department. His latest effort, a private bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Toby Roth (R-WI) sought $805,209 for Hasenfus to compensate for "physical and mental injury... or any financial loss" he may have suffered. The bill was shelved after US President Bill Clinton advised Kinard that he would not support the bill because Hasenfus "was not a federal employee, and the United States did not cause his plane to crash." Sally Hasenfus, Eugene's wife, complains, "We've never been allowed to put it behind us. My kids have been hurt so hideously over this, and that doesn't seem to matter to anybody." [Washington Post 6/18/96] Over thirty thousand Nicaraguans, including thousands of children, were killed in the US-sponsored contra war Hasenfus was aiding. The Ethics and Public Policy Center, a rightwing think tank in Washington DC, has selected former under assistant secretary of state for Latin America Elliott Abrams as its president. Abrams, a virulent anti-Sandinista and contra supporter, is best known for lying to Congress about illegal US support for the contras; he pleaded guilty to a charge of withholding information from Congress and was pardoned by Bush. The center's chairman says the organization wasn't troubled by Abrams' ethics history because he "publicly acknowledged [that] he made an error in judgment." [WP 6/17/96] Meanwhile, former Contragate "Gang of Four" member Robert Leiken has surfaced with his own ethics organization, New Moment Inc. Leiken recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post [WP 4/16/96] where he claimed that corruption in Third World countries is on its way out, leading to a new era of development and prosperity. Leiken's institute is funded by Gustavo Cisneros, closely tied to Venezuela's banking scandal which nearly bankrupted the country in 1994, and Beatrice Rangel Mantilla, a key adviser to former Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez, now serving time in prison for corruption. [Counterpunch 5/15/96] Leiken spent most of the 1980's in close quarters with Abrams, contra leader Arturo Cruz, former Under Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Bernard Aronson, and Col. Oliver North, working to circumvent the Boland Amendment. While he was working for Cruz, his travel expenses were paid by Carl "Spitz" Channel, later found guilty of conspiring to defraud the government of taxes on the money he and North raised for the contras. [Fourteen Errors/Distortions in "The Sandinistas Might Lose...," Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 2/14/90] *8. "DEATH LOTTERY" IN SALVADORAN PRISON Inmates in a Salvadoran jail said on June 19 they had set July 1 as the execution date for four prisoners selected in a "lottery of death" if their demands for prison improvements were not met. "We have no worries or prejudices about carrying out the executions because we know we have to do something to put pressure on the authorities," said Abraham Paniagua, spokesman for the inmates of Santa Ana jail in western El Salvador. He said the unlucky four, who picked cards marked with the word "Death" last week in a lottery in which all 790 prisoners took part, "they have no objection to sacrificing themselves because nothing except luck and destiny have chosen them." The four will be strangled in their cells on July 1 if Salvadoran authorities fail to respond to a two-week hunger strike by inmates that started on June 17. The prisoners, who are in a jail built for 350, are pressing for new prisons to cut down on overcrowding. They are also demanding that unconvicted prisoners--about 70 percent of the country's 9,000 total prison population--be set free. Relatives of the inmates began a vigil outside the jail on June 19. "The mothers and wives have begun to come together in the hope that they will have a favorable solution before the weekend," said Maria Elena Contreras, wife of one prisoner. Another demanded swift solutions to avoid "a real tragedy." Supreme Court President Jose Domingo Mendez said on Wednesday the court would set up a system to collect information on the legal status of jailed prisoners. And president Armando Calderon Sol announced he was speeding up construction of a new prison south of the capital with a 4,000 prisoner capacity. [Reuter 6/19/96] *9. GUATEMALA: OFFICERS INDICTED FOR PLANNING MACK MURDER Three high-ranking Guatemalan army officers were indicted by a military court on June 11, accused of ordering the 1990 murder of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang [see Update #213]. The three were then freed on bail. Military Judge Heriberto Guzman justified his decision to release retired Gen. Edgar Augusto Godoy Gaitan and Cols. Juan Valencia Osorio and Juan Guillermo Oliva Carrera by saying they had cooperated in the investigation of the case. Prosecutor Mynor Melgar and Helen Mack Chang, co-plaintiff and sister of the victim, will appeal the bail decision, but Mack said she was pleased that the process of indictment was carried out publicly. This is the first time army officers have been indicted for ordering an assassination. According to Mack, who is a lawyer, the indictment means that the judge believes there is enough credible information to take the case to trial. Army Specialist Sgt. Noel de Jesus Beteta Alvarez was sentenced in 1993 to 30 years in prison for stabbing and killing Myrna Mack, who was studying displaced populations at the time of her death. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #24 6/20/96] On June 12 Guatemala's Congress voted unanimously to eliminate military trials for members of the armed forces accused of common crimes. Once the decree goes into effect, army personnel accused of crimes such as murder, robbery, kidnapping or human rights violations will be tried in civilian courts. Military trials have long been criticized as a source of privilege and impunity for members of the armed forces. David Stephen, the new head of the United National Observer Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), called the elimination of military trials for common crimes "a great step forward" for human rights. Human Rights Ombudsman Jorge Mario Garcia Laguardia said it was "absolutely positive," and Carlos Aldana, director of the Archdiocesan Information Office (OIA) said the move was "an encouraging sign for Guatemalans." [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #24 6/20/96] *10. CUBA TO BE CRITICIZED BY UN INVESTIGATION A United Nations investigation into Cuba's Feb. 24 downing of two civilian planes flown by Miami-based Cubans faults the Cuban government, according to US Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff. The report by the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is not yet official, but has been made available to both the US and Cuban governments. According to Tarnoff, the investigation found that the planes were over international waters when they were shot down, and also that Cuban fighter pilots had failed to give proper warning before firing on the planes. [New York Times 6/21/96] Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's parliament, gave a press conference in Montreal where he accused the US of lying and manufacturing evidence to achieve a condemnation of Cuba. [Prensa Latina 6/21/96] Cuba's economy grew by seven percent during the first quarter of 1996, or two percentage points more than this year's projected growth of five percent, according to Cuba's vice president Carlos Lage. Last year, Cuba's exports rose only 2.5 percent. Lage said during a meeting with Latin American lawmakers on June 15 that Cuba expects moderate second half growth following a good first half sugar harvest: 4.45 million tons, near an expected output of 4.5 million. Lage also predicted the country's biggest production of nickel this year at 50,000 tons, 40 percent more than last year's output. [EFE 6/15/96] *11. VIDEOTAPE REVEALS VENEZUELAN POLICE LIED ABOUT KILLINGS Venezuela's police force is under new scrutiny after television footage apparently revealed the police execution of two common criminals. According to official sources, one police officer and three thieves were killed in a shootout at a Caracas ice cream parlor after police were called to a robbery on June 17. But the footage that was broadcast on Radio Caracas Television late the next day showed two handcuffed men being bundled into the back of a police van after the shootout had ended. The news then showed their bloody bodies stretched out on tables at the city morgue, each with several bullet wounds to the chest. Metropolitan Police Commander Rafael Damiani first told Radio Caracas Television that "there was a shootout in which, unfortunately, the distinguished officer Carmen Martinez was killed and also the three criminals who were carrying out an attack on this place." Later, Damiani told the daily newspaper El Universal that the officers involved would be suspended from duty and charged with murder if the televised images proved conclusive. "Responsibility in this case goes further than the officer that carried out the torture to those in charge for allowing this kind of systematic and generalized practice," Juan Avarrete, legal coordinator of local human rights group Support Network (RA), told Reuters on Wednesday. The incident came just a day after the publication of international human rights organization Amnesty International's annual report, which states that dozens of people are unlawfully killed each year by Venezuelan security forces. [Reuter 6/19/96] *12. BOMB DEACTIVATED IN HONDURAN SUPREME COURT A bomb was deactivated in a bathroom of Honduras' Supreme Court on June 11; authorities were alerted by a bomb threat from the previously-unknown "Final Alternative" guerrilla front which said it placed the bomb "because we can't tolerate the government any more." But Juan Almendarez, president of the Coordinating Committee of Popular Organizations (CCOP), told reporters he believed members of the military were responsible for the placing of the bomb. Army spokesman Mario Villanueva responded, "I am used to those voices that are always ready to blame everything on the Armed Forces." Another bomb threat the following day cut short a speech by President Carlos Roberto Reina at the National Autonomous University; it turned out to be a false alarm. [Central America Update 6/15/96] *13. CHILE: GAS COMPANY REACHES TRUCE WITH COMMUNITY GasAndes representatives and residents of San Alfonso, Chile, agreed to a week-long truce on June 18. GasAndes directors announced the temporary truce with San Alfonso residents and the Astorga family after several hours of discussion mediated by Jaime Estevez, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and representative of the San Alfonso area. The Astorga family and San Alfonso community have strenuously opposed the routing of the GasAndes pipeline through their properties. Ernesto Tironi, GasAndes director, said he was confident an agreement would eventually be reached with the San Alfonso community, although GasAndes does not consider the Astorga family's proposal to reroute the pipeline through La Caldera to be a viable alternative because of the delay it would involve. The truce puts an end to last week's violent incidents, in which residents blocked road access to San Alfonso in order to prevent GasAndes representatives from entering the area. Six demonstrators were injured in the resulting confrontation. Following the incident, the Astorga family and San Alfonso residents destroyed the bridge allowing access to their property. San Alfonso residents said they were satisfied with the truce and the fact that GasAndes now recognizes them as valid spokespeople in the negotiation process. [CHIP News 6/18/96 from La Epoca, La Nacion] *14. CHILE: INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY OVER SORIA CASE IMPUNITY The June 4 decision by Chilean Supreme Court judge Eleodoro Ortiz to close legal proceedings in the 1976 assassination of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria [see Update #332] has been sharply criticized in Europe. (Judge Ortiz found that the death occurred during the years covered by a 1978 amnesty law and that Soria, a director at the United Nations' CEPAL agency in Santiago, did not have diplomatic immunity; Chile's opposition alliance says the amnesty law violates a treaty signed by Chile in March 1977 on the prevention and punishment of crimes against internationally protected persons.) The Spanish United Left party said that the ruling violates international treaties; international human rights organization Amnesty International called the decision "a setback in the fight against impunity in Chile." Josep Pons, Spanish socialist deputy to the European Parliament, promised to sponsor a resolution next week condemning the ruling. The resolution, he said, will deplore the failure of the Chilean justice system to honor international commitments. In Santiago, the diplomat's daughter, Carmen Soria, announced that her family will bring the case before human rights courts of the Organization of American States (OAS) as well as the World Court at The Hague. [CHIP News 6/13/96 from La Nacion, La Epoca] *15. COLOMBIAN POLICE FIRE ON STUDENT DEMONSTRATION On June 4, during a peaceful student demonstration at Colombia's National University, police agents entered the university campus with armored cars and began firing indiscriminately. One unidentified woman student was wounded by gunshot and nine other students were detained, including Juan Manuel Bernal Gutierrez, a member of the indigenous community of Chenche Amayarco of the municipality of Coyaina. Although eight of the students were released, Bernal Gutierrez was still being detained as of June 10. He was being held by the public order services under regional jurisdiction, in spite of the fact that the Constitution provides for special treatment of persons belonging to indigenous groups. According to the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), regional or public order justice has repeatedly been accused of being a secret procedure violating common accepted human rights principles; OMCT is asking for faxes demanding respect for Bernal Gutierrez' health and safety (physical and psychological); his release in the absence of valid legal charges against him, or due process before a competent civil court; and a thorough, impartial investigation into the police action, with appropriate sanctions. The OMCT calls for faxes to S.E. Dr. Ernesto Samper Pizano, Presidente de la Republica, 571-284-2186; Dr. Orlando Vasquez Velasquez, Procurador General de la Nacion, 571-284-0472; Dr. Carlos Vicente de Roux, Consejero Presidencial para los Derechos Humanos, 571-341-8364. [OMCT Case COL 100696 Urgent Action 6/10/96] *16. PANAMA'S PRESIDENT "SAMPERIZED" After weeks of denying any connection to drug traffickers, Panama's President Ernesto Perez Balladares admitted on June 22 that he received $51,000 for his 1994 electoral campaign from Jose Castrillon Henao, who is charged with being a leader of the Cali, Colombia, drug cartel. Perez Balladares continued to deny that he knew where the money came from. [New York Times 6/22/96] His administration has been dogged by corruption charges since articles in The Economist, the Miami Herald, and the New York Times linked former Central Bank head Alfredo Aleman to drug trafficking. According to the reports, Aleman was forced to resign last year under US pressure due to his drug trafficking links. Aleman, who was the chief fundraiser for Perez Balladares' 1994 campaign, remains a close confidant of the president's. Perez Balladares initially rejected the charges as an effort to "Samperize" him--a reference to Colombian President Ernesto Samper Pizano, who was absolved by his country's Congress on June 12 despite evidence that his presidential campaign received huge contributions from drug traffickers [see Updates #333]. Panama's Legislative Assembly will soon consider a law to require campaigns to report the sources of their contributions. [Central America Update 6/15/96] *17. IN OTHER NEWS... Walter Guevara Arce, president of Bolivia in 1979 and a leader of the 1952 revolution, died of a heart attack on June 20 in La Paz. He was forced into exile numerous times by military dictatorships, and was removed from the presidency by a coup after only 85 days in office. [New York Times 6/23/96]... Cuban vocalist Merceditas Valdes died on June 13 of a heart attack at Ameijeiras Hospital in Havana. [Daily Cuban News from Havana/Cuban Interests Section 6/18/96]... The US now ranks last among all industrialized countries in non-military foreign aid as a percentage of gross national product (GNP). According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the US gave $7.3 billion in development aid in 1995, about one tenth of one percent of GNP. [Washington Post 6/18/96]... Marco Gutierrez, head of Colombia's secret police, resigned on June 18 amid allegations that he was spying on US Ambassador Myles Frechette, had ordered him followed and tapped his phone. Gutierrez denies the charges, and a presidential spokesperson said that his resignation was for "personal reasons." [WP 6/18/96 from AP]... A poll released by the Ecuadoran firm Cedatos on June 13 showed right populist presidential candidate Abdala Bucaram of the Ecuadoran Roldosista Party (PRE) with 40% of the preferences and rightwing candidate Jaime Nebot Saadi of the Social Christian Party (PSC) with 36%; 24% were undecided. Cedatos says that the population is resistant to both of the candidates, who will face each other in a runoff on July 7. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/16/96 from AP] The PSC charges that the PRE is planning to frame Nebot up in a forthcoming murder case, while Bucaram implies that Nebot's ballot position in the May 19 general elections--number six--links him to the Antichrist, whose number is said to be 666. [ED-LP 6/18/96]... Meanwhile, Colombia's Archbishop Pedro Rubiano has ordered the country's Catholic priests to turn in any money they received for performing mass baptisms early this month. According to Rubiano, some priests did "serious harm" to the church by profiting from fears that any unbaptized child would be marked with the "number of the Beast" on June 6, the sixth day of the sixth month of the last year of this millennium ending in a six. [NYT 6/20/96] 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: "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. On the web at http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/prop187.html 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 NOT BORED YET? Check out our joint subscriptions (at substantial savings) with Nicaragua News Service and John Ross's Mexico Barbaro. IT'S HERE! The Sandinista Front's 1996 Platform. 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