WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                   ISSUE #337, JULY 14, 1996
       NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
     339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

1. Argentina: Mothers Protest Unemployment, Human Rights
2. Argentine Justice Minister Resigns Over Nazi Charges
3. Indigenous Colombians Stage Day of Protest
4. US Cancels Visa of Colombian President
5. US Bars Canadian Firm Under Helms-Burton Act
6. Intensive Army Presence in South-Central Mexico
7. Mexico: Bomb at Debtors Organization
8. Bolivians Strike Against Pension Privatization
9. Transport Cooperatives Strike in Nicaragua
10. FSLN Climbs in New Nicaragua Poll
11. Peru President Admits Innocent People Jailed as Terrorists
12. Guatemalan Campesinos Occupy Costa Rican Embassy
13. El Salvador: Guards Fired for Protest
14. Populist Wins Runoff Vote in Ecuador
15. Other News: Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras, Puerto Rico

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*1. ARGENTINA: MOTHERS PROTEST UNEMPLOYMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS

On July 9, Argentine police forcibly removed 13 members of the
Mothers of Plaza de Mayo human rights organization from the
Buenos Aires metropolitan cathedral after they refused a judge's
order to leave. The Mothers group had occupied the cathedral the
previous night and planned to hold an anti-government protest--
calling for more employment and for "jail for the killers" (those
responsible for human rights violations)--during the traditional
independence day Te Deum mass which President Carlos Saul Menem
was to attend. Hebe de Bonafini, leader of the Mothers
organization, said she and a dozen other members of the group
were "pushed and kicked" out of the cathedral; several--including
de Bonafini--had to be treated at a public health center. The
independence day mass is generally attended by top government and
military officials. Menem arrived at the cathedral on foot,
flanked by his cabinet ministers and military leaders, just a few
hours after the protesters were evicted; the ceremony took place
without incident. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/10/96 from AFP-AP;
Reuter 7/9/96]
 
At the end of June, the government published figures showing that
unemployment in Argentina had risen to 17.1% from 16.4% a year
ago, with 2.12 million now out of work. The week before, the
government announced erroneously that the rate had fallen to 16%.
Unemployment reached an all-time high of 18.4% in the middle of
July 1995 [see Update #287], triple the 6% level in 1991. It is
now the top concern for Argentines and a major political problem
for President Menem, who promised last year to "pulverize" it.
[Financial Times (UK) 7/1/96] Menem said he was "surprised" by
the latest figures on unemployment. [Inter Press Service 7/1/96]
 
*2. ARGENTINE JUSTICE MINISTER RESIGNS OVER NAZI CHARGES

Argentine justice minister Rodolfo Barra resigned on July 10 to
"avoid problems for the government" after it was revealed
publicly that he had been involved in militant Nazi organizations
in his youth [see Update #335]. Barra's problems began when he
had a falling out a month ago with Economy Minister Domingo
Cavallo, whom he accused of "nostalgia for the military
governments." Cavallo retaliated by bringing up Barra's Nazi past
and his possible role in the bomb attacks that destroyed the
Israeli embassy in 1992 and the Jewish Mutual Aid Association
(AMIA) building in 1994. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/12/96 from
Notimex] Barra admitted his Nazi past and attributed it to
"youthful idealism." [Inter Press Service 7/12/96] 
 
Pressures had mounted against Barra as Jewish groups in Argentina
organized a march for July 15 to demand his resignation. [Diario
Las Americas (Miami) 7/12/96 from AFP] In addition, the Simon
Wiesenthal Center of Argentina had asked President Menem for a
"rapid, independent and transparent" investigation into Barra's
past Nazi links, which reportedly included a stay in prison
during the early 1960s for attacking a synagogue. US
representative Jon Fox (R-PA) had also urged that the US State
Department and the Argentine embassy in Washington carry out an
investigation into Barra's past. [IPS 7/11/96]
 
Replacing Barra is deputy justice minister Elias Jassan, a Jewish
lawyer who defended President Menem during his five years of
imprisonment under the military dictatorship. Jassan is
considered an "ultra-Menemist," according to the daily Clarin.
[IPS 7/12/96]
 
*3. INDIGENOUS COLOMBIANS STAGE DAY OF PROTEST

A general civic strike was held on July 9 by residents of the
southern part of Colombia's Narino state, near the border with
Ecuador, to demand greater attention from the national
government. Leaders of 43 unions, 120 community action boards, 20
indigenous councils and 15 town mayors called the action, and it
was supported by other mayors, council members, business
associations and other citizen movements. Protesters blocked the
international bridge of Rumichaca, as well as the part of the
Pan-American highway that crosses Narino. Groups of indigenous
people simultaneously blocked points on the same highway in the
neighboring department of Cauca and on several highways in the
northwestern department of Cordoba; other actions included the
occupation of the governance plaza in the city of Cali, capital
of Valle del Cauca department. Indigenous Colombians from the
Embera, Paez and Guaunana nations participated in the protests.
[Diario Las Americas 7/10/96 from EFE]
 
Also on July 9, indigenous spokespeople asked the Colombian
Agrarian Reform Institute to purchase land for distribution to
indigenous communities. At the same time, leaders of the Wayuu
and other indigenous groups from Guajira department, near the
Venezuelan border, occupied the Episcopal Conference building in
Bogota to "demand respect" for their cultures and "solutions to
the different problems" of their communities. Among the problems
mentioned were lack of water supply and the restructuring of
education programs. Interior Minister Horacio Serpa held talks
with indigenous leaders, leading to an agreement on the
designation of a negotiating commission. [Inter Press Service
7/10/96] 
 
In other news, telecommunications workers in Colombia began a
strike on July 10, despite the fact that an agreement was reached
July 9 to avert it. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/11/96 from AP]
 
*4. US CANCELS VISA OF COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT

On the morning of July 11, US State Department spokesperson
Nicholas Burns announced that the US government had canceled the
entry visa of Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano because
of his alleged connections with drug traffickers and the
financing of his political campaign with contributions from the
Cali drug cartel. Responding to rumors a few days earlier that
the US was planning this move, Samper had simply said that he
"didn't need a US visa to govern Colombia."
 
US ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette had requested the visa
withdrawal as part of a plan to completely isolate Samper after
the Colombian congress voted to dismiss the drug accusations [see
Update #333]. A few days earlier, the US had suspended the visa
of Colombian ambassador to Mexico Gustavo de Greiff [Greiff had
previous conflicts with the US when he was Colombia's attorney
general--see Updates #220, 223, 231]. In May, the US revoked the
US visa of Colombian comptroller David Turbay [see Update #330];
the visa of General Prosecutor Orlando Vasquez has also been
revoked. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/12/96 from correspondent &
combined services]
 
The US will not be able to prevent Samper from coming to New York
to attend United Nations (UN) meetings or functions, State
Department spokesperson Glyn Davies subsequently explained. The
US accord with the UN obliges the US to grant diplomatic visas to
all heads of state, regardless of bilateral conflicts. [ED-LP
7/13/96 from AP]
 
The latest US move against Samper came after results were
announced of a US police test of a photograph in which Samper
appears with two alleged drug traffickers. Samper had told the US
Spanish-language TV network Univision that the photo was a
montage; the police laboratory determined it was not. [ED-LP
7/10/96 from AFP]
 
*5. US BARS CANADIAN FIRM UNDER HELMS-BURTON ACT

On July 10 US State Department announced the first sanctions
against foreign executives under the Cuban Liberty Act (better
known as Helms-Burton, after its sponsors) which President Bill
Clinton signed on Mar. 12. The top nine executives of the
Toronto-based Sherritt International Corporation and their
immediate families will be barred from entering the US, starting
in six weeks, in retaliation for Sherritt's two-year old nickel
mining joint venture in Cuba. The company holds about $250
million in Cuban assets; the joint venture involves a state-owned
nickel mine expropriated soon after the 1959 Cuban Revolution
from Moa Bay, a New Orleans-based company. Helms-Burton punishes
foreign companies using property expropriated from any of 5,911
US companies and citizens, many of them Cubans who obtained US
citizenship after the Revolution.
 
Sherritt spokesperson Patrice Merrin Best said the company
considered the law "very offensive" and would continue to do
business with Cuba. Sherritt director Ian Delaney told the
Toronto Star last year that Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz is
"an amazing guy...charismatic, charming, a terrific listener."
[Washington Post 7/11/96]
 
The Clinton administration did not yet indicate whether it would
implement Helms-Burton's still more controversial Title III,
which allows US citizens to sue foreign investors in US courts
for using properties nationalized by Cuba. The administration has
until July 15 to grant a temporary waiver against implementation
of Title III. Major US business groups oppose the provision [see
Update #336], and the New York Times and Washington Post have
both editorialized against it. [NYT 7/13/96; WP 7/12/96] Speaking
in Montreal shortly after the Sherritt ban was announced, former
US president Jimmy Carter called Helms-Burton the "stupidest"
thing the US has ever done. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/14/96 from
wire services]
 
Clinton economic advisers like Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin
and National Economic Council chair Laura D'Andrea Tyson
reportedly oppose applying Title III, while political advisers
are said to support the measure to avoid election-year problems
with the large Cuban-American community in Florida. [NYT 7/11/96]
But Miami-based Cuban journalist Luis Ortega writes that even
though Clinton is "the president that has done the most for the
Cuban groups," "[t]he horrors they say about Clinton and his wife
on Miami radio have no precedent in political campaigns."
According to Ortega, wealthy Miami Cubans claim in private that
they won Helms-Burton with big contributions to the Clinton
campaign fund. "They boast of having bought the signing of the
Helms-Burton Act and afterwards announce that they support
[Republican presidential candidate Robert] Dole." [ED-LP 7/3/96]
 
Adding to what the British Financial Times calls a "potentially
embarrassing" situation for Clinton, on July 7 an armed Cuban
military officer hijacked a Cuban airliner to the US naval base
at Guantanamo, Cuba. Lt. Col. Jose Fernandez Pupo has asked for
political asylum in the US, which is required to return him to
Cuba under an agreement on migration the two countries signed on
May 2, 1995. This comes as the US is pressuring the United
National Security Council to condemn Cuba for the Feb. 24
shooting down of two US small planes piloted by Miami Cubans, an
incident that ostensibly triggered Clinton's signing of Helms-
Burton. [FT 7/9/96] Cuban-American groups and Republicans in
Congress are demanding that the US not return Col. Fernandez.
[Diario Las Americas 7/10/96 from EFE]
 
Cuban-American groups further pressured the White House on July
13 by sending a small fleet of about a dozen yachts to the edge
of Cuban territorial waters to mark the second anniversary of the
drowning of dozens Cubans fleeing the country in a hijacked
tugboat. US vessels and Coast Guard planes kept the flotilla
under heavy surveillance, and the protesters did not try to cross
into Cuban waters. [ED-LP 7/14/96 from AFP]
 
Cuba is exerting some pressure of its own with a report to the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) about a US
aircraft that failed to identify itself while flying over Cuban
airspace on June 25, in an incident that forced a deviation in
the routes of two commercial airlines. According to the report,
the aircraft did not establish contact with Cuba's air traffic
control tower; when Cuba requested information from Miami, that
city's air control authorities said the aircraft was a US
government plane, flying with authorization. Cuban authorities
say there have been seven such unidentified incursions into
Cuba's internationally authorized air control space over the past
six months. [Radio Havana Cuba 7/3/96]
 
*6. INTENSIVE ARMY PRESENCE IN SOUTH-CENTRAL MEXICO

The Mexican army and various police forces have effected major
mobilizations in at least seven states--mostly states in the
southern and central parts of the country with large indigenous
and campesino populations--following the June 28 appearance of a
new rebel group, the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR), in the
southwestern state of Guerrero.
 
In Puebla, east of Mexico City, the army and the federal and
state judicial police have set up roadblocks, and witnesses
report occasional overflights by army helicopters in the Sierra
Negra. Officials say drug traffickers are the target, but others
think the army is hunting for a mysterious guerrilla named
"Frank," and are also trying to control the state's 16 Liberation
Theology priests, known as the "Red Fathers." Further east, in
the central Huasteca region of the coastal state of Veracruz, at
least 1,000 soldiers from the 24th Military Zone and local
garrisons have been "combing" the mountainous areas around
Chicontepec, Papantla, Zongolica and Soteapan since the afternoon
of June 28. In the southern state of Oaxaca, the army is on a
"red alert" that's "very red," according to Senator Hector
Sanchez Lopez of the center-left Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD). The army is focusing on the Loxicha region,
where sightings have been reported of guerrillas belonging to the
Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), a rebel group based in
the neighboring state of Chiapas. Pochutla mayor Raymundo Carmona
denies that there are armed groups in the region: "The people
here don't have enough money to eat, much less to buy weapons."
Patrols are also active in the state of Campeche, in the Yucatan
peninsula.
 
At the other end of the country, in the northwestern state of
Chihuahua, 250 soldiers and police agents began searches through
the Tarahumara Sierra on June 17; the searches intensified after
the EPR's first appearance, although the government claims the
patrols are looking for drugs. [Proceso (Mexico) 7/7/96,
electronic edition; Independent (UK) 7/11/96] Army units are also
reportedly patrolling in the Huasteca region of the central state
of Hidalgo, northeast of Mexico City, asking campesinos: "Where
is the armed group?" The army is officially engaged in a
reforestation project. [La Jornada 7/11/96, electronic edition;
Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update #80, 7/10/96 from LJ 7/8/96]
 
In Guerrero itself, the army claimed it captured four EPR members
on July 8; the state judicial police announced that they had
captured another four on July 9. Both sets of arrests were
reportedly near Aguas Blancas, the site of a massacre of 17
campesinos by state judicial police in June 1995--and of the
EPR's first appearance at an anniversary commemoration last
month. The military claimed the first four detainees were found
near a cave stocked with pistols, ammunition and EPR propaganda.
Three are members of the militant Southern Sierra Campesino
Organization (OCSS), whose members were the victims of the Aguas
Blancas massacre. Some of those arrested said they had heard that
an OCSS leader, Benigno Guzman, was the EPR's leader. The second
group was composed of members of the Organization of Guerrero
Towns and Communities (OPCG) and the PRD from Ahucuotzingo, in
the La Montana region, some distance from Aguas Blancas. They
implicated Bernardo Ranferi Hernandez Acevedo, a PRD state
legislator and a leader in the leftist Broad Front for the
Construction of the National Liberation Movement (FAC-MLN), as
the man who recruited them to the EPR. The eight captured men
told stories of being paid as much as 2,000 pesos (about $260) to
participate in the EPR.
 
OCSS, PRD and FAC-MLN officials and the relatives of the detained
men say that the authorities must have tortured the prisoners to
obtain the confessions. One of the detained men, Jeronimo Adame,
says that soldiers seized him on July 4, four days before the
army said he was captured; he claims they tortured him before
moving him to Acapulco and announcing the capture. The PRD
charges that the four men reportedly arrested in Aguas Blancas on
July 9 were in fact captured on July 6 in Ahucuotzingo. In a
communique some media received in Mexico City on July 11, the EPR
took responsibility for the gun cache found near Aguas Blancas
but denied that the eight detainees were EPR members; "Commander
Jose Arturo" demanded that the government stop using the EPR as a
pretext "to go on repressing" legal opposition groups. The rebel
confirmed reports of an act of "armed propaganda"--distribution
of the EPR's "Manifesto of Aguas Blancas"--on July  8 in the
village of Teloloapan. [LJ 7/11/96, 7/12/96, 7/13/96, electronic
editions] 
 
Human rights groups charge that people claiming to be government
agents kidnapped a campesino activist, Jose Nava Andrade, and
held him for four days near Aguas Blancas. Nava says the men
strung him up from a tree and applied electric shocks to his
testicles, asking him for the names of EPR members. [Independent
7/11/96]
 
*7. MEXICO: BOMB AT DEBTORS ORGANIZATION

On July 9 a bomb was discovered in the offices of El Barzon, a
militant debtors organization, in the northeastern state of Nuevo
Leon. It was set to explode at 1 PM that day, but was removed
safely from the building. One of the group's local leaders,
Liliana Flores Benavides, has received 23 anonymous threatening
calls since April, and her daughter has been followed by men in a
van since June 10. Judicial police agents followed Flores
Benavides on July 3 and July 5 and threatened her. Amnesty
International has called for faxes to Mexican president Lic.
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon (011-525-515-1794), interim Nuevo
Leon governor Lic. Benjamin Clariond Reyes (011-528-344-9877),
and others urging the government to protect Flores Benavides and
other El Barzon members. [AI Urgent Action 7/9/96 distributed by
Global Exchange]
 
*8. BOLIVIANS STRIKE AGAINST PENSION PRIVATIZATION

Members of Bolivia's powerful oil workers union clashed on July
10 with police in the early hours of a 24-hour strike called by
the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) to protest a series of reforms
to the pension law, approved by the government on July 9 and now
awaiting approval by Congress. The police forcibly dispersed oil
union leaders who had gathered at the Senkata fuel distribution
center in an effort to block fuel distribution to La Paz; the
police did not arrest anyone, according to union leader David
Coulthard. The government also sent heavy military security to
the airports of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz to block a
strike by air traffic controllers. There were reportedly no
problems with domestic or international flights. [El Diario-La
Prensa 7/11/96 from AFP ] 
 
The Bolivian congress, dominated by pro-government forces, is
expected to pass the reforms. The COB has written to the
presidents of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate demanding
that they comply with an agreement stipulating that the pension
law must be discussed with the unions before being approved.
Government officials have announced that the law is to be
approved without further discussion during the week of July 15.
[ED-LP 7/11/96 from AFP; Inter Press Service 7/11/96]
 
President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada calls the pension reform "the
dignity law," arguing that it will make 3.7 million Bolivians
beneficiaries of the pension system, while the old system only
included 120,000. The new pension law creates a "Individual
Capitalization System" (SCI) which will temporarily co-exist with
the existing system, allowing those Bolivians who are part of the
current pension system to choose which they prefer to participate
in. The new system includes a $200 annual payment after 1997 to
all Bolivians over 65 years old. The payment will be financed by
the partial privatization ("capitalization") of the state
electricity, telecommunications, railroad, airline, oil and iron
industries, which the government hopes will bring in $1.4
billion.
 
Those who decide to remain in the current system must pay 8.5% of
their salaries into the pension fund; men can retire at 55 and
women at 50, after 25 years of work (until now only 15 years of
work were required). This measure was rejected by the Bolivian
Confederation of Retirees and Bondholders. Those who decide to go
with the new privatized pensions--known as AFPs--must give up all
the contributions they have made so far into the existing system
and start at zero. Everyone who starts to work for the first time
will have to participate in the AFP system, paying 10% of their
salaries into it each month. At the age of 65, everyone who has
been contributing enough to the AFP that they are receiving
pension income equivalent to 80% of their base salary will also
be eligible for the $200 annual "old age" payment. 
 
Private enterprises, foreign or Bolivian, which seek to create an
AFP in Bolivia must participate in a bidding process, and the two
firms selected will put up a minimum of $1.44 million. One of
several aspects of the new system that have been criticized is
that the pension fund capital is likely to be invested in foreign
stocks, instead of going into the Bolivian economy. [IPS 7/11/96]
[For more info on Bolivia's proposed pension system, see Update
#325, item #5].
 
According to a report from the United Nations Population Fund,
94% of rural homes in Bolivia and 51.1% of urban ones are in a
situation of poverty. [Diario Las Americas 7/13/96 from EFE]
 
*9. TRANSPORT COOPERATIVES STRIKE IN NICARAGUA

Nicaraguan bus and taxi drivers organized in 12 transportation
cooperatives went on strike on July 9 to demand that the National
Assembly approve the General Cooperatives Law, which keeps in
place a tax exemption cooperatives receive for the purchase of
machinery or imported materials. The strike took 30,000 buses and
taxis off the roads and left thousands of people stranded,
waiting for the few, non-striking buses still in circulation.
Striking vehicles converged in front of the National Assembly and
other sites in Managua and across the country, and 12 taxi
drivers were briefly detained for puncturing the tires of non-
striking taxis. The strike affected international cargo, but
private vehicles continued to circulate unimpeded. [Reuter
7/9/96, 7/11/96; El Diario-La Prensa 7/11/96 from AP] Jose
Guerra, president of the Nicaraguan Federation of Cargo Transport
(FETRACANIC), called on transportation cooperatives throughout
Central America to withhold shipments into Nicaragua while the
protest continued. [Diario Las Americas 7/11/96 from EFE]
 
On the night of July 10, the National Assembly voted 46 to four,
with six abstentions (the remaining 36 deputies presumably did
not vote), to keep the tax exemption in place for transportation
cooperatives. The strike was called off, and transport was back
to normal by July 11. However, the conflict could continue, since
Finance Minister Emilio Pereira and Labor Minister Francisco
Rosales both said the law would probably be vetoed, and union
leaders have warned they will call a new strike if that happens.
The government had pressured legislators to limit the tax
exemption to the next seven years, but the law passed by the
Assembly keeps it indefinitely. [Reuter 7/9/96, 7/11/96; ED-LP
7/11/96 from AFP] Sandinista deputies voted in favor of the law.
[NICNEWS La Prensa headlines 7/11/96]
 
FETRACANIC president Guerra warned that if the tax exemption is
revoked, operating costs--and therefore bus and taxi fares--will
increase. [Reuter 7/9/96, 7/11/96] Union officials say that the
proposed 32% import tax on vehicles would push the price of new
buses up over 70%, making it impossible for operators to maintain
their fleets. The government says it is under pressure from
multilateral lending organizations to remove the tax exemptions.
[Latin American Index Daily Internal Bulletin 7/12/96 from UPI]
 
The strike was the fifth by transportation workers since the
government of President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro took office
in 1990. Previous strikes have resulted in bloody shootouts with
police on the streets of Managua. [Reuter 7/9/96, 7/11/96]
 
*10. FSLN CLIMBS IN NEW NICARAGUA POLL

Support for former president Daniel Ortega of the leftist
Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua's 1996
presidential race has jumped to 26% against 36% for rightwing
candidate Arnoldo Aleman of the Liberal Alliance, according to a
CID-Gallup poll released on July 10. Ortega's showing is up five
percentage points from a CID-Gallup poll taken six months ago.
The poll, sponsored by the local newspaper La Tribuna and the
television station Channel 2, surveyed 1,200 Nicaraguans and has
a margin of error of 2.4%. It was conducted before the Supreme
Electoral Council (CSE) eliminated the third and fourth place
candidates, former Presidency Minister Antonio Lacayo of the
National Project (PRONAL) and Alvaro Robelo of the Nicaraguan
Alliance, from the presidential race [see Update #336]. The poll
also revealed that 63% of Nicaraguans felt they were economically
worse off in 1996 than in 1995; only 9% felt better off. "The
Sandinistas are being seen once again as a real option by the
poorest sectors of Nicaraguan society," explained Carlos Denton,
president of CID-Gallup in Costa Rica. [Reuter 7/10/96]
 
*11. PERU PRESIDENT ADMITS INNOCENT PEOPLE JAILED AS TERRORISTS

Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori announced that 150 people
unjustly imprisoned on terrorism charges have been freed over the
past 18 months. The release of these prisoners was arranged by
the national intelligence service, and carried out by a group of
10 lawyers headed by French priest Hubert Lanssiers, explained
Fujimori. The 150 people freed had been falsely accused by actual
"terrorists," who to avoid prison took advantage of a law of
"repentance" by accusing others, Fujimori said. According to
Fujimori, the release of another 80 people is pending, out of a
total of 300 cases being reviewed because of "errors and excesses
that the judicial power committed, incorrectly applying the
repentance law." [El Diario-La Prensa 7/3/96 from AP]
 
Peru's justice ministry has promised to clear up a backlog of
court cases by the end of this year; according to official
figures there are as many as 137,000 trials currently pending. To
speed up processing, the executive commission of the judicial
power announced that provisional and "corporative" courts will be
established. [Diario Las Americas 7/11/96 from EFE]
 
Some 400 inmates at the Cachiche prison in Ica, in southern Peru,
staged an uprising on July 4 to protest bad prison food and
delays in judicial proceedings. The prisoners ended the protest
after prison officials signed an agreement promising to respond
to their demands. [DLA 7/6/96 from AFP]
 
*12. GUATEMALAN CAMPESINOS OCCUPY COSTA RICAN EMBASSY

On July 12, some 800 to 1,000 Guatemalan campesinos held a day-
long peaceful occupation of the Costa Rican embassy in Guatemala
City, seeking government attention to their demands for housing.
At the end of the day the protesters left peacefully; police did
not force the end of the occupation, according to radio reports.
Witnesses said representatives of the United Nations Mission for
Verification of Human Rights in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and the Human
Rights Ombudsman's office negotiated with protesters. The
campesinos say they represent 6,000-7,000 families who occupy
marginal communities on the outskirts of the capital, and they
are demanding that the government grant them housing and legal
title to the lands they are occupying. They chose the Costa Rican
embassy because Guatemalan president Alvaro Arzu was in Costa
Rica at the time, attending a summit with other Central American
presidents and Chilean president Eduardo Frei. [El Diario-La
Prensa 7/13/96 from EFE; Reuter 7/12/96]
 
Over the radio, the occupiers criticized the National Housing
Fund and its director Jorge Lau for not solving their housing
problems after a year of negotiations. According to Lau, there
are about a million squatters living in shacks on 280 different
illegal plots in the metropolitan area. Lau said the Housing Fund
has not signed any agreements with land invaders, but will
provide low interest, long-term loans to anyone who wants to
purchase legal housing or land. "People who are prepared to make
payments, we are perfectly happy to attend to their needs, in
rural or urban areas," said Lau. [Reuter 7/12/96]
 
On June 27, some 60 police agents and their families took over
lands belonging to the National Police Department on the
outskirts of the capital, claiming the land was intended for a
recreation center and police housing. By the end of the day, some
250 police agents had begun constructing homes there. According
to the agents, the lots have been empty for 13 years. [Cerigua
Weekly Briefs #26, 7/4/96]
 
*13. EL SALVADOR: GUARDS FIRED FOR PROTEST

On July 9, El Salvador's National Civilian Police (PNC) took over
several key offices of the National Telecommunications
Administration (ANTEL) to disarm 270 ANTEL guards who had been
laid off a day earlier and replace them with police agents. PNC
sub-director of operations Rolando Garcia had accused the guards
of refusing to give up their army-issue weapons after being laid
off. According to Wilmer Erroa, national and international
relations secretary of the Salvadoran Association of
Telecommunications Workers (ASTTEL), the notice of dismissal for
the guards was not signed by ANTEL president Juan Jose Daboub.
[El Diario-La Prensa 7/10/96 from Notimex] An ANTEL source told
Spanish news service EFE that the guards had caused trouble by
closing down several ANTEL buildings in protest after the police
replaced their UZI submachine guns with pistols. ANTEL claims
that the dismissals are legal because article 50 of the Labor
Code establishes the right of the employer to cancel a work
contract for such reasons as "the loss of trust in a worker."
[Diario Las Americas 7/11/96 from EFE]
 
*14. POPULIST WINS RUNOFF VOTE IN ECUADOR

On July 7 in Ecuador, populist Abdala Bucaram Ortiz of the
Ecuadoran Roldosista Party (PRE) won the runoff election for the
presidency with 54.37% of the valid votes cast, defeating
rightwing candidate Jaime Nebot Saadi of the Social Christian
Party (PSC), who had 45.62%. Of the total ballots cast, 11% were
null and 2% were blank. Bucaram will take office on Aug. 10; his
vice president will be Rosalia Arteaga, a 40-year-old lawyer and
journalist and the first woman to hold the vice presidency in
Ecuador. Arteaga served as education minister under current
president Sixto Duran-Ballen but resigned because she opposed a
law requiring Catholic doctrine to be taught in public schools.
 
Bucaram advocates "moderate neoliberalism," which he says will
"clean up a corrupt and monopolistic capitalism" and give new
profitability to state enterprises through infusions of foreign
capital and technology. Bucaram has said he opposes privatization
of the petroleum industry and other key sectors, but does favor
encouraging foreign investment. Among other campaign promises,
Bucaram has pledged to address the inequitable distribution of
wealth, stop capital flight, and force the banking sector to
finance production, especially in agriculture. Bucaram also
promised to convoke a constituent assembly to draw up a new
constitution that would recognize the plurinationality of the
country, which has 10 major indigenous groups that comprise
between 45% and 50% of the population. One very specific promise
Bucaram made was to provide low-cost housing to 200,000 poor
families; two days after the elections, large crowds gathered
outside the PRE headquarters in Guayaquil to "put their names on
the list" for a house.
 
An alliance with smaller parties and independent deputies will be
key for carrying out Bucaram's agenda in the legislature. The PRE
will have 19 deputies in the 82-seat unicameral Congress, while
the PSC will have 27. Bucaram will most likely have the support
of the indigenous movement Pachacutik-New Country, which won
seven congressional seats [see Update #330], and possibly the
Radical Alfarista Front (FRA). Both Bucaram and the PSC are
seeking support from the 12 deputies of Popular Democracy (DP),
whose first-round presidential candidate, Rodrigo Paz, gave his
support to Bucaram. The Democratic Left (ID) party, with four
seats, is considered unlikely to support many of Bucaram's
proposals. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 7/12/96 from Notimex,
Agence France-Presse, Hoy (Quito), Reuter, Spanish news service
EFE]
 
*15. IN OTHER NEWS...

A judge in Brazil has ruled that the public health service of Sao
Paulo state must use the latest medications to treat a person
with AIDS. In the unprecedented ruling, Judge Marco Costa of the
Sao Paulo 1st Chamber of Public Finance named three drugs
imported from the US which must be provided within five days. The
monthly cost of the most effective treatments can be as much as
$1,200. The plaintiff is Nair Brito, a teacher from Sao Paulo
state who has had the AIDS virus for four years. [Diario Las
Americas 7/12/96 from AFP]... On July 8 more than 100 inmates at
El Salvador's Santa Ana prison suspended a hunger strike that
began on June 17, after the government promised to present within
40 days a proposed law to reduce sentences, one of the key
prisoner demands. [DLA 7/10/96 from AFP, 7/12/96 from EFE]...
Street vendors in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, were beaten by municipal
police on July 10 after Mayor Roberto Acosta ordered the eviction
of over 100 vendors from the city center. Acosta argued that the
street vendors make the city ugly. [DLA 7/11/96 from AFP]...
According to the Puerto Rican police, the clandestine
independence organization Boricua Popular Army, better known as
the "Macheteros," has plans to sabotage the US Governors
Association convention taking place at a San Juan hotel from July
13-16. On July 10 the Macheteros painted messages of "Yankee Go
Home" at the US army recruiting center in Ponce and on other
buildings. Press reports also indicate that some US governors
were concerned about a letter they received from the Macheteros
rejecting the holding of the convention in Puerto Rico. Security
at the convention is to include some 500 agents of the Puerto
Rican police and 100 US Secret Service agents. [El Diario-La
Prensa 7/12/96 from EFE]
 
END

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