WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #339, JULY 28, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Colombian Army Crushes Coca Protest 2. Nicaragua: FSLN Office in Miami Attacked 3. El Salvador: Sao Paulo Forum Participants Threatened 4. Haiti Shaken by Coup Rumors 5. Dominican Republic: Protests Over Trash, Housing, Prisoners 6. Mexico Repays US, Agrees to Election Reform 7. Investing in Mexico: Guerrillas, De la Madrid, TV Azteca 8. Mexico News: Farm Riot, DF Eviction, Pemex Explosion 9. Argentina's Neoliberal Finance Minister Resigns 10. Argentine Defense Minister Quits Over Arms Scandal 11. Brazil: Government Delays Decision on Indigenous Lands 12. Chilean Miners Win Strike 13. Executions Suspended in Guatemala 14. Cuba: UN Issues Weak Statement Against Plane Shootdown 15. In Other News: Ecuador and Costa Rica ISSN#: 1084-922X. 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COLOMBIAN ARMY CRUSHES COCA PROTEST The Colombian army used anti-riot squads on July 22 to break up a march in Guaviare department by some 15,000 campesino coca- growers heading to the departmental capital, San Jose de Guaviare. The march was part of a civic strike started more than a week earlier to protest a government order that declared the entire department of Guaviare a "zone of public order" and restricted civil liberties, and to demand an end to aerial fumigations of coca cultivations [see Update #338]. [El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 7/23/96 from Notimex; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 7/23/96 from EFE, 7/24/96 from AFP] At least 12 people were injured in clashes on July 21 when the protesters tried to break through military barricades in the village of El Retorno. [ED-LP 7/22/96 from AP] According to Spanish news service EFE, march organizers said that three people died and 20 were injured in the clashes. Campesino leader and march organizer German Olarte said on July 21 that the army troops lobbed tear gas and fired guns at the protesters as they tried to leave El Retorno. [DLA 7/23/96 from EFE] Armed Forces commander Adm. Holdan Delgado denied rumors that six protesters had died in indiscriminate shooting by the army. "The public force has not shot at the civilian population," said Delgado. He admitted that there had been several clashes between the army and protesters, but said authorities used tear gas, not bullets, on those occasions. Delgado claimed that most of the campesinos had been forced by guerrilla groups to join the strike and the protest march. [ED-LP 7/23/96 from Notimex] *2. NICARAGUA: FSLN OFFICE IN MIAMI ATTACKED On the early morning of July 22, someone set off a flammable device at the entrance of the newly opened Miami office of Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). The subsequent fire caused minor damage and went out by itself. [Diario Las Americas 7/25/96] "Fortunately there were no deaths or injuries," announced FSLN leader Bayardo Arce from Managua. "We're going to reopen the office to keep on functioning." Arce explained that the FSLN also has offices in New York, Washington and California, but "the novel one is Miami, because people have the wrong idea that it's a hotbed of anti-Sandinistas." FSLN leader Rene Nunez blamed the attack on the political intolerance of anti-FSLN forces, but said the FSLN would not accuse anyone of carrying out the attack. "The only thing we have asked of the Miami police authorities is an exhaustive investigation of the act, and protection," said Nunez. [DLA 7/27/96 from AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 7/28/96 from Notimex] Businessperson Rene Espinoza--a Miami resident for two decades--is in charge of the FSLN's Miami office, which opened in early July [see Update #338]. [Barricada 7/18/96, electronic version] "We opened the office because now there is a pro-Sandinista force in Miami that is incredible," Bayardo Arce told Reuter. Arce said most Nicaraguans in Florida are now economic migrants who did not leave the country for political reasons. Nicaraguan pro- Sandinista daily El Nuevo Diario reported that the purpose of the office is to organize a visit by FSLN presidential candidate Daniel Ortega to the US, to present the FSLN's new image and to promote investment in Nicaragua. [Reuter 7/22/96] *3. EL SALVADOR: SAO PAULO FORUM PARTICIPANTS THREATENED On July 24, the new Salvadoran paramilitary group calling itself FURODA--"National Force Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson," named for the death squad leader and founder of the ruling ARENA party [see Update #336]--issued a general death threat against participants in the Sixth Meeting of the Sao Paolo Forum, taking place in San Salvador July 26-30. The Sao Paolo Forum is a gathering of Latin American and Caribbean left and center-left political parties and organizations; some 100 observers from the US are also participating in this year's meeting. FURODA's communique, which was faxed to the hotel where the Forum is meeting, warns that "our Special Squads have orders to execute the foreign communists wherever they find them," promising "that El Salvador will be the tomb where the reds will be terminated" (a reference to lyrics from the ARENA party's anthem). On July 23 Avivia Osorio Mengar of the Mothers of the Disappeared (COMADRES) was killed in San Salvador; COMADRES has received death threats for several months. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) is urging faxes to Public Security Minister Hugo Barrera (011-503-245-2650) and President Armando Calderon Sol (011-503-271-0950), demanding that they guarantee the safety of all individuals recently threatened by FURODA or other paramilitary groups and that they carry out an in-depth investigation to put a stop to death squad activities. [CISPES Action Alert 7/25/96] *4. HAITI SHAKEN BY COUP RUMORS As of July 25 Haiti's Parliament had still not passed two laws that the US and the international lending institutions say must be enacted by July 29 if the country is to continue receiving international aid. All indications are that the "Law on the Voluntary Departure and Retirement of Employees," which authorizes massive layoffs, and the "Law on the Modernization of Public Enterprises," a measure for privatization, will pass despite strong opposition from some legislators. The biweekly Haiti Info notes that even if the laws are passed, the Haitian government is likely to face still more opposition when it has to implement them. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #19, 7/25/96] Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince has been shaken all month by fears of a rightwing plot against President Rene Preval and former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On July 16 National Police head Pierre Denize said: "There are rumors that circulate throughout the city. The National Police takes preventive measures each time there are rumors like this." [Haiti Progres (NY) 7/17-23/96] Since April, former Haitian official Patrick Elie has insisted that he has evidence of a plot "to wreak havoc on Haiti's president." Elie has been held by the US in a Virginia Detention Center on charges of gun possession and impersonating a diplomat; he admits that he had psychiatric treatment last year [see Update #331]. But speculation grew after an incident with American Airlines employees on July 12, when Aristide left the country for a trip to Japan. American Airlines security made the former president pass through a metal detector, and then got into an argument with the two Presidential Security Unit (USG) agents that accompanied him. The agents ended up handcuffing the airline employees; the pilot then refused to take off until the employees were released, delaying the former president's departure for two hours. [HP 7/17-23/96; Haiti en Marche (Miami) 7/17-23/96] On July 17 Andre Armand, a former soldier who headed the Assembly of Soldiers Dismissed Without Reason (RAMIRESM), announced on Radio Kiskeya: "There is a plot to destabilize the government... [W]e have RAMIRESM members we sent to participate in meetings held by certain elements and political parties... I'm warning the government that I have a lot of evidence in my hands." Armand was murdered in his home two days later, on the night of July 19. On July 17, the same day that Armand made his charges, the police arrested Claude Raymond, a former general and a defense minister during the Duvalier family dictatorship. Authorities advised the press that Raymond "wasn't arrested just because he was a Duvalierist but for having committed terrorist acts tending to destabilize public order and authority." [HP 7/24-30/96; HEM 7/24-30/96] Security has been reinforced around the National Police headquarters and the Parliament. [Haiti Info 7/25/96] On July 25 former interim police chief Major Dany Toussaint--one of the army officers who opposed the 1991 coup against then- president Aristide--told Radio Magik Stereo that on the night of July 24 he escaped an ambush by armed men in two vehicles on the de Frere highway, east of Port-au-Prince. [Haiti Info 7/25/96; Diario Las Americas 7/26/96 from AFP] Haitians have little confidence in the US-trained National Police. As of July 11, the National Police had disciplined a total of 173 agents for brutality, including 15 that were fired and 24 that were referred to the court system. The crimes include at least two summary executions and one case of death by torture. In another case, police agent Calixte Saint-Clermont shot a woman in the vagina on July 3 in a community in Grand Anse. The US has spent $55 million on training programs for the Haitian police through the International Criminal Investigations Training and Assistance Program (ICITAP). [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #18, 7/13/96] *5. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: PROTESTS OVER TRASH, HOUSING, PRISONERS One person died and 10 were injured on July 25 during protests against a garbage dump in the Dominican Republic. Trucks of the Attwoods company began on July 22 moving more than 2,500 tons of garbage into an improvised dump at a saltpeter mine near rural communities 30 km outside Santo Domingo. The site was chosen after another dump caused environmental problems and other communities refused to accept the waste. Local residents argue that the saltpeter mine is the primary source of income for the communities. The protests began on July 24, and the communities were militarized the same day. Some protesters threw rocks at the Attwoods trucks; the person who died was hit by a rock while riding in the back of one of the trucks. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/26/96 from EFE] Meanwhile in the capital itself, police agents beat hundreds of people who were demonstrating at the inauguration of a 224-unit housing project, demanding that the government provide them with housing as promised. More than 200 families evicted from their houses by the government for "urban beautification" projects were joined in the protest by families left homeless by Hurricane David in 1979 and homemakers who had won a government "Mother's Day" raffle of homes. President Joaquin Balaguer was attending the event, but declined to make his customary speech and left in the middle of the protests. He later ordered National Assets director Carlos Eligio Linares to carry out "the relocation of those families as soon as possible." More than 100 families have been occupying three Catholic churches since over a year ago [see Update #283]. Balaguer had promised on several occasions that these new housing units would be assigned to them, but in the end they were not. "We are protesting because in the list of beneficiaries not a single one of us who have been living packed into the churches is named; instead the list includes government officials and their secretaries," said Victor de la Cruz, who represents the families occupying the churches. De la Cruz also complained that police were beating protesters indiscriminately. [Diario Las Americas 7/27/96 from EFE] Inmates at the Cotui prison, 105 km northwest of the Dominican capital, took 17 people hostage on July 25 to demand their transfer to other prisons and the speeding up of their trials. Among the hostages are 15 churchpeople, a prison official and a soldier of the National Army. A human rights commission and various army officials are negotiating their release. [ED-LP 7/26/96 from EFE] *6. MEXICO REPAYS US, AGREES TO ELECTION REFORM On July 25 the Mexican government announced that in early August it will pay back $7 billion of the $12.5 billion it borrowed from the US last year. Mexico has already repaid $2 billion, and the new payment, ahead of schedule, will reduce the debt to $3.5 billion. Another $1 billion will be repaid to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Mexico is refinancing the debt to the US and IMF by borrowing from private foreign investors at an interest rate of about 7.6%. Mexican officials insisted that the move was simply sound economics--the US loan carried an exorbitant 10% interest rate--and denied that it was intended to help US president Bill Clinton: the Republican Party was hoping to make a campaign issue out of the loans to Mexico. [New York Times 7/26/96; Washington Post 7/26/96] [The available press accounts did not indicate whether the US is ending the $20 billion credit line it extended to Mexico after a major economic crisis started in December 1995. Mexico's $12.5 billion debt was drawn down from that credit line.] Later on July 25, Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon signed an accord on electoral reform with the four political parties represented in the Mexican Congress: his own Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN), the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the small Workers Party (PT). In the agreement, which the parties negotiated over for 19 months, the PRI gave in to many longstanding opposition demands for equal television time, an independent board of elections, direct election of Mexico City's mayor, and absentee ballots for the millions of Mexicans living in the US. The Congress is scheduled to meet in a special session on July 29 to approve the 17 amendments to the Constitution the reforms will require. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/27/96 from AFP; NYT 7/27/96] Just three days before, the influential New York Times had complained that Zedillo's failure to achieve a reform agreement "greatly heightens the risk of more radical challenges to the system, with disastrous consequences for his presidency and serious repercussions for the United States." [NYT 7/22/96] But there are reasons to doubt the Mexican government's commitment to reform. Last year Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the PRD's 1994 gubernatorial candidate in the southeastern state of Tabasco, presented the federal attorney general's office (PGR) with ten boxes of documents indicating that Gov. Roberto Madrazo Pintado's winning campaign had exceeded legal spending limits by some $70 million. The PGR ruled on June 7 that the campaign had overspent by at least $38 million, but left it up to the state attorney general, appointed by Madrazo, whether to pursue the case [see Update #332]. On July 8 the state attorney general's office announced that the criminal investigation had been shelved "because of the absence of illicit acts." [Reuter 7/8/96] *7. INVESTING IN MEXICO: GUERRILLAS, DE LA MADRID, TV AZTECA Foreign investors in Mexico are being sold "a huge, perfectly camouflaged fraud," the leader of southern Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) told the British news service Reuter on July 21. "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" advised "serious investors" that "a country that does not have political stability is not a country that guarantees a safe investment, above all in the long term." Marcos was referring to the emergence of a second rebel organization, the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR), in the southwestern state of Guerrero at the end of June. The EZLN leader said the EPR is probably authentic (many leftists have suggested it might be run by provocateurs) and "proceed[s] intelligently in military terms," but cautioned: "They have not won legitimacy from the people who live there, which is where a guerrilla movement fights for its legitimacy." "What is happening" in Mexico, he said, "is the nightmare of every military command. It's called the leopard effect of a guerrilla movement: spots appear everywhere." [Reuter 7/22/96] Investors might also be put off by the continuing corruption scandals, many involving privatizations and other applications of neoliberal economic policies under the administrations of former presidents Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988) and Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994). On July 21 Jose Urena, a political columnist for the Mexico City-based daily La Jornada, published translations of 1995 documents from the Bank of Luxembourg and P.T. Galaxy Indonesia Trust of Jakarta indicating that a Miguel de la Madrid had more than $2 billion in foreign holdings. [LJ 7/21/96] In a letter to the paper, former president De la Madrid denied the "calumnious imputation." He had already seen the documents in 1995, De la Madrid wrote, and had established that his signature on them was a forgery. [LJ 7/23/96, electronic edition] Earlier in the month television viewers were treated to charges and countercharges about the 1993 privatization of the state- owned Imevision network, which Ricardo Salinas Pliego bought and renamed TV Azteca. Mexico's main network, the pro-government Grupo Televisa conglomerate, charged in late June that Salinas Pliego got the bid through then-president Salinas' brother Raul Salinas, now in jail on murder and corruption charges. Salinas Pliego, who is not related to the Salinas brothers, admitted on July 4 that he had borrowed a total of $29.8 million from Raul in August and September 1993, right after the time he bought Imevision. He denied that there was any connection with the privatization. But Televisa had its own scandal. The conservative opposition Mexico City daily La Reforma revealed in early July that Televisa's main daytime newscaster Abraham Zabludovsky--son of the network's main anchor person Jacobo Zabludovsky--had been involved in a partnership with Raul Salinas in a bus company. [Reuter 7/4/96] The bus company was the state-owned MASA, sold for $6.54 million in 1989 to business person Samuel Wigisser, who resold it the same day for $7.1 million to a company controlled by Raul Salinas, Abraham Zabludovsky and banker Jose Madariaga; the new owners sold their shares three years later, when MASA shares were valued at $48 million. [Equipo Pueblo Mexico Update #82, 7/24/96 from Reforma 7/22/96] In May 1994 the newly privatized TV Azteca and the US-based NBC network announced a three-year "alliance" under which NBC could end up buying a 10-20% stake in the Mexican network. [NBC has not yet bought any shares, as was reported in error in Update #334, which also incorrectly cited the date of a May 17, 1994 New York Times article.] NBC reports that the alliance is still in effect; it has "no comment at this time" on the corruption charges against Salinas Pliego. [NBC spokesperson Deborah Thomas 7/25/96] TV Azteca's big hit currently is "Nothing Personal," a soap opera about corruption in Mexico. [NYT 7/22/96] *8. MEXICO NEWS: FARM RIOT, DF EVICTION, PEMEX EXPLOSION On July 4, more than 800 farm laborers reportedly destroyed four police cars and looted 25 businesses in the San Quintin Valley of Baja Cafornia Norte, about 350 kilometers south of the US border. The laborers, who come from as far away as Oaxaca state in southern Mexico, were protesting the failure of the Santa Anita ranch to pay wages for three weeks; field workers typically get less than $3 a day, and about 35% of them are under 14 years of age. [Mexican Labor News and Analysis, Vol. 1, #13, 7/16/96]... Some 700 riot police backed up 300 city employees as they drove 100 residents out of the Las Maravillas neighborhood of Mexico City's Iztapalapa delegacion (borough) and bulldozed their homes on July 19. The Federal District (DF) government says the residents were squatting on land belonging to the Cerro de la Estrella ecological park; the residents say they bought their plots in 1989 and had property tax receipts from the DF Treasury. The residents fought back with rocks and sticks; the media said about 30 people were wounded, including three journalists. [LJ 7/20/96 (electronic edition), 7/21/96]... At least six workers were killed and 39 injured in an explosion on July 26 at a Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) processing plant in Chiapas, near the border with Tabasco. Pemex says that the blast was caused by a propane leak; the plant, known as Cactus, is Pemex's largest natural gas and basic petrochemical processing operation and employs 1,600 workers. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/28/96 from AP] *9. ARGENTINA'S NEOLIBERAL FINANCE MINISTER RESIGNS On July 26 Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem announced that he had accepted the resignation of Domingo Cavallo, his finance minister since 1991 and the architect of the country's neoliberal economic program. Menem and Cavallo had clashed before, but the final rupture apparently came on July 24 when Cavallo threatened to resign, as he had frequently in the past. Menem reportedly said he was "fed up" with the threats and that Cavallo should go ahead and quit. Rumors of the resignation drove the Argentine stock market down by more than 3% on July 25; it recovered later in the day when the government denied the stories. The market fell 4.1% on July 26 when the resignation became official. Cavallo is to be replaced with Central Bank director Roque Fernandez, who is expected to continue Cavallo's austerity measures and strict dollarization of the peso. [New York Times 7/27/96; El Diario-La Prensa 7/28/96 from Notimex] Protesters greeted the news by applauding, honking and setting off rockets in front of the presidential palace. Cavallo had just introduced new austerity measures, and the pro-government General Labor Federation (CGT) had called a one-day general strike for Aug. 8, with the backing of the Argentine Workers Movement (MTA) and the Argentine Workers Congress (CAT). Cavallo's six years in office brought a dramatic reduction in inflation; however, unemployment rose from 6% to 17.1%, and the external debt increased from $63 billion to $93 billion. [La Jornada 7/27/96] On July 23, a group of unemployed workers and pensioners arrived in three buses at a Buenos Aires supermarket and began a peaceful occupation. They threatened to loot the store--part of the Coto supermarket chain--but ended their protest several hours later when the owners relented and gave them 150 bags of food. [Diario Las Americas 7/25/96 from AFP] *10. ARGENTINE DEFENSE MINISTER QUITS OVER ARMS SCANDAL On July 16, almost a year and a half after a scandal erupted over illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia [see Update #332], Argentine defense minister Oscar Camilion submitted his resignation to President Carlos Saul Menem. The resignation ends Camilion's immunity, and he will be summoned to testify in the arms case. A federal investigation found that three shipments of arms had been delivered to Ecuador in early 1995, in violation of the international arms embargo imposed during the border conflict between Ecuador and Peru. Argentina's role as one of four guarantor nations of the 1942 Rio de Janeiro Protocol called for strict neutrality during the conflict. The sale of arms to Croatia occurred while Argentine soldiers were in the former Yugoslavia as part of the UN peacekeeping mission there, and also violated an international embargo. The Menem administration at first denied that any arms had gone to Ecuador, then blamed "unscrupulous intermediaries"--Uruguayan- based companies Debrol and Hayton Trade--who, the government claimed, had diverted the shipments from Venezuela to Ecuador. The arms were shipped via Fine Air, owned by Jack Fine, a US citizen who is alleged to have ties to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and to Oliver North, a key player convicted in the Iran-contra scandal in the 1980s. Ensuing investigations revealed evidence of falsified documents and possible payment of bribes, and brought increasing calls for Camilion's resignation, since he was responsible for the state munitions factory Fabricaciones Militares (FM), which manufactured and sold the arms. On June 21, Ecuadoran Foreign Minister Victor Galo Leoro Franco said the arms from Argentina were never used and were returned to the arms dealer because "they would have endangered the lives of any soldiers who used them, they were in such bad condition." Prodefensa, the Ecuadoran company that actually made the purchase, demanded that Argentina return $7.3 million, claiming that most of the weapons it received were unusable. On July 21, Menem announced that Camilion would be replaced by outgoing Buenos Aires mayor Jorge Dominguez. Dominguez recently lost the mayoral election to Fernando de la Rua of the opposition Radical Civic Union (UCR) [see Update #336]. The announcement brought criticism from the opposition because Dominguez is also under investigation for public administration fraud during his tenure as mayor. Dominguez will take office Aug. 6; Menem named Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo to act as interim defense minister. [Latin America Data Base Notisur 7/26/96 from Inter Press Service, Clarin (Buenos Aires), Reuter, Notimex, Agence France-Presse, Spanish news service EFE] *11. BRAZIL: GOVERNMENT DELAYS DECISION ON INDIGENOUS LANDS On July 10, the Unity Council of Brazilian Indigenous Peoples and Organizations (CAPOIB) issued a statement rejecting the decision of Justice Minister Nelson Jobim to review the demarcation of eight indigenous areas. The areas in question are Evare I and Suruini-Mariene, in Amazonas; Raposa/Serra do Sol in Roraima; Bau and Apyterewa, in Para; Sete Cerros in Mato Grosso do Sul; Kampa do Rio Envira in Acre; and Krikati in Maranhao. [CAPOIB Manifesto 7/10/96] After Jan. 8 of this year, when the Brazilian government issued Decree 1775, allowing challenges to demarcations of indigenous land [see Updates #311, 314, 322, 324], some 536 challenges were lodged against 42 indigenous areas. The government's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI) recommended rejection of all of these challenges. On July 10, Jobim announced that the government had decided to reject the challenges to 34 areas, and to call on FUNAI to carry out further study of eight other areas. According to the deadline established by Decree 1775, the studies are to be concluded within 90 days. For some of these areas, the study seems to be geared toward gathering further documentation to back the demarcation, rather than on stopping the demarcation process. The Sete Cerros area of Mato Grosso do Sul, inhabited by the Guarani-Kaiowa, is one of the most controversial cases that remain pending; the Guarani have threatened to commit collective suicide if their lands are not demarcated. Another controversial case concerns the Raposa/Serra do Sol reserve, the largest of the areas under review, covering 6,482 square miles and inhabited by some 11,000 members of the Macuxi, Ingariko, Wapixana, Taurepang and Patamona indigenous nations. The Macuxi and related groups have been in contact with colonists and national societies in Brazil and neighboring Guyana and Venezuela for the last 400 years, but tensions have increased since international pressure forced illegal gold miners out of demarcated Yanomami lands and the state government redirected them into the undemarcated Raposa/Serra do Sol area. The Indigenous Council of Roraima (CIR) has asked supporters to send faxes or email messages to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso (55-61-226-7566; gppr@cr_df.rnp.br) and Justice Minister Jobim (55-61-224-2448; njobim@ax.apc.org), urging them to demarcate the Raposa/Serra do Sol area without delay. [Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Urgent Action 7/24/96; Instituto Socioambienta 7/16/96] [Background information on the Macuxi is available from EDF, 1875 Conn Ave NW, 10th Fl, Washington DC 20009; 202-387-3500; fax 202-234-6049; email: wild@edf.org] In other news, some 500 members of the indigenous Kaingang nation took four landless workers hostage in the southern Brazilian state of Parana and demanded the government take steps to prevent squatting on tribal lands, FUNAI official Pedro Marques told Reuter on July 18. Marques said the hostages were taken after 30 landless families invaded land in the Baron de Antonina reserve. "The landless have left but the Indian chiefs are making demands and we haven't reached an agreement yet," said Marques. "They want assurances they do not return and that police remain in the area for another 60 days." Police managed to convince the squatters to leave on July 16 but they remain camped just off the reserve, raising fears they may return and spark violence, Marques added. Gunshots were exchanged early on July 17 after the Kaingang took the hostages, but no injuries were reported. [Reuter 7/18/96] *12. CHILEAN MINERS WIN STRIKE Miners at the Lota coal mine in Chile won a two-month strike with an agreement reached between the union and the government on July 26. The government agreed to the strikers' main demand to rehire 97 fired workers, and will allow 300 to take early retirement as part of a plan to make the state-run National Coal Company (ENACAR) profitable. The strikers had demanded a special pension for all miners 45 years or older, with 18 or more years working in the mines. The profitability plan involves the departure of 442 miners from ENACAR; the 122 workers who don't have the option of early retirement will instead get job training and a monthly salary of $180 for the next five years, along with food coupons for the next six months. The strike began on May 22 [see Updates #336, 338]. The miners used a number of tactics to gain public support and exert pressure on the government, including occupations of the mines, hunger strikes, highway blockades, and demonstrations by family members in the capital, Santiago. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/28/96 from Notimex, 7/27/96 from EFE; CHIP News 7/25/96] In the final week of the strike, groups of miners' children protested in front of La Moneda national palace to demand justice for their parents. [ED-LP 7/27/96 from AP] A group of workers in Chile who are building the platform that will support the world's largest telescope have threatened to shut down construction with a strike to protest the firing of a co-worker. The workers are employed by a sub-contractor, rather than directly by the European Southern Observatory consortium in charge of the "Very Large Telescope" (VLT) project. [Diario Las Americas 7/27/96 from AFP] *13. EXECUTIONS SUSPENDED IN GUATEMALA On July 22, Guatemala's Constitutional Court issued an injunction temporarily suspending the execution of Roberto Giron and Pedro Castillo, convicted of the 1993 kidnapping, rape and murder of a four-year-old girl. The two were scheduled to face a firing squad on July 23 [see Updates #336, 338]. Now there is debate over whether or not the Constitutional Court has the power to permanently suspend the execution and commute the sentence to life imprisonment. According to Judge Gustavo Gaitan Lara, it could be four months before the complicated legal details are resolved. Ronalth Ochaeta, director of Guatemala's Archdiocesan Human Rights Office (ODHA), has taken the stand that the death penalty should be abolished because the Constitution guarantees the right to life. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #29, 7/25/96] Even the Pope has jumped into the debate: John Paul II has officially asked the government of President Alvaro Arzu Irigoyen to grant clemency to the two prisoners. [Cerigua newsfeed 7/23/96] *14. CUBA: UN ISSUES WEAK STATEMENT AGAINST PLANE SHOOTDOWN On July 26, the United Nations (UN) Security Council condemned the use of weapons against civilian aircraft, an implicit criticism of the Cuban government's shooting down of two Cessna planes of the Miami-based organization Brothers to the Rescue on Feb. 24 [see Update #318]. Because of pressures from Russia and China, the resolution did not explicitly condemn Cuba, nor did it contain any provisions for sanctions. The watered-down version of the resolution was adopted with 13 votes in favor; Russia and China abstained, arguing that despite their efforts the statement was still not balanced enough. The resolution also reaffirms the obligation of governments to prevent aircraft registered in their territories from being used for purposes incompatible with the goals of international civil aviation--a reference to the fact that the US allowed the organization Brothers to the Rescue to repeatedly violate Cuban airspace on propaganda missions. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/27/96 from EFE] Meanwhile, the rightwing Miami daily Diario Las Americas reports that a Miami group got permission to display a "counter- revolutionary" message over the Olympic baseball game between the US and Cuba on July 28. The organization Mujer Cubana, Inc. hired a plane to fly four times over the stadium carrying a banner that reads "Freedom for Cuba. Castro Must Go." At least eight planes bearing messages against the government of Cuban president Fidel Castro were contracted to fly over the Olympic villa in Atlanta, Georgia, during the weekend of July 28. [Diario Las Americas 7/26/96] Anti-Castro messages failed to intimidate Cuba's Olympic baseball team, who beat the US team 10 to 8. [NBC 7/28/96] *15. IN OTHER NEWS... Some 80,000 campesinos left homeless by an earthquake last march in Cotopaxi, Ecuador, have threatened to carry out a "popular uprising" because of the failure of the government to rebuild their damaged homes, according to Gonzalo Rojas, leader of the Pujili Casa Campesina group. Planned actions include the partial blocking of the Pan-American highway and other roads. [La Jornada 7/21/96 from EFE] Meanwhile, prison authorities are taking precautions in preparation for a strike by Ecuador's 10,600 prisoners. Some 300 inmates at Ibarra prison held a strike early in the week of July 22 to demand that authorities release at least 30 prisoners whose sentences were completed in January. [Diario Las Americas 7/27/96 from EFE, 7/25/96 from EFE]... Costa Rica won its first ever Olympic gold medal on July 21, when swimmer Claudia Poll beat out the German world champion to take first place in the 200 meter freestyle competition. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/22/96 from AP] Poll was greeted in the airport by President Jose Maria Figueres when she came home on July 25, and her return was celebrated by thousands of Costa Ricans waving flags in the streets. [ED-LP 7/26/96 from AFP]... Ecuador also won its first ever Olympic gold medal with the July 26 victory of Jefferson Perez in the 20-km run. President Sixto Duran-Ballen announced that a postage stamp will be issued with Perez' image. [ED-LP 7/27/96 from AP] END MISS our calendar of events? Check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/creed.html (if you don't have web access, write to nicadlw@nyxfer.blythe.org for info). NOW AVAILABLE: The long-awaited Annual Update Index! Available for each year from 1991 through 1995. Ascii text versions free to subscribers via electronic mail. Send your request to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org NOW AVAILABLE: "Immigration in the USA One Year After Proposition 187," a Weekly News Update on the Americas special report, accompanied by a resource list and organizing leaflet. Ascii text version free to subscribers via email. Send your request to nicajg@nyxfer.blythe.org 1996 SOURCE LIST NOW AVAILABLE: A list of sources commonly-used in the Weekly News Update on the Americas, along with abbreviations and contact information. Free to subscribers. Send your request to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org WE ARE DESPERATELY seeking file cabinets (any size), a few good tables or desks, and hanging file folders (legal or letter size). 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