WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #342, AUGUST 18, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Army Blocks Colombian Campesinos 2. CIA: Coming Clean on Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Arkansas? 3. Guatemalan Paramilitary Patrols Officially Demobilized 4. Lynchings on the Rise in Guatemala 5. Mexico's New Rebel Army Continues Attacks 6. Mexico's Other Armies: Media and Human Rights Problems 7. Mexico News: Ford Cuautitlan, Health Workers, Major League 8. Environmental Protest Draws Thousands in Chile 9. Chile: Prison Fire Kills Two Inmates 10. Peruvian Military "Infiltrated" by Drug Traffickers 11. Balaguer Finally Leaves Dominican Presidency 12. New President Declares State of Emergency in Ecuador 13. Nicaragua News: Ortega House Deal, Cyclist Killer 14. Ex-Army Chief Freed in Paraguay 15. Other News: Cuba, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Honduras, Haiti ISSN#: 1084-922X. 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ARMY BLOCKS COLOMBIAN CAMPESINOS The army is attempting to stop some 75,000 campesinos in the southern Colombian department of Caqueta from marching to the departmental capital, Florencia. The campesinos, along with tens of thousands of others in the departments of Putumayo and Guaviare, are protesting the government's fumigation of coca crops [see Updates #338-341]. The situation grew tense in Caqueta when on Aug. 14 some 65,000 campesinos from 12 municipalities joined another 10,000 who had already been protesting for more than three weeks. Fearing that the protesters would take over Florencia in the same way that campesinos in Putumayo took over the departmental capital Mocoa, the army set up barricades and barbed wire to stop them at the San Pedro bridge, 20 km outside Florencia. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/17/96 from AFP] In Putumayo on Aug. 11, representatives of 36,000 campesinos reached an initial accord with a governmental commission to end their civic strike in Orito. The accord stipulates the creation of 12 commissions that will meet beginning Aug. 20 to hammer out the details of an emergency development plan for the region. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 8/13/96 from EFE] Under the pact, the government agrees not to carry out massive fumigations except on large plantations of drug crops, while the campesinos pledge to manually eradicate the smaller plantings and substitute them with traditional agricultural crops. When the accords are finalized, the protesters are to return to their communities. [ED-LP 8/13/96 from AP] Government and campesino representatives are holding a separate round of negotiations in Guaviare department, where the wave of campesino protests began on July 13. On Aug. 11, some of the 15,000 protesters began leaving the town of Miraflores to return to their land, while others--mainly those who moved to Guaviare recently to get jobs in the coca industry--have left the zone completely. [ED-LP 8/13/96 from AP] Colombian foreign minister Rodrigo Pardo claims that coca eradication programs in neighboring Bolivia and Peru have resulted in an increase in coca cultivation in Colombia. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/12/96 from AFP, DPA, EFE] [Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada praised the success of his government's fight against coca cultivation, although he admitted that 40% of the illegal crops remain. Speaking in Ecuador on Aug. 10 during a visit to attend the inauguration of Ecuadoran president Abdala Bucaram, Sanchez said that his government gives campesinos $2,500 in compensation for each hectare of coca leaf eradicated, and when the coca is completely eliminated from their land, the government gives them another $500. Sanchez added that his government has set up programs of social and agricultural development through the granting of credits and high quality seeds. [LJ 8/11/96 from AFP, ANSA] Forced coca eradication programs in Bolivia resulted in widespread protests and clashes between campesino coca growers and government anti-drug forces in the past few years.] *2. CIA: COMING CLEAN ON GUATEMALA, HAITI, HONDURAS, ARKANSAS? The US section of the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) is calling for US president Bill Clinton to investigate the involvement of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informants and collaborators in human rights violations throughout Latin America. Carlos Salinas, Amnesty International-USA's director of governmental affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean, told the French news agency Agence France Presse that the White House should widen its current probe into human rights abuses by CIA-linked members of the Guatemalan military. The Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), a presidential advisory panel, released a report on these cases on June 28 [see Update #335]. According to Salinas, the US should pay special attention to the CIA's role in Argentina and Chile under the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, with which US intelligence agencies had close relations. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/11/96 from AFP] But there are questions about how effectively the US government is dealing with its responsibilities in Guatemala. The US agreed to release thousands of previously classified documents to the Guatemalan government for use in prosecuting human rights abusers, and the US State Department has now sent some 20,000 pages. But Julio Arango Escobar, head of a special Guatemalan prosecution team, says there's nothing new in the documents, in which many names have been blacked out and some long sections excised. "These are not declassified documents," Arango told the New York Times. "They are censored documents." The US has exempted the CIA and the Defense Department from declassifying their documents. [NYT 8/9/96] But some interesting material has gotten out. A recently declassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, dated April 1994, refutes what the DC-based biweekly CounterPunch calls the "myth...that US governments never really knew what their Guatemalan associates were up to." The report's title refers to the "[s]uspected presence of clandestine cemeteries" at the Retalhuleu air base between 1984 and 1986, when the base was commanded by Gen. Hector Alejandro Gramajo, later the defense minister. The report tells the story of an officer assigned to the base in the last few years who wanted to let enlisted men grow their own vegetables; "a senior specialist" took him aside to explain that "the locations he wanted to cultivate were burial sites that had been used by the D-2 [Guatemala's intelligence agency] during the mid-eighties." But according to the DIA report, the D-2 "was able to remove the majority of the evidence showing that the prisoners had been tortured and killed," including prisoners "that were still alive but needed to disappear." "D-2 personnel would drive bound prisoners and bodies out to the waiting aircraft and load them aboard. The pilots were instructed to fly 30 minutes off the coast of Guatemala and then push the prisoners and bodies out of the aircraft." [CounterPunch 7/1/96] Ironically, the release of the Guatemala documents "has been used as a wedge" to delay the release of documents to other countries, according to Susan Peacock of the DC-based National Security Archives (NSA). Honduran human rights national commissioner Leo Valladares visited Washington in June in an effort to obtain the release of documents relating to charges against nine Honduran army officers--allegedly trained by the CIA--for human rights abuses in the 1980s. Peacock says Valladares was told that there is little money for Freedom of Information Act requests and that "Guatemala is the priority." Haiti is also being put off in its request for the return of 150,000 pages of documents US soldiers seized from offices of the Haitian military and rightwing groups in October 1994. [Inter Press Service 7/18/96] Meanwhile, CIA inspector general Frederick Hitz is preparing a report on allegations that the CIA was involved in arms shipments to the Nicaraguan contras from an isolated airstrip in Mena, Arkansas, during the 1980s, and that the pilots brought back large shipments of cocaine. The probe will also encompass possible contacts between the agency and Arkansas officials; President Clinton was governor of Arkansas during part of the time [see Update #130]. [Washington Post 8/7/96] Central Intelligence Director John Deutch, a former Defense Department official who now heads the CIA and other intelligence agencies, is reportedly planning to leave his job by the end of the year. "He has never been comfortable with the CIA culture," one of his friends explained. [WP 8/15/96] *3. GUATEMALAN PARAMILITARY PATROLS OFFICIALLY DEMOBILIZED Some 700 members of the paramilitary Civil Defense Patrols (PACs) officially disbanded in Colotenango, Huehuetenango province, on Aug. 9. Only 200 of the local PAC members actually attended the ceremony, where they turned over the 58 Mauser rifles the army had given them 14 years ago. According to army spokesman Col. Edgar Palacios Estrada, PACs in Solola province and in Playa Grande, Quiche province also disarmed the same week. Palacios said that 2,400 PAC units--with a total of 202,702 patrollers-- remain mobilized in seven provinces. Speaking at the Colotenango event, Marta Altoguirre of the Presidential Human Rights Commission (COPREDEH) criticized the PACs, saying, "Some exceeded their powers, abusing their weapons, harming others for the sole offense of not participating in their activities or way of thinking." Altoguirre recalled that in August 1993, Colotenango PAC members had fired on a peaceful demonstration against the PACs, killing one protester and injuring two others [see Updates #186, 190]. Amilcar Mendez, legislator for the New Guatemala Democratic Front (FDNG) and leader of the Runujel Junam Council of Ethnic Communities (CERJ), warns that the PAC demobilization ceremonies are a "political show" to cover up for the PACs' revival as "Solidarity Committees for Peace." Mendez says these army- sponsored "solidarity committees," which already exist in several highland communities in Quiche province, are simply reformed PACs, designed to maintain army control in rural areas. CERJ has for years called for an end to the PACs. Meanwhile, the Refugee Permanent Commissions (CCPP) expressed concern on Aug. 9 over what they call the massive and unusual mobilization of soldiers in areas of returned refugee settlements near the communities of San Juan Ixcan and San Antonio Tzeja in Quiche province. The CCPP pointed out that any army incursion near returned refugee communities violates an accord signed on Oct. 8 of last year between the government and the CCPP. FDNG legislator Nineth Montenegro also expressed concern on Aug. 7 about the deployment of army troops in Escuintla, Santa Rosa, Chimaltenango and Quiche provinces. Army spokesperson Palacios said the presence of the army in certain areas is due to the PAC demobilization and should not be seen as offensive maneuvers. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #32, 8/15/96] *4. LYNCHINGS ON THE RISE IN GUATEMALA On Aug. 10, some 500 Guatemalans stormed the police station in Joyabaj, Quiche province, ransacked the station and seized three men from a neighboring community who were being held there for their alleged participation in a recent murder. After beating the three men to death at a local basketball court, the crowd set their bodies on fire. Relatives deny charges that the three lynched men were hired killers; they claim the three had gone to Joyabaj to buy cattle and had acted in self-defense during a brawl. They also say the money the three men were carrying to buy the cattle is missing, along with their pickup truck and a savings passbook. The families accuse the police of doing nothing to protect the suspects, and are calling for the arrest of all those involved. According to statistics from the Mutual Support Group of Relatives of the Detained-Disappeared (GAM), 31 lynchings occurred between April and June of this year. According to Daniel Pascual, leader of the Campesino Unity Committee (CUC), "the lynchings occur because of the authorities' negligence in delivering justice in our country," though he added that the lynchings "won't do anything to solve" the problem of citizen insecurity. Miguel Hernandez, leader of the Association of University Students (AEU), said that the lynchings could be interpreted as an action of self-defense by grassroots sectors against criminals, and commented that violence seems to be becoming institutionalized in Guatemala. Government spokesperson Ricardo de la Torre said the government considers public captures of criminals to be a positive thing, while National Police chief Angel Conte remarked that the lynchings have become "an everyday occurrence." [Cerigua newsfeed 7/29/96] Some Guatemalan human rights advocates have suggested that the lynchings may be being instigated, perhaps by former members of the police or military [see Update #332]. In other news, US ambassador Donald J. Planty was sworn in on July 18 and arrived in Guatemala on Aug. 9 to take over from outgoing ambassador Marilyn McAfee. Planty is a Fulbright scholar from Lowville, New York, who has been in diplomatic service since 1970, having served as US ambassador to Panama, Chile, Mexico, Spain and the Vatican. [Cerigua Weekly Briefs #32, 8/15/96] The Guatemalan government awarded departing ambassador McAfee the Order of the Quetzal for her service. [Center for International Policy (CIP) Central America Update 7/15-30/96 from ACAN-EFE] *5. MEXICO'S NEW REBEL ARMY CONTINUES ATTACKS In the afternoon of Aug. 10 unknown assailants attacked two Mexican Army vehicles 5 km north of Zumpango del Rio, near Chilpancingo, the state capital of the southwestern state of Guerrero, where the rebel Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR) made its first appearance on June 28. The authorities reported that two soldiers were wounded. [La Jornada 8/11/96] But national television cited unofficial reports that eight soldiers were killed. [John Ross, Mexico Barbaro #28, 8/15/96] On Aug. 14 the Mexican National Defense Secretariat (SEDENA) dismissed a claim by the EPR that it had killed a total of 13 soldiers and six police agents in various attacks since June; the military acknowledges that one soldier was killed in a sniper attack on Aug. 7 [see Update #341]. Shortly after the SEDENA announcement on Aug. 14, Governance Secretary Emilio Chuayffet Chemos told reporters: "A detailed investigation we have carried out...has allowed us to learn who is behind this famous EPR, who is doing it and what their motives are." He blamed "two or three...known organizations, with violent strategies...whose names at this time, for reasons of political discretion...I have the right to keep to myself." Chuayffet called the EPR "a conjunction of political forces," not an army. [Reuter 8/14/96] But the Mexico City-based daily La Jornada reports that a confidential Governance Secretariat document takes the EPR very seriously. The documents indicates that the group has "branches in urban areas" and that its command center may be in Puebla state, southeast of Mexico City, not in Guerrero, where most of its operations have taken place. A military source told the paper that the Army can't "go halfway" with the EPR and has no choice but to "really screw" it. [LJ 8/14/96, electronic edition] In an interview with Proceso, Mexico's main leftist weekly, EPR "Commander Jose Arturo" explained that the group had financed its arms purchases by such means as "bank expropriations and the kidnapping of big businesspeople," suggesting that the EPR was behind some of the many recent kidnappings of wealthy Mexicans. Jose Arturo also emphasized the EPR's seriousness about armed struggle. He expressed respect for the poetic style of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), a rebel group based in the southern state of Chiapas, but added, parodying the military writer Clausewitz, that "poetry can't be the continuation of politics by other means." But like the EZLN, the EPR says it supports all forms of struggle, including electoral campaigns. Jose Arturo spoke respectfully about the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and even about its 1994 presidential candidate, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, who in June angrily suggested that the group was a government provocation. "He seems to us to be a person who is sincere and committed to pushing toward democratic change," the rebel said. [Proceso 8/11/96] *6. MEXICO'S OTHER ARMIES: MEDIA AND HUMAN RIGHTS PROBLEMS On July 28 La Jornada carried a letter from a number of foreign correspondents who "protest[ed] strongly" the decision by the organizers of the EZLN's July 27-Aug. 3 "Intercontinental Meeting for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism" to exclude Bertrand de la Grange, the correspondent of the French daily Le Monde. [LJ 7/28/96] The EZLN has a history of excluding some media from its events. The strongly pro-government Televisa TV network is always barred, and at times the EZLN has also refused to certify Bruno Lopez of the US-based Univision TV network, which is affiliated with Televisa. Ruben Gonzalez Luengas of the other US Spanish- language TV network, Telemundo, was excluded earlier this year. Foreign correspondents say that these exclusions violate the EZLN's expressed concern for democratic freedoms and hurt the rebels' relations with the media. Although de la Grange has been dismissive of the EZLN, other Le Monde writers have been very sympathetic to the rebels. [Proceso 8/11/96] Mexicans may wonder about the competence of the official army, which now faces two rebel armies. A group of 36 soldiers from the 18th Cavalry Regiment, based in Nogales, Sonora, got lost on July 29 while engaged in survival training in the harsh Laguna Salada desert, near Mexicali in the northwestern state of Baja California Norte. The military failed to respond to radio calls for help; fourteen soldiers, mostly recruits between 18 and 21 years old, had died from heat and dehydration when an Army rescue mission finally found the group. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/2/96 from Notimex; Diario Las Americas 8/2/96 from AFP, 8/6/96 from AFP] A letter to the editor of La Jornada expressed concern about such things happening at a time of increasing militarization around the country, and asked whether there was a human rights ombudsman for the soldiers, who themselves are often accused of human rights violations. [LJ 8/11/96] *7. MEXICO NEWS: FORD CUAUTITLAN, HEALTH WORKERS, MAJOR LEAGUE Baseball The leadership of the pro-government Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM) easily defeated a rank-and-file effort to regain control of the local union at a Ford plant in Cuautitlan, an industrial suburb in Mexico State near Mexico City, in Aug. 13 elections. The struggle between the CTM leadership and the Ford Democratic Workers Movement began when the rank-and-file group won union elections in 1989; one worker was killed by CTM goons in 1990 [see Updates #241, 250]. This time the CTM simply excluded the rank-and-file group from the ballot, and barred election observers who had come from US and Canadian unions. [Mexican Labor News and Analysis, vol. 1, #15, 8/16/96]... In February many Mexico City health workers from Local 12 of the Sole Union of Federal District Government Workers (SUTGDF) began protesting the lack of adequate health care equipment in the city's public hospitals and clinics. In July the protesters ran a rank-and-file slate in union elections which they say were rigged. The protesters then tried to seize the union hall, and nurse Martha Perez Martinez started a new form of protest: she punctured her arm with a needle and bled on Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo. She has now been joined by other health workers in regular symbolic bloodlettings, supported by independent unions, the center-left PRD and even the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN). [MLNA 8/16/96]... US major league baseball teams played an official game in Mexico for the first time ever on Aug. 16 in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. In what New York Mets manager Dallas Green called the worst game he had even seen, the San Diego Padres beat the Mets 15-10; Mexican-born Padres pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, however, only allowed one run before he left to a standing ovation in the sixth inning. [New York Times 8/17/96] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reportedly consulted with Mets players about security in Mexico, advising them not to wear jewelry or walk the streets alone. [ED-LP 8/14/96] Correction: In Update #341, item #7 reported that Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) was losing as much as $2.5 million as a result of the July 26 explosion at its Cactus processing plant; it should have read: "as much as $2.5 million a day." *8. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTEST DRAWS THOUSANDS IN CHILE Between 10,000 and 15,000 people attended a rally on Aug. 14 to demand that Chilean government authorities adopt measures to improve air quality in the smog-ridden capital city, Santiago. The rally, organized by the "Citizens' Front for Clean Air in Santiago" under the slogan "Clean Air Now!" was held at a park in front of the Fine Arts Museum in the city center. The crowd was primarily young, and the rally featured live music by such well- known folk groups as Inti-Illimani, Illapu and Sol y Lluvia. The event was attended by a number of legislators, ranging from Communist Party general secretary Gladys Marin to deputies of the rightwing National Renovation party. [CHIP News 8/15/96; Diario Las Americas 8/16/96 from EFE] *9. CHILE: PRISON FIRE KILLS TWO INMATES At least two prisoners died and six were injured in an uprising at the Coronel prison in Chile on Aug. 8, according to National Prison Director Claudio Martinez. Speaking on Aug. 9 before traveling to Coronel, 550 km south of Santiago, to investigate the situation, Martinez said the uprising could be a case of "suicidal conduct" by some of the inmates in the youth section of the prison. He related the incident to similar situations that occurred the same week in two other prisons in southern Chile. Police sources said that the Coronel disturbance occurred when some inmates in the youth section set mattresses on fire in their cells, while leaders of the riot blocked access to the prison. Members of the militarized prison guard reportedly had to use axes to rescue young inmates from the fire. [ED-LP 8/10/96 from Notimex] On Aug. 12, Tomas Hirsch of the leftist Humanist Alliance Party charged that paramedics at a Santiago prison had used the same syringes to draw blood from 22 HIV-positive prisoners and 15 who were not infected. [New York Times 8/13/96 from Reuter] *10. PERUVIAN MILITARY "INFILTRATED" BY DRUG TRAFFICKERS Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori announced on July 28 that as of Aug. 1, the Air Force and Navy would no longer be responsible for international commercial transport activities, and military ships and aircraft will not be used for these activities. The measure was necessary, explained Fujimori, to prevent the infiltration of drug traffickers into the armed forces. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/29/96 from Notimex; New York Times 7/29/96 from Reuter] Gen. Guido Guevara, president of Peru's Supreme Council of Military Justice, announced on Aug. 5 that more than 200 Peruvian military personnel--mostly officers--are implicated in drug trafficking offenses, according to investigations carried out in the past five years. Guevara said that the military courts do not judge the crime of drug trafficking, but rather of "infractions against military duties." In May of this year, 174 kilos (384 pounds) of cocaine were found in a Peruvian Air Force plane, and in July over 100 kilos were found on two Peruvian navy ships, the Matarani and the Ilo. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/6/96 from EFE] The DC-8 Air Force plane on which the drugs were discovered in May was formerly used as Fujimori's official aircraft. Peruvian air force commander Luis Escarcena Ishikawa--one of six officers listed as presidential military aides--was scheduled to pilot the plane on May 12 to the US and Europe with equipment for repair. The cocaine was discovered when senior air force officials ordered an inspection of the plane on May 10 at an air base next to Lima's international airport after it flew in from a zone in northern Peru used for shipping drugs. Escarcena is under investigation for involvement in the trafficking scheme. [Voice of America 5/16/96; ED-LP 5/24/96 from EFE] Note: In Update #341, item #9, "PCP" was not identified: it is the Peruvian Communist Party, a Maoist guerrilla group better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path. *11. BALAGUER FINALLY LEAVES DOMINICAN PRESIDENCY On Aug. 16, Leonel Antonio Fernandez Reyna of the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) was sworn in as the 100th president of the Dominican Republic. Fernandez won the runoff presidential election on June 30, defeating Jose Francisco Pena Gomez of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) [see Update #336]. At 42, Fernandez became the country's youngest president, replacing Joaquin Balaguer, the oldest, who will turn 90 on Sept. 1. [Washington Post 8/17/96 from Reuter] Fernandez will serve a four-year term [not a two-year term as stated erroneously in Update #329]. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/17/96 from AFP] While Balaguer is officially out of power for good after serving seven presidential terms--he was not allowed to run for reelection in this year's vote--his Social Christian Reformist Party (PRSC) has signed a pact with the PRD so that the two parties can consolidate control of the legislative and judicial powers, at the expense of Fernandez' PLD. Ironically, it was an electoral pact between the PLD and the PRSC that allowed Fernandez to defeat the PRD and win the runoff election in the first place. [ED-LP 8/17/96; Diario Las Americas 8/15/96] The PLD has only one senator and 13 deputies in the National Congress, compared with 14 senators and 50 deputies for the PRSC and 15 senators and 57 deputies for the PRD. [ED-LP 8/16/96 from Notimex] In his inauguration speech, Fernandez said his priority will be a reform of the state with the purpose of battling corruption. As a first step, the new president announced the universal application of a civil service law and a salary increase for public employees. [ED-LP 8/17/96 from AFP] Fernandez announced on Aug. 13 that he will also create a new ministerial-level post to fight corruption: the "special prosecutor" will have the exclusive function of investigating government corruption cases, Fernandez said. [ED-LP 8/14/96 from AP] However, the official list of cabinet members sworn in on Aug. 16 did not include this post. Notable members of the new cabinet include Erasmo Vasquez, a leader of the Dominican Medical Association--which led doctors at public hospitals in a six-month strike recently [see Updates #301, 312, 327]--as the new health and social welfare minister, and major league baseball star Juan Marichal, formerly of the San Francisco Giants, as sports minister. [ED-LP 8/17/96 from AFP] *12. NEW PRESIDENT DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY IN ECUADOR On Aug. 13, just three days after being sworn in as Ecuador's new president for a four-year term, Abdala Bucaram declared a state of national emergency, placing the police under the authority of the armed forces in a measure designed to fight crime more effectively, with a focus on weapons control. Retired general Victor Bayas, the new national defense minister, said the measure was taken after two police officers were killed on Aug. 13; he denied that excesses would be committed under the state of emergency, and promised that all police and military actions would be within the law. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/15/96 from AFP] According to Reuter, 48 hours after the state of emergency was decreed, there was no noticeable increase of activity by security forces in the streets of Quito or Guayaquil, Ecuador's two principal cities. [Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 8/15/96 from Reuter] Bucaram also signed a decree that places the customs services under military control as of Aug. 13, in an effort to curb corruption. Only three customs departments--those in Quito, Guayaquil and Manta--are to remain open; the rest will be closed. [Diario Las Americas 8/13/96 from EFE] Bucaram's press secretary announced on Aug. 14 that the president had moved to limit the international travel of government officials at all levels, allowing only those trips which are deemed necessary and are authorized by the presidency. [ED-LP 8/15/96 from AFP] In an Aug. 9 measure coordinated between the incoming administration and the outgoing government of President Sixto Duran-Ballen, Ecuador's national currency was devaluated 8% with respect to the US dollar. [Diario Las Americas 8/13/96 from EFE] Argentine neoliberal expert Domingo Cavallo--who was forced to resign on July 26 after serving as Argentina's economy minister for five years [see Update #339]--will serve as an adviser on economic matters to Ecuador's new administration. Cavallo met with Bucaram and his economic team for three hours on Aug. 15, and said he would remain in Quito through the weekend of Aug. 18 and return whenever necessary. Cavallo indicated that it was Argentine president Carlos Saul Menem who asked him to be an adviser to Bucaram. [Diario Los Andes 8/16/96, 8/18/96, electronic version, from Reuter, New York Times] *13. NICARAGUA NEWS: ORTEGA HOUSE DEAL, CYCLIST KILLER According to Rene Espinoza, who heads the Miami office of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), FSLN presidential candidate Daniel Ortega is seeking an agreement with the former owner of his Managua home, ex-contra leader Jaime Morales Carazo. "I am convinced that an accord will be reached on that property before the October elections," said Espinoza. "Our candidate has a proposal of national unity and the resolution of the property problems is part of his platform." [El Diario-La Prensa 7/28/96 from Notimex] Magda Flores de Tobie was convicted during the week of July 29 for the deaths of four bicyclists in Nicaragua on July 19. A fierce opponent of the FSLN, Flores killed the cyclists by intentionally driving her car into a group of Sandinista supporters who were riding from Masaya to Managua for July 19 celebrations. Flores was sentenced to 30 years in prison, the maximum sentence under Nicaraguan law; her family has fired her lawyer and has hired a new one who is now appealing the court decision. [Nicaragua Network (DC) Hotline 8/5/96] *14. EX-ARMY CHIEF FREED IN PARAGUAY Paraguayan former army chief Lino Oviedo was granted conditional freedom on Aug. 7 after an appeals court ruled there was insufficient evidence of his alleged involvement in a coup attempt in April [see Updates #326, 333, 336]. Oviedo had been held in a military prison since his arrest on June 14, while a crowd of his supporters remained camped out in front of the Congress building demanding his release. Oviedo's freedom came just four days before the ruling National Republican Assocation (ANR)--better known as the Colorado Party--was to hold an internal vote to select candidates for the Nov. 18 municipal elections. Oviedo leads a faction of the party called the National Union of Ethical Colorados (UNACE), and he insists that he will be Paraguay's next president after the 1998 general elections. Oviedo's lawyers say that the remaining charge against him--contempt for refusing to obey a presidential order--carries only a fine and not a prison sentence, so it will not affect Oviedo's presidential chances. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/11/96 from AP; Diario Los Andes 8/12/96 from EFE; Latin America Data Base Notisur 8/9/96 from Deutsche Press Agentur, Notimex, Inter Press Service, AFP, Reuter, EFE] *15. IN OTHER NEWS... The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has overturned a ruling by an administrative judge of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and has confirmed the "indefinite" suspension of Cuban-American Jose Basulto's pilot license. Basulto, a leader of the rightwing Miami-based organization Brothers to the Rescue, is accused of having intentionally violated Cuban airspace on several occasions [see Update #340]. His license was revoked by the FAA on May 16, but Basulto appealed the decision, and on July 5 FAA judge William A. Pope II reduced the suspension to an additional 30 days, on top of a previous 120-day suspension. Basulto says he will appeal the NTSB's new ruling, which again makes the revocation permanent. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/10/96 from EFE; Diario Las Americas 8/9/96]... Police used tear gas to quell a protest by hundreds of workers at Costa Rica's main port in the Caribbean coast city of Limon on Aug. 15 and 16. Nearly 160 workers were affected by asphyxiation from the tear gas, and about 50 were arrested. The protesters who clashed with police are part of a movement called "Limon in Struggle." The port, which handles 85% of Costa Rica's imports and exports, could be completely shut down as of Aug. 19, as thousands of port workers step up their struggle for demands for improved labor and socio-economic conditions. According to news director Edwin Zamora of the local station Radio Casino, "a tense calm [reigns] during the day, but at night the violence explodes." Zamora said that finance vice-minister Marvin Taylor, the government official responsible for negotiating with unions, was expected to arrive in Limon on Aug. 16. [ED-LP 8/17/96 from Notimex]... More than a thousand teachers from state schools in Bolivia marched through the streets of La Paz during the week of Aug. 12 to protest education "reforms" and a new pension system. The protesters burned some of the new school textbooks published by the government, saying that their content is offensive. [DLA 8/16/96 from AFP]... Official sources in Tegucigalpa announced on Aug. 13 that the Honduran judicial police will ask US authorities to cooperate in the investigation of a printing company in Miami where thousands of falsified Honduran passports were produced. Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) assistant chief Saul Bueso did not name the printing company, but told the local press that between 5,000 and 10,000 passports may have been falsified there; the passports were later sold to Chinese nationals seeking to emigrate to the US. The scandal broke with the arrest of a US diplomat and the Honduran consul in Hong Kong in mid-July [see Update #338]. [DLA 8/15/96 from EFE]... On Aug. 2 a federal judge in Virginia dismissed illegal gun possession charges against former Haitian official Patrick Elie, who claims he has been framed because of his efforts to expose a rightwing plot against President Rene Preval and former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide [see Update #331]. Elie still faces charges of impersonating a diplomat; the trial has been postponed from Aug. 7 to Aug. 23. [Haiti Progres (NY) 8/14-20/96] Correction: Update #338 reported that parties in the Sao Paulo Forum "now get about 30% of the vote in the hemisphere." In fact, the parties say they get 30% of the vote in Latin America. 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