WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #343, AUGUST 25, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Uruguay: High School Students Protest Education "Reform" 2. CIA's Contras Turned US Inner Cities on to Crack 3. More Violence in Colombia Coca Protests 4. US Ambassador Kept Quiet on Colombian Coup Plot 5. Peru: Fujimori Seeks Third Term, Aide Fingered in Drug Deals 6. Argentina: Shootout at Union Meeting Over Strike Plans 7. Mexican Justice: Cops Fired, Colosio Investigator Shot... 8. Mexican Economic Growth: Maquiladoras and Emigres 9. Armed Men Attack Haitian Police Headquarters 10. Nicaragua: Faceless Judges & Other News... 11. Costa Rican Port City Prepares Strike ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A one-year subscription (52 issues) is $25. 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URUGUAY: HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS PROTEST EDUCATION "REFORM" High school students in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, have been holding demonstrations and occupying school buildings since Aug. 14 to protest an "education reform" program established by the government. The government moved on Aug. 20 to cancel classes in Montevideo's primary and secondary public schools after the unions representing teachers and other school staff announced a 24-hour strike for that day to support the student mobilization. The protests also gained some support in public schools outside the capital area, and in universities and private schools. One 14-year old student, Marina Alves, was run over by a car and killed on Aug. 17 while participating with other student protesters in a street blockade charging tolls to drivers in Montevideo. As Alves was buried on Aug. 20, health workers and taxi drivers held commemorative strikes of six hours and three hours respectively. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/21/96 from AP; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 8/21/96 from EFE] The occupation of Montevideo schools began on Aug. 14 after a demonstration commemorating the death 28 years ago of a Communist student killed in clashes with the police. The president of the Central Directive Council (CODICEN), the governmental agency in charge of the country's primary and secondary schools, said the conflict "is eminently political," and that it is linked to the plans for a demonstration on Aug. 24 to commemorate the day two years ago when a protester was killed during clashes with police over the extradition to Spain of three Basque nationals linked to the Basque separatist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) [see Update #239]. [ED-LP 8/21/96 from AP] The students' principal demands are the immediate suspension of what they call an "authoritarian education reform that answers to a minority of the privileged population and to the international lending institutions"; the establishment of educational policies that treat teachers and students with dignity; participation in decision-making through student assemblies; and the rejection of CODICEN's offer of "informative talks" to explain the education reform. On Aug. 23, students held a spirited protest march to the legislature building. Chanting "My shoes are worn out from so much walking, I want a fair budget to be able to study," the students--many with colorfully painted faces--stopped by the University of the Republic to the cheers and applause of university students. Filling up nearly five avenue blocks, the students continued on their march and finally surrounded the legislature building. Heavy security prevented them from entering the building, which was nearly empty at the time. Communist Party senator Marina Arismendi, president of the Senate's Commission on Education and Culture, came out and asked the students to present their list of demands to be read later. The students refused, saying: "We don't want this to have political overtones, this is not the moment to introduce solutions. Right now we are in a mobilization and that's it." Throughout the march, one student pushed a wheelbarrow carrying a box painted to represent "Education Reform: BID For Export" ["For Export" was written in English; BID is the Spanish acronym for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), an international financial institution]. After Arismendi was brushed off, the "education reform" box was burned symbolically in front of the legislature. Then the students read their demands and announced an assembly for the next day, Aug. 24. In an open letter to parents on the third day of a strike in support of the student demands, the Association of Secondary School Teachers (ADES) rejected the education reform "because it was planned and designed by international credit institutions" like the IDB and the World Bank and "because it proposes as its objective a model of a student and person who is non-critical and who passively adapts to a supposed labor market which does not yet exist in this society," among other reasons. Teaching students meeting in an assembly also unanimously voted to oppose the education reform, pointing out the contradictions in a system that is supposed to improve the quality of education while it establishes "a model class size of 40 students; the closing of adult and rural schools; a drop in the level of teacher training; and low salaries." The teaching students joined the call for a national debate on the education reform and declared themselves in a state of "active strike" and "permanent assembly" in support of the high school mobilizations. On the night of Aug. 22, CODICEN announced that schools would reopen the following Monday, Aug. 26. The ruling Colorado Party has warned it could start evicting the students from the occupied schools on Aug. 26 if a solution has not been reached. The PIT- CNT, Uruguay's labor federation, resolved to strike if students are evicted. [El Pais (Montevideo) 8/23/96, 8/24/96] On Aug. 20 the leftist Frente Amplio coalition expressed its solidarity with the student occupations. [ED-LP 8/21/96 from AP] *2. CIA'S CONTRAS TURNED US INNER CITIES ON TO CRACK On Aug. 23 the Los Angeles City Council voted 11-0 to ask US attorney general Janet Reno for an investigation into charges that US-backed Nicaraguan contra rebels supplied tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs in the 1980s and that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was aware of the operation. A CIA spokesperson called the story "ridiculous," but Geraldine Washington, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said it was high time "the government and the CIA took responsibility for the destruction of human lives." [El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia) 8/24/96 from AFP, quotations retranslated from Spanish] >From Aug. 18 to Aug. 20 the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose, California ran a three-part series documenting contra sales of "tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods street gangs of Los Angeles." The articles charge that a contra "drug network opened the first pipeline between Colombia's cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the 'crack' capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America." Although contra links to the cocaine trade were revealed in the 1980s, the Mercury News series--written by staff reporter Gary Webb and based on a year- long investigation including official documents, court testimony and hundreds of hours of interviews--is the first revelation of the operation's full scope. The CIA-created Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN) set up its Los Angeles drug network in 1981, when crack, a potent, relatively inexpensive form of cocaine, was uncommon in US inner cities. The Los Angeles operation was entrusted to Danilo Blandon Reyes, a wealthy Nicaraguan with a masters degree in marketing who had run a $27 million US-financed agricultural program for the government of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Garcia. Blandon enlisted the services of ghetto youth Ricky Donnell Ross ("Freeway Rick") and Nicaraguan drug dealer Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, who allegedly had run a stolen car ring for Somoza's military. Ross provided access to black Los Angeles neighborhoods, while Meneses had the links to Colombian drug cartels. In 1981 alone, its first year, the contra drug network sold almost one ton of cocaine in the US, worth $54 million. Some of the cocaine was shipped in through a US Air Force base in Texas. The contras also sold assault weapons to Los Angeles street gangs and even tried to interest them in grenade launchers. The CIA apparently lost interest in contra drug sales after Congress started funding the rebels openly in 1985, although as of this year the agency is still using "national security" concerns to suppress public testimony on the cocaine operation. Blandon, Meneses and Ross went into business on their own after 1985, and all three were eventually arrested. Meneses is now in jail in Nicaragua; Ross faces a possible life sentence in California. But the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) told US courts that Blandon was "extraordinarily valuable." He was released in the early 1990s after just 28 months in custody, and the DEA paid him $166,000 for his services. Blandon now lives in Managua and is trying to regain family property nationalized by the leftist Sandinista government after the 1979 revolution. [San Diego Mercury News 8/18/96 (print edition), 8/19/96, 8/20/96 (electronic editions)] [The articles and supporting documentation are posted on a Web site, http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/] In his syndicated column "Media Beat," Norman Solomon notes that the Mercury News series "goes against the established media grain" by "implicat[ing] a US intelligence agency run by affluent whites" in the crack epidemic, rather than "castigat[ing] poor blacks." Despite some 1985-87 mainstream media coverage of contra drug links, the story has generally been "buried alive," Solomon writes. The new information may have "a sizzle that could prove explosive." [Media Beat, undated, from Free Speech TV Web site] *3. MORE VIOLENCE IN COLOMBIA COCA PROTESTS Campesinos in the southern Colombian department of Caqueta who make their living growing coca leaf and opium poppies for cocaine and heroin production continued their protests during the week of Aug. 19 against the Colombian government's policy of aerial spraying to eradicate their crops. In the town of Belen de los Andaquies, where thousands of campesinos from the surrounding areas had gathered, the protests turned violent on Aug. 23 when army troops shot at the crowds; four people were killed and some 30 others wounded. Belen mayor William Sanchez confirmed that the army had fired pistols and automatic rifles, and he described the situation as "extremely serious." In the nearby departmental capital Florencia, what was supposed to be a peaceful day of solidarity with the campesinos--many homes posted Colombian flags in a show of support--turned violent when police agents used tear gas and bullets against hundreds of protesters who were seeking to take over the town's central park. Protesters and police agents threw rocks at each other while some protesters attacked banks, public and private buildings and vehicles with rocks and incendiary bombs, and others took part in the looting of some 200 local businesses. With help from army troops and tanks, police finally regained control of the town. At least five people were treated for injuries in the local hospital, and 60 people were arrested for looting. The police force reported that 30 of its agents were hurt by rocks. Florencia mayor Hector Orozco, whose home was burned during the rioting, threatened to expose those who had promoted Aug. 23 as a day of solidarity with the campesinos; he says the promoters include several well-known local political leaders. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/24/96 from AP; El Tiempo (Bogota) 8/24/96] On Aug. 22 in the nearby town of Santuario, campesinos clashed with the army for the second time in a week, leaving one dead and 10 injured. The injured included several soldiers who were attacked with knives. [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AP] In the middle of the Aug. 23 disturbances, the departmental government of Caqueta adopted emergency measures including a ban on liquor sales and on motorcycle transport. A curfew was imposed in Florencia starting at 7 pm on Aug. 23. [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AP; El Tiempo 8/24/96] "The situation is out of the control of the local authorities and the presence of top government officials is needed to seek a negotiated solution with the campesinos," said Florencia bishop Fabian Marulanda in an interview with the RCN radio network. Caqueta governor Jose Arbey Vanegas Pena suggested that the "immediate and personal intervention" of Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano was needed "to find a quick and peaceful solution." [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AP] According to the Caqueta Association of Public Defenders, the army has refused to obey a legal ruling ordering it to remove its roadblocks from bridges in the area so that the campesinos can pass. In a communique, the Association said the violent incidents have been provoked by the army's refusal to let the campesinos pass. In the central department of Meta, just north of Caqueta and Guaviare, hundreds of campesinos were continuing to arrive as of Aug. 24 in the municipality of Mapiripan to protest the eradication of their crops. Mapiripan mayor Jaime Calderon said there had been no clashes so far between the campesinos and the 500 army troops stationed in the town. [El Tiempo 8/24/96] Samper said on Aug. 24 that lurking behind the campesino protests are "hidden interests" seeking to destabilize his government. [ED-LP 8/25/96 from AP-AFP] According to Gen. Nestor Ramirez, commander of the 21st Army Brigade, guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have infiltrated the campesinos and are forcing them "at knifepoint" to participate in the protests. Ramirez said the Aug. 23 protests in Caqueta were led by FARC combatants. [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AP] Meanwhile, Caqueta remained virtually incommunicado throughout Aug. 23, with air and land transport almost completely cut off; no delivery of mail, newspapers or food; and telephone service not functioning. The National Television Commission (CNTV) ordered the country's television stations to refrain from broadcasting unofficial news from the regions in conflict or images of the protests that might reflect "situations of human affliction." A CNTV member said the decision was made after an Aug. 19 broadcast by Noticiero AMPM showed a campesino dying, and because of the way in which the demonstrators forced journalists to film the scene. [El Tiempo 8/24/96] The president of the Colombian Farmers Society (SAC), Juan Manuel Ospina, said that the southern departments are "a keg of dynamite about to explode"; he proposed obtaining international aid to move 100,000 campesinos who live from illegal crops to other more fertile regions. In eight weeks of protests in the departments of Guaviare, Putumayo and Caqueta, a total of 11 people have died and more than 140 have been injured [see Updates #338-342]. [ED- LP 8/24/96 from AP] Negotiations to end the protests were set to begin on Aug. 24 in San Jose del Guaviare with the participation of Hector Moreno, director of "Plante", the government's "Illicit Crops Eradication Plan"; and of delegates of the Interior Ministry and the Social Solidarity Network. [El Tiempo 8/24/96] The government has already reached an accord with campesinos in Putumayo to carry out a program that allows them to maintain income similar to what they now receive from coca cultivation. The program includes an economic and social development program; advance credits and sustenance prices for traditional crops; and salaries for the voluntary destruction of coca crops, equal to that paid for the coca by traffickers. [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AP] *4. US AMBASSADOR KEPT QUIET ON COLOMBIAN COUP PLOT On Aug. 13, US ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette revealed that a year earlier "a group of civilians, speaking on behalf of military officers, requested support for a little coup against [Colombian president Ernesto] Samper." Frechette emphatically refused to reveal the names of those who visited him in August 1995 with the coup proposal. Hours after the revelation, Samper insisted that Frechette never mentioned anything to him at the time; Samper said he was "surprised because the ambassador did not inform Colombian authorities about a matter so serious." Presidential spokesperson Carlos Castillo said that Defense Minister Juan Carlos Esguerra will demand that Frechette reveal the names of the coup plotters. The Colombian government, the military, the ruling Liberal Party and various other political sectors are all calling for an investigation into the alleged coup plot. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/18/96 from Notimex] Meanwhile, the head of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Bogota is under investigation for having allowed a Colombian police officer access to the computers of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) nine months ago, according to a report from the rightwing tabloid New York Post. An FBI spokesperson contacted in Washington declined to comment on the Post report, except to say that the agent's name was Dwight Dennett, not Dwight Denny as printed in the Post. According to the Post, Dennett allowed a Colombian police agent to access the DEA's "Naddis" system, located in the US embassy in Bogota, where the FBI and the DEA have their offices. The FBI spokesperson in Washington would not say whether Dennett was still in Bogota or if he had been recalled to Washington. The Post said that it was not known what information was filtered to the Cali cartel or whether the DEA's ongoing investigations were compromised. The Naddis system contains secret information on hundreds of drug trafficking suspects and operations in progress. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/23/96 from EFE] *5. PERU: FUJIMORI SEEKS THIRD TERM, AIDE FINGERED IN DRUG DEALS On Aug. 16 convicted Peruvian drug dealer Demetrio Chavez Penaherrera ("Vaticano") told an anti-drug tribunal that during 1991 and 1992 he paid a total of nearly $600,000 in monthly payments of $50,000 to Vladimiro Montesinos Torres, an adviser to Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori. Chavez said that he had paid off Montesinos--an attorney and former army captain who is generally considered the number two power in the government--to get the protection of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) for his cocaine shipping operations to Colombia from the Alto Huallaga region, in the Amazon Basin. Opposition legislators immediately called for an investigation of Montesinos, as has been done in the cases of other people Chavez has fingered. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/18/96 from DPA, EFE, AP, AFP; El Diario-La Prensa 8/19/96 from AP] But on Aug. 22 legislators from the ruling New Majority Movement Change-90 beat back the proposal 71-39. The opposition had also asked for investigations of several ranking Armed Forces officers, and a probe into charges that Montesinos works for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). [ED-LP 8/23/96 from Notimex] On the same day, Sen. Maximo San Roman Caceres produced photocopies of documents he said intelligence agents gave him four years ago, when he was vice president, implicating National Police head Antonio Ketin Vidal in a drug trafficking ring allegedly headed by Montesinos. Vidal Herrera denied the charges. [Diario La Republica (Lima), 8/24/96, electronic edition] On Aug. 23 President Fujimori officially promulgated Law 26657, which interprets the Constitution in such a way that he can run for a third term in 2000. Fujimori began his first term in 1990, but with the military's support he dissolved the legislature and the courts in a 1992 "self-coup." A constituent assembly dominated by his supporters then produced a 1993 Constitution that allows a two successive presidential terms; Fujimori was reelected in 1995. Law 26657, passed Aug. 23 after a heated debate in Congress, specifies that the reelection provision does not count terms which began before the new Constitution was in force; Fujimori's current term becomes his first, and he will be able to run again in 2000. [Diario La Republica 8/24/96; New York Times 8/24/96 from Reuter] *6. ARGENTINA: SHOOTOUT AT UNION MEETING OVER STRIKE PLANS An Aug. 21 meeting of Argentina's General Labor Confederation (CGT) was called off abruptly when a shootout broke out at the meeting space as delegates were arriving. At least five people were injured. The CGT, allied with the ruling Justicialista (Peronist) Party, had called the meeting to set a 36-hour strike against the government's policies of structural adjustment. The victims were members of the truck drivers union, who were posted at the door awaiting a decision on the measure of force to be adopted by the union federation. "There was no incident; we were arriving and they chased us out with bullets," said truck driver Hugo Pistone, who accused the construction union of having planned the attack. CGT secretary general Gerardo Martinez, who also heads the construction union, said: "We reject any type of violence; they want to make the CGT look like a gang of fools." The truck drivers are part of the Movement of Argentine Workers (MTA), which joined with the CGT and the opposition Congress of Argentine Workers (CTA) to carry out a successful 24-hour general strike on Aug. 8 against the government's economic policies [see Update #341]. After economy minister Roque Fernandez revealed the government's new structural adjustment plan to reduce the fiscal deficit on Aug. 12, the CGT announced it would carry out a new general strike, this time for 36 hours and accompanied by demonstrations. The MTA wants the strike to be for 48 hours; to be held in August, not September; and to feature not only street mobilizations but also community soup kitchens. During the Aug. 8 strike, police agents attacked MTA members and prevented soup kitchens from being set up in the public plazas; the police have warned they will again take action to block the soup kitchens in a future strike. Before the meeting, CGT leader Martinez had predicted that the CGT plenary would approve a 36-hour strike in September but that it would not fix a date; the more radical union sectors interpreted this as a sign the CGT would continue negotiating with the government to avert the strike. [Inter Press Service 8/21/96] On Aug. 23, the CGT's Central Committee ratified the call for a 36-hour strike, the date of which is to be decided at an extraordinary "unity" congress on Sept. 5 where the federation's new leadership will also be elected. The MTA will also participate in the Sept. 5 congress, after having reached a truce with the CGT on Aug. 22 in which the MTA agreed to the 36- hour strike and the CGT agreed not to negotiate with the government. [Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 8/24/96] On Aug. 23 a low-power incendiary bomb exploded at the door of the CGT's offices in the city of Mar del Plata. No one was hurt and the damage was minor. [ED-LP 8/24/96 from AFP] Correction: Update #341 contained an error in its descriptions of the Argentine union federations: it is the CTA, not the MTA, which seeks to represent unemployed workers and others marginalized from the traditional union system. *7. MEXICAN JUSTICE: COPS FIRED, COLOSIO INVESTIGATOR SHOT, "REBELS" JAILED On the evening of Aug. 15, the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) told the 4,200 agents of the Federal Judicial Police to report to work at 7 am the next morning to receive new identification cards. But the next day 737 agents and sub- delegates (commanders) were skipped over when the cards were issued, and were then ordered to turn in their guns. In this way the PGR fired one-sixth of its main police force for reasons ranging from corruption to lack of professionalism. Within a day, PGR raids on the fired agents' home had netted $20,000 in cash, 10 stolen cars and quantities of drugs and illegal arms. Attorney General Antonio Lozano Gracia and his party, the conservative opposition National Action Party (PAN), presented the action as a "brave" step against corruption, while the left opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) dismissed it as a ploy to distract attention from Lozano's failures in the case of Luis Donaldo Colosio Murrieta, the presidential candidate assassinated on Mar. 23, 1994 in Tijuana, near the California border in Baja California Norte state. [La Jornada 8/18/96] On the night of Aug. 17, the day after the mass firings, former PGR investigator ("public minister") Jesus Romero Magana was gunned down with 14 bullets from a moving vehicle as he stood in the garden of his Tijuana home. On the evening of the Colosio assassination, Romero was the PGR investigator who took down the first statement by Mario Aburto Martinez, the only person convicted so far in the murder. Romero later quit the PGR; at the time of his death he was working as a coordinator for federal investigators in the Interdisciplinary Police Unit. The PGR says it is probing various connections Romero's death might have to the Colosio case, the firings of the federal judiciales or drug trafficking. Romero is the fifth PGR official or former official murdered in Baja California this year; he is the third person close to the Colosio case to die mysteriously. [LJ 8/19/96, 8/20/96, electronic editions] On Aug. 20 Judge Fernando Andres Ortiz Cruz sentenced seven alleged members of the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) to six years and nine months for possessing, making and transporting weapons and explosives. The seven were arrested on Feb. 9, 1995 in the town of Yanga in the eastern state of Veracruz. The alleged Zapatistas showed clear signs of torture the day after their arrests, and the government's own National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) recommended that the case be reopened because their initial statements were contaminated by the evidence of torture. But Judge Ortiz "apparently didn't take the CNDH recommendations into account," according to defense attorney Pilar Noriega, who said she would file an appeal. [LJ 8/21/96, electronic edition] *8. MEXICAN ECONOMIC GROWTH: MAQUILADORAS AND EMIGRES On Aug. 18 the Mexican government announced that the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had grown by 7.2% during the second quarter, in comparison with the same period in 1995. This was well above predictions of 5.8% growth by market analysts. [New York Times 8/20/96] The industrial sector grew by an impressive 11.9%. However, the period used for comparison, April through June 1995, experienced a 9.8% decline in GDP. Paradoxically, federal tax revenues fell 10% in the first six months of 1996 compared to the same period the year before. The biggest decline was in income tax, which plunged by 18.1%; value-added tax (IVA) rose by 0.6%. The government attributes the decline to the fact that income tax paid this year was based on income from last year, the worst period of the crisis. [Mexico Update #86, 8/21/96 from Reforma 8/17/96, 8/19/96] Much of the GDP growth comes from the maquiladoras (assembly plants) along the US border. From January to May this sector employed 737,386 people, a 16.3% increase over the year before. The sector's export income was $2.386 billion during that period, representing 29.6% of the country's export income. (The sector contributes little to the Mexican economy, however, since investment in the maquiladoras is dominated by US corporations, and 98% of the materials used in the plants are imported.) [Inter Press Service 8/5/96] The sector was the second main source of revenue from abroad in 1995, with $4.924 billion for the year; petroleum exports remained the largest source of export income, with $8.423 billion in sales. But the real growth sector, according to academic researcher Jorge Santibanez, is the undocumented Mexicans living in the US. He estimates that the total hard currency they sent home was more than $3.6 billion, making the emigres Mexico's third largest source of income from abroad. [Diario Las Americas 5/29/96 from AFP] *9. ARMED MEN ATTACK HAITIAN POLICE HEADQUARTERS On the night of Aug. 3-4 a group of armed men in four jeeps fired at people on Champ-de-Mars Avenue near the National Palace in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince; at least 12 people were wounded. The hijacking of a Promobank vehicle in the northern city of Cap- Haitien on Aug. 5 left three guards and one bank employee dead. One agent of the Haitian National Police (PNH) was killed and one was wounded in an Aug. 12 ambush just outside Port-au-Prince. Former members of the now disbanded Haitian Armed Forces (FAdH) are suspected in all the attacks. The violent incidents kept up the tensions that started with coup rumors and acts of apparently random violence in July [see Update #339]. On Aug. 17 the government of President Rene Preval seemed to seize the initiative when it arrested about 20 men, 16 of them former soldiers, at the headquarters of the rightist Mobilization for National Development (MDN). But the next evening in a more determined repeat of the Aug. 3-4 incident, a group of 20 assailants in olive-green uniforms attacked the police headquarters near the Champ-de-Mars, wounding two police agents and killing a youth who worked on the street shining shoes. Machine guns and mortars were directed at the Parliament building; there were shots at the National Palace, and gunfire was heard near former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's home in Tabarre, outside the capital. On Aug. 20 the US announced that 50 US Marines were about to arrive in Port-au-Prince on a routine one-week deployment. On the same day, the PNH issued warrants for MDN head Hubert de Ronceray and former dictator Gen. Prosper Avril, and two MDN leaders were gunned down in an unexplained killing. Aug. 22 brought an attack, with guns and at least one grenade, on the national television's installation. These events came as the ad hoc Lavalas coalition that forms Haiti's government seemed shakier than ever. The 11 mayors' offices in the northern central Artibonite Valley shut down Aug. 12-18 to protest the central government's failure to pay town employees and provide services. On Aug. 19 the mayors of the Southern Department announced a two-week strike. Virtually all these municipal posts were won by Lavalas last year. Meanwhile, Port-au-Prince's flamboyant mayor, the popular protest singer Emmanuel ("Manno") Charlemagne, has turned against his former allies in the Lavalas government. On Aug. 13 he told Radio Kiskeya that there were elements in Preval's entourage plotting against him. "[T]here are police agents they've paid to assassinate me... I have no allies..." On Aug. 20 he announced that he had proofs that the Aug. 18 attack on the police headquarters was "a setup, a farce to justify the arrests" of the MDN members. [Haiti Progres (NY) 8/21-27/96; Haiti Info Vol. 4, # 19, 8/24/96] *10. NICARAGUA: FACELESS JUDGES & OTHER NEWS... Sergio Ramirez, former vice president of Nicaragua and current presidential candidate for the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), has proposed an "urgent" reform to Nicaragua's penal code that would allow "judges with hidden faces" to preside over trials of accused drug traffickers "without any fear." Ramirez made the suggestion after a Bluefields jury decided on Aug. 16 to acquit six people who had been arrested in March 1994 on a boat off the Caribbean coast in a Nicaraguan police operation assisted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Ramirez said juries are "too soft on this type of crime" because "they are exposed to fear and blackmail." According to Ramirez, changes to Nicaragua's penal code "must bring a system like the one in Colombia, in which judges with hidden faces and without fear of reprisals from the traffickers" are in charge of judicial proceedings against accused drug traffickers. [Diario Las Americas 8/22/96 from EFE] Nicaraguan health workers organized in the Sandinista-affiliated Federation of Health Workers (FETSALUD) held a two day strike in public hospitals and clinics on Aug. 22 and 23. Strike leaders said the majority of the country's 20,000 health workers took part in the strike. FETSALUD secretary general Gustavo Porras reiterated that in addition to salary demands, the workers are demanding uniforms and protective equipment, as well as a Christmas bonus equivalent to $26. [DLA 8/24/96 from EFE] As part of the strike, the workers staged an occupation of the Health Ministry building. [NICNEWS La Prensa headlines 8/23/96] Nicaraguan foreign minister Ernesto Leal has announced that he will send a delegation to the southern border to investigate charges that members of Costa Rica's civil guard beat undocumented Nicaraguan immigrants as they were being deported. [DLA 8/24/96 from EFE] In related news, Costa Rican English- language weekly Tico Times has reported that "Commander Cobra"-- one of three former members of Costa Rica's Rural Guard convicted of raping and murdering indigenous people during a drug raid in the southern Talamanca mountains in 1992--was trained at the US School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. [Peace and Justice News June/July 1996 from Tico Times 5/10/96] *11. COSTA RICAN PORT CITY PREPARES STRIKE Unions and community groups in the Costa Rican port city of Limon decided on Aug. 22 to declare an open-ended strike to press for jobs and other demands. The strike was declared after leaders of the Limon in Struggle movement rejected an offer by government representatives to resolve the conflict, which stems from a dispute over the rights of loading and unloading at the Limon docks. [La Nacion 8/24/96] Despite warnings that the docks might be shut down by a strike starting Aug. 19 [see Update #342], activity in Limon was relatively normal throughout the week. The government reportedly sent a letter to Limon in Struggle setting forth a series of conditions for dialogue and indicating that it was willing to consider conceding to the protesters' main demand by withdrawing a legislative proposal that would allow private companies to hold concessions in port, airport and railroad interests. Leaders of the protest told Costa Rican daily La Nacion that they had not received the government's letter. After a four hour meeting on Aug. 23, Limon in Struggle ratified its strike decision and announced that women would hold a noisy march with pots and pans on Aug. 24. Spokesperson Daniel Murillo said that Limon in Struggle would not negotiate until the government responded to a proposal submitted by the movement on Aug. 20. In addition to addressing the question of port privatization, the movement's demands include government compliance with 78 earlier promises regarding health, education, housing, infrastructure and other social and economic issues. Vice-Minister of Finance Marvin Taylor said a government commission was working for hours on Aug. 23 to prepare a response to the movement's proposal. All was calm in Limon as of Aug. 23, but police kept guard at the docks and members of the protest committee urged residents to stock up on drinking water, food and other basic necessities in case of a strike. [La Nacion 8/24/96] END MISS our calendar of events? Check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://homebrew.geo.arizona.edu/creed.html (if you don't have web access, write to nicadlw@nyxfer.blythe.org for info). NOW AVAILABLE: 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