WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                 ISSUE #348, SEPTEMBER 29, 1996
       NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
     339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

1. Colombia "At War": Bombs Rebels, Indigenous Communities
2. Colombian Rebels Web Site Shut Down
3. Violent Eviction in Guatemala
4. General Strike Shuts Down Argentina
5. Bolivia: One Killed in Indigenous/Campesino Protest
6. US School for Scandal: Murder Manuals, Contras, Pope, Camarena
7. Nicaragua: FSLN Pushes Unity, Investors Get Cold Feet
8. El Salvador: New Telecommunications Law Passed
9. Mexico: "EPR" Arrests in Oaxaca, Guerrero Election Violence
10. Mexico: Privatization Money Disappears
11. White House and Congress Agree on Immigration Law
 
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*1. COLOMBIA "AT WAR": BOMBS REBELS, INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

Embera indigenous communities are asking for a three day truce in
combat between military troops and leftist rebels in the rural
area of Mutata, in the Colombian department of Antioquia, so that
their people can leave the war zone. The Colombian Air Force and
Army have been bombing indigenous territories there since Sept.
18 in their efforts to dislodge roadblocks set up by the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on the highway
between Uraba and Medellin. While there are no official figures
on victims of the bombings, press reports indicate that at least
20 people have been killed. The Embera made its truce request via
the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), after
charging that "the La Llorona community has been bombed, and we
don't know whether there were victims." The Embera also expressed
concern that the Amparrado-Pavvarando, Chimurro and Sever-
Taparales reservations may have been affected by the military
bombings. ONIC is demanding the immediate creation of "a
commission of the Red Cross, human rights organizations and the
Indigenous Organization of Antioquia" to provide protection
during the relocation. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 9/24/96 from
EFE]
 
On Sept. 10 some 6,000 campesinos and indigenous people of the
Paez, Yanacona, and Guambiano nations peacefully occupied
Popoyan, capital of Cauca department, to protest the recent wave
of violence in the eastern area of Cauca. The march, which began
on Sept. 9 in Piendamo, ended peacefully. The slogan of the
marchers was: "Paramilitary and guerrilla groups out of the
indigenous territories." [El Espectador (Bogota) 9/11/96,
electronic edition]
 
Colombia's rebel groups are continuing the all-out offensive
against the government they began on Aug. 30 [see Update #346].
For the first time in nearly four decades of armed conflict, a
Colombian government representative admitted publicly on Sept. 27
that "the country is at war." The statement was made by Daniel
Garcia Pena, presidential adviser for peace affairs, who said at
a forum on the peace process that he now considers it impossible
to achieve peace during the remainder of the current term of
President Ernesto Samper Pizano. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY)
9/28/96 from Notimex]
 
Antioquia government secretary Pedro Juan Moreno, citing reports
from local campesinos, announced on Sept. 22 that between 20 and
30 rebels had died in his department in clashes with the army on
Sept. 20, and that another 25 rebels had died on Sept. 19 in an
army bombardment as they blocked an important highway linking
Medellin to the Uraba banana-growing region. The rebels had kept
the highway blocked for seven days before the army retook it.
[DLA 9/24/96 & 9/25/96 from EFE] The Colombian Defense Ministry
announced that it will protect cargo trucks and buses that try to
pass through rebel roadblocks. [DLA 9/27/96 from AFP] Local
authorities in the Colombian department of Cesar admitted on
Sept. 25 that leftist guerrilla groups had managed to completely
block the department's highways and shut down all economic
activity in an "armed strike." [ED-LP 9/26/96 from Notimex] 
 
*2. COLOMBIAN REBELS WEB SITE SHUT DOWN

The Colombian Consulate in Mexico City has managed to shut down,
at least temporarily, the FARC's site on the World Wide Web. Set
up last year, the site--located at http://www.farc-ep.org--was
cut off on Sept. 23, a day after being publicized in Bogota daily
El Tiempo. The FARC continues to have access to electronic mail
through the same Internet access provider which cut off its web
access, the Mexico City-based Teesnet (or TEESA). A TEESA
spokesperson told El Tiempo that the service was cut off because
of a phone call from the Colombian Consulate. [El Tiempo 9/29/96,
electronic edition; Reuter 9/26/96]
 
"This is an attack on freedom of expression because we were not
doing anything illegal," said the FARC's Mexico City-based
international spokesperson Marco LeDon Calarca. "The FARC is used
to difficulties and this is just the latest challenge. One way or
another we will get back on to the Internet." The web site was
used to publish the FARC's political magazine Resistencia, which
is banned in Colombia, and to offer explanations about their
latest armed actions. [Reuter 9/26/96]
 
*3. VIOLENT EVICTION IN GUATEMALA

On Sept. 25, approximately 1,000 heavily armed members of the
Guatemalan National Police, Treasury Police and Immediate
Reaction Forces (FRI), along with a number of plainclothes
agents, violently attacked a group of campesinos on a parcel of
land known as La Blanca in Ocos, San Marcos department. The
campesinos had been occupying the land since Feb. 18 of this year
in an effort to build an urban compound. The violent eviction
came after a ruling by the National Institute for Agrarian
Transformation (INTA) against the campesinos. The National
Coordination of Indigenous Peoples and Campesinos (CONIC), which
was providing assistance to the campesinos during the occupation,
charges that Mario Peralta, an assistant to the Human Rights
Ombudsman, was present carrying a 9 mm handgun and supplied the
police with munitions. [National Network in Solidarity with the
People of Guatemala (NISGUA) Rapid Response Alert 9/26/96]
 
At least one campesino was killed in the attack (three were
killed according to Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre), and three
were wounded by gunfire. CONIC says the eviction was unjustified
because INTA illegally granted the La Blanca land to wealthy
landholders in 1977. The governmental Human Rights Prosecutor's
office blames CONIC, saying the organization pressured the
campesinos not to leave peacefully when the eviction order was
served. [Cerigua newsfeed 9/28/96; Prensa Libre 9/26/96,
electronic edition]
 
*4. GENERAL STRIKE SHUTS DOWN ARGENTINA

Millions of Argentine workers took part in a 36-hour general
strike called by the Argentine General Labor Confederation (CGT)
on Sept. 26 and 27 to protest the government's economic policies.
It was the second general strike in less than two months, and the
largest of five general strikes since President Carlos Saul Menem
took office in 1989. Independent news agencies DyN and NA both
reported that participation in the strike was virtually total in
industry throughout the country. The CGT claimed participation
was 95%, while a television opinion poll showed 84% of workers
sympathized with the strike, and local news organizations
estimated that 80% to 90% of the country's workers stayed home on
Sept. 27, the second day of the strike. 
 
The CGT is affiliated with Menem's Justicialist (Peronist) Party
(PJ), but has recently begun taking a confrontational position
against the government's economic and labor policies; the strike
and demonstration were also supported by the dissident labor
organizations Movement of Argentine Workers (MTA) and Congress of
Argentine Workers (CTA); by the opposition political parties
Radical Civic Union (UCR) and Front for a Country in Solidarity
(FREPASO); and by student organizations, consumers and owners of
small and medium-size businesses. [El Diario-La Prensa 9/29/96
from AP; Diario Las Americas 9/28/96 from EFE; New York Times
9/28/96; Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 9/27/96 from DyN-
Telam, 9/28/96 from DyN] The Movement for Dignity and
Independence (MODIN), an ultra-nationalist rightwing political
group led by deputy and former military officer Aldo Rico, also
stated its support for the strike. [Diario Los Andes 9/26/96 from
DyN]
 
In Cordoba on Sept. 26, a group of demonstrators threw noise
bombs and burned trash in the entrances of businesses that had
tried to remain open during the strike, in an effort to force
them to close. In one shopping center, the strikers succeeded in
forcing some business owners to close and to give their employees
the day off. Public Employees Union (SEP) leader Jose Pihen went
into another shopping center and convinced shop workers to join
the strike. According to Pihen, two strikers from the transport
workers union (UTA) were arrested by the police while driving a
pickup truck full of old tires to be burned at the demonstration.
[Diario Los Andes 9/28/96 from DyN] According to an official
report, demonstrators broke windows and exchanged blows with the
Cordoba police agents. [ED-LP 9/27/96 from Notimex] 
 
The strike began at midday on Sept 26, but some public transport
continued to function by request of the CGT so that strikers
could attend demonstrations in Buenos Aires or in the provincial
capitals. In the largest of the demonstrations, tens of thousands
of people gathered at a mass rally in the central Plaza de Mayo
in Buenos Aires at 3 pm. The unions claim that 100,000 attended
the Buenos Aires rally, while the government alleged that
attendance was 40,000; local newspapers estimated about 65,000-
70,000. [ED-LP 9/29/96 from AP; Diario Las Americas 9/28/96 from
EFE; NYT 9/28/96; Diario Los Andes 9/28/96 from DyN] 
 
The strike was not declared illegal, but 1,800 police agents were
dispatched to reinforce security at the Buenos Aires
demonstration. [Diario Los Andes 9/26/96 from DyN] In his 25-
minute speech, new CGT secretary general Rodolfo Daer--the only
speaker at the rally--avoided mentioning Menem's name, except to
demand that the president "govern for the people, not for the IMF
[International Monetary Fund]." [Diario Los Andes 9/27/96 from
DyN, Telam]
 
The unions are rejecting a policy of "labor flexibilization" that
will peg wages to economic conditions; loosen rules on working
hours and holidays; replace collective bargaining by job sector
with individual salary negotiations by company; and replace
severance pay with unemployment insurance. The government claims
the flexibilization will reduce unemployment--currently at 17% of
the economically active population--by lowering employers' costs,
in the theory that they will then hire more workers. [ED-LP
9/29/96 from AP; NYT 9/28/96; Reuter 9/26/96] 
 
Menem acknowledged in a Sept. 27 meeting with reporters that the
strike was "relatively successful," but emphasized that protests
will not force the government to deviate from its economic
course. [NYT 9/28/96] "Strikes don't stop laws," wrote Menem in
the Buenos Aires daily newspaper La Nacion. Economy Minister
Roque Fernandez--pleased that Congress had finally approved, late
on Sept. 25, his tax austerity package of fuel and income tax
hikes--defiantly announced that the state mortgage bank Banco
Hipotecario, valued at $3-3.5 billion, will be 90% privatized,
and added that public transport fares may go up. Unionists, the
workers at BHN itself and even many legislators from the ruling
party oppose the planned privatization. BHN president Pablo Rojo
insisted there won't be layoffs or closings of bank branches; the
bank's administration was already made efficient and BHN "is
being sold with good profitability," said Rojo. [Reuter 9/26/96;
Diario Los Andes 9/27/96 from DyN] The tax increases go into
effect on Oct. 1. CGT leader Daer admitted that there are no new
strikes scheduled as of yet, but insisted that "the struggle will
continue" if the government does not change its economic model.
[Diario Los Andes 9/27/96 & 9/28/96 from DyN]
 
*5. BOLIVIA: ONE KILLED IN INDIGENOUS/CAMPESINO PROTEST

An indigenous leader died on Sept. 26 in the Bolivian capital, La
Paz, when riot police cracked down on a group of 2,000 indigenous
and campesino protesters who tried to enter the Plaza de Armas.
The protesters were part of a larger group of between 20,000 and
50,000 campesinos, coca growers and indigenous people who had
marched from rural areas to demand passage of an agrarian reform
law worked out in consensus in 1995 [see Updates #344, 345, 347].
At least six protesters and one police agent were injured, and a
number of protesters suffered bruises or asphyxiation from tear
gas grenades lobbed by police; indigenous leader Sabina Sirpa (or
Salome Sirpa Choque) of the campesino union from Collo Collo
apparently died of asphyxiation from the tear gas. Seven
protesters were arrested. Governance Minister Carlos Sanchez
Berzain claimed that drunken campesinos set off dynamite charges
in the central plaza where the seat of government and the
national congress building are located. [Many campesinos in
Bolivia are former miners, who frequently used dynamite in the
past in their militant strikes and confrontations with the
government.] 
 
The Permanent Human Rights Assembly of Bolivia criticized the
"unnecessary police repression" during the demonstration, as did
the Human Rights Commission of the House of Deputies. At least
20,000 of the campesinos held a larger demonstration in the Plaza
de San Francisco just hours after the confrontation. [El Diario-
La Prensa 9/27/96 from AFP; Diario Las Americas 9/28/96 from EFE;
Bolivian Ministry of Social Communication summary of Bolivian
morning news media 9/27/96] 
 
Bolivian Workers Central (COB) general secretary Edgar Ramirez
charged that Governance Ministry agents infiltrated the march to
provoke acts of violence. Ramirez said that a column of marchers
coming from the southern zone detected one of the agents and
uncovered his identity documents, identifying him as agent Marco
Saul Moron. The COB prevented the campesinos from physically
attacking the agent, but Ramirez warned Sanchez Berzain that the
next time an infiltrator is discovered, drastic measures will be
taken. [Morning media summary 9/27/96]
 
Evo Morales, leader of the coca growers union, urged indigenous
communities to "rise up in arms to defend themselves from the
repression," though he also insisted it was necessary to reach an
agreement with the government on the proposed National Agrarian
Reform Institute (INRA) law. Morales took the opportunity of the
Sept. 26 rally to promote creation of a national political
organization that would allow workers to gain power and confront
neoliberal economic policies. Roman Loayza, executive secretary
of the Only Union Federation of Bolivian Campesino Workers
(CSUTCB), said the campesinos "are inclined to reach a consensus"
on the INRA law and warned that they will not return to their
land without an agrarian reform law that responds to their
interests and rights. 
 
Vice President Victor Hugo Cardenas, an indigenous Aymara, told
the press on Sept. 26 that the proposals of the government and of
the campesinos "coincide in nearly everything." Cardenas stressed
the possibility of reaching an agreement between the different
parties affected by the INRA law. Presidency Minister Guillermo
Justiano warned on Sept. 26 that the INRA law would be sent to
Congress on Sept. 30. [DLA 9/28/96 from EFE; ED-LP 9/29/96 from
uncited wire service; Morning media summary 9/27/96]
 
On Sept. 27, the government suddenly announced it would make
contact with campesino leaders to immediately renew dialogue on
the INRA law. The government also denied rumors that its
negotiations with agribusiness leaders over the INRA law had
broken down. More than 70 campesino leaders, representatives of
the marchers, decided in an assembly on Sept. 27 to accept the
government's offer and renew dialogue immediately with the
mediation of the Catholic Church. [Evening media summary 9/27/96]
 
*6. US SCHOOL OF SCANDAL: MURDER MANUALS, CONTRAS, POPE, CAMARENA

On Sept. 25 Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-MA) of the US Congress
released new material indicating that training manuals the US
Army School of the Americas (SOA) used in the 1980s taught Latin
American military officers to censor the press and murder
suspected rebels. "A deserter [from a guerrilla group] could be
more or less certain that there will be no reprisals against him
if all other members of his cell are eliminated by security
forces," one manual suggests. "This circumstance could be used to
persuade insurgent deserters to provide information to the
government." One passage from the manuals recommends "arrests,
execution or pacification" to eliminate guerrilla organizations,
while another supports censorship for "war correspondents, radio
commentators and press photographers." Kennedy's office expects
to release more material from the manuals as it is translated
from the original Spanish. [Reuter 9/25/96]
 
Now located in Fort Benning, Georgia, SOA has trained some 60,000
Latin American officers--including many notorious human rights
violators--since it was founded in 1946. The US Defense
Department had released other excerpts from SOA training manuals
on Sept. 20 [see Update #347]. Much of this material discusses
the use of informants ("employees"), noting that "if an
individual has been recruited [as an informant] using fear as a
weapon, the CI [counterintelligence] agent must [be] in a
position of [sic] maintain the threat." One passage discusses
"methods of providing external assistance in order to assure the
promotion of an employee" within an insurgent group. "A method of
achieving this is by influencing an employee who has a much
higher position in the guerrilla organization, another is to
eliminate a potential rival among the guerrillas." The material
is available on DefenseLINK, the Pentagon's Web site, at
http://www.dtic.mil/defenselink/ [Defense Department press packet
9/20/96]
 
Meanwhile, anger continues to grow among US blacks over last
month's articles in the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose,
California tracing the crack epidemic in US inner cities back to
cocaine selling operations by the Nicaraguan contras in the early
1980s, presumably with the knowledge of the rebels' controllers
in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). On Sept. 23 entertainer
Dick Gregory and the head of the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference were arrested in a protest at the headquarters of the
US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which continues to
employ Danilo Blandon Reyes, one of the contras implicated by the
Mercury News, as an informant.
 
During the same week, former DEA agent Celerino Castillo claimed
that he told his superiors about contra drug flights in 1985 and
1986, but was informed that the flights were approved by the
White House, then held by Republican president Ronald Reagan. The
British daily The Independent notes that the contra cocaine
scandal's "short-term political ramifications" could affect the
Nov. 5 US presidential elections, in which Republican challenger
Bob Dole has been attacking incumbent president Bill Clinton, a
Democrat, over a recent surge in teenage drug use. "Now [Dole]
must cope with claims that a Republican administration was
actually involved in drug-dealing." Clinton, however, "has little
reason to gloat," since he was governor of Arkansas during the
same period, and reportedly allowed the contras to use an
airstrip in Mena, Arkansas for drug smuggling. [Independent
9/26/96]
 
Pope John Paul II and Nicaraguan cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo
also had roles in the CIA's Central American operations in the
1980s, according to a new book by Carl Bernstein of the
Washington Post and Marco Politi of the Italian daily La
Repubblica. The book, His Holiness: John Paul II and the Hidden
History of Our Time, says that then-central intelligence director
William Casey and his second-in-command, Gen. Vernon Walters,
supplied the pope with information on telephone conversations by
Nicaraguan and Salvadoran priests and bishops who supported
Liberation Theology. The book also charges that the CIA gave
Cardinal Obando's archdiocese $25,000. Congress members made the
agency stop the direct payments. The CIA then "subcontracted" the
contributions through a private company; the total amounted to
"hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions." The authors
write that the cardinal was a major CIA "asset," while the
Catholic Church was "the main ideological ally in the US's
struggle against the Sandinistas," the leftists who then held
power in Nicaragua. [EFE 9/26/96, posted by Nuevo Amanecer Press,
quotations retranslated from Spanish]
 
While discussing the contra cocaine operation, former DEA agent
Castillo blamed CIA informants for the 1985 torture death of DEA
agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in Guadalajara, Mexico. During a
Sept. 23 press conference Castillo told reporters that within two
months of Camarena's murder the CIA had a copy of a tape made
during the torture, supplied by the killers themselves. Castillo
declined to give more information. [Notimex 9/23/96, posted by
Nuevo Amanecer Press]
 
*7. NICARAGUA: FSLN PUSHES UNITY, INVESTORS GET COLD FEET

Business people are postponing investments in Nicaragua due to
recent advances in the polls by the leftist Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN), according to Nicaraguan Chamber of
Commerce head Martin Barcenas. The French news service Agence
France Presse (AFP) reports that polls now show 35% of voters
supporting the FSLN's presidential candidate, former president
Daniel Ortega Saavedra (1979-1990), in the Oct. 20 national and
local elections. Until recently his support was around 26%.
Conservative candidate Arnoldo Aleman, a former Managua mayor who
is running for the Liberal Alliance coalition, continues to lead
with 41%, but on Sept. 20 he conceded for the first time that he
might not get the 45% of the vote he needs to avoid a second
round. He called on "democrats" to close ranks behind him to
prevent "the return to power of the Sandinistas."
 
Meanwhile, Ortega is working to moderate his party's image.
"What's revolutionary today is to create the conditions for
reconstructing the country," he told AFP, admitting that if he
wins he "will have no choice" but to accept the rules of the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to integrate
Nicaragua into "an international economy that doesn't work in the
most democratic way." Ortega also said he would consult with
Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo on the appointment of an education
minister. But Chamber of Commerce head Barcenas warns that the
Sandinistas are "exactly the same as before." [Diario Las
Americas 9/24/96 from AFP]
 
On Sept. 18 the FSLN, some agricultural producers organizations
and representatives of the former contras signed an agreement for
a "triple alliance" in the event of a Sandinista victory. In the
accord, the FSLN pledged to nominate former contras to head three
cabinet-level ministries: Agrarian Reform, Natural Resources and
the powerful Governance Ministry (formerly the Interior
Ministry). The FSLN claimed that about 25% of the former contras
agreed to participate in the alliance. [Nicaragua News Service
9/14-20/96 from Barricada, El Nuevo Diario, La Tribuna] On Sept.
19 Ortega signed a pledge promoted by the multi-party National
Women's Coalition; in this he promised to bring many more women
into the government if he is elected. The FSLN and the Sandinista
Renovation Movement (MRS), which split from the FSLN last year,
have the highest number of women candidates running for the
National Assembly; women make up 33% of the FSLN list and 26% of
the MRS slate. About 7% of the Liberal Alliance candidates are
women. [El Diario-La Prensa 9/22/96 from AFP]
 
*8. EL SALVADOR: NEW TELECOMMUNICATIONS LAW PASSED

Early on Sept. 12, after three hours of discussion, Gloria
Salguero Gross, president of El Salvador's Legislative Assembly
and member of the rightwing Republican National Alliance (ARENA)
party, called for a vote to end debate on a controversial new
telecommunications law. With 23 people waiting to speak on the
legislation, ARENA deputies had enough votes to end debate and
pass the bill with a simple majority. Nearly all deputies from
the opposition parties--including the Farabundo Marti Front for
National Liberation (FMLN), the Democratic Party (PD), the
Christian Democrat Party (PDC), the Democratic Convergence (CD),
Social Christian Renovation Party (PRSC) and the Unity Movement
(MU)--walked out of the Assembly in protest. President Armando
Calderon Sol, a member of the ARENA party, is expected to sign
the bill into law. 
 
The Association of Participative Radios and Programs of El
Salvador (ARPAS) and the Union of Technical Workers of
Telecommunications Business of El Salvador (ATTES) had worked and
lobbied for months to incorporate proposals into the new
telecommunications law which would provide basic regulations and
guarantees for the public sector. Their proposals were presented
to the Economic and Agricultural Committee--which drafted the
bill--on Aug. 21. In July, 35 US Congressional offices voiced
their support for ARPAS' efforts to establish regulations for
non-profit radios in El Salvador in a letter to the US State
Department. Representatives Joseph Moakley (D-MA) and Xavier
Becerra (D-CA) also sent a letter to Calderon just before the
Assembly vote, urging him to support inclusion of ARPAS'
proposals in the new law. In the end, however, nothing from their
proposals was included. [CoCo Development Alternatives
(Indianapolis, IN) Issue Update 9/13/96]
 
Meanwhile, Juan Jose Domenech--former president of the National
Telecommunications Administration (ANTEL)--resigned his post as
president of the ARENA party on September 7. Domenech is facing
accusations of corruption, including tax evasion and trading in
stolen cars, as well as charges by Guatemalan authorities of drug
trafficking and money laundering. Assembly president Salguero
Gross is to serve as interim party head until the ARENA party
convention takes place in October. [Committee in Solidarity with
the People of El Salvador (CISPES) El Salvador Watch #53, October
1996]
 
*9. MEXICO: "EPR" ARRESTS IN OAXACA, GUERRERO ELECTION VIOLENCE 

On Sept. 25 some 800 soldiers from the Mexican army arrested six
people in the indigenous mountain village of San Agustin Loxicha
in the southern state of Oaxaca. Five more Loxicha citizens were
arrested the next day, and soldiers and police were reportedly
searching for 14 other suspects. The state government says that
the prisoners, who include Loxicha's mayor and other municipal
officials, may be founding members of the rebel Revolutionary
Popular Army (EPR). Loxicha citizens are accused of taking part
in a bloody EPR raid on the Pacific resort town of Huatulco on
Aug. 28 in which nine people were killed [see Update #344]. One
of the two rebels who died in the attack was identified as the
Loxicha municipal treasurer.
 
This was the largest roundup to date of suspected members of the
EPR, which made its first public appearance on June 28. The
British news agency Reuter notes that "[t]he discovery of a
village rife with rebel suspects may reflect a nucleus of support
for the EPR, which the government has denounced as a terrorist
organization with no social base." [Reuter 9/27/96] An analysis
sent to the federal Governance Secretariat, possibly from the
office of President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, suggests that
in fact there is significant sympathy for the EPR in rural parts
of southern Mexico and that it is even picking up fresh troops
among deserters from the better known Zapatista National
Liberation Army (EZLN), which has been in negotiations with the
government since last year. The analysis says that the EPR
requires "a more sophisticated treatment" than the EZLN. [La
Jornada (Mexico) 9/25/96, electronic edition]
 
According to a Sept. 25 report on the privately-owned national
Television Azteca, the EPR declared a unilateral ceasefire in
Guerrero until after the municipal elections scheduled for Oct. 6
in that state, where the rebels carried out their first
operations during the summer. The ceasefire would run from
midnight Sept. 25 until 8:30 PM on Oct. 27. [New York Times
9/26/96 from Reuter]
 
The Guerrero elections already seem to have cost several lives.
Enrique Torres Lopez, a member of the conservative opposition
National Action Party (PAN) was shot dead on Sept. 13 as he was
returning to Teloloapan in the northwest part of the state after
passing out party literature in the community of La Magdalena.
The Teloloapan branch of the center-left Party of the Democratic
Revolution (PRD) denied responsibility, but said the murderers
might be members of an expelled PRD group that had joined the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). [LJ 9/13/96]
Pedro Perez Soyateco, the PRD's leader in the community of
Mexcaltepec, Chilapa municipality, was shot dead on Sept. 22 with
nine bullets in the back after an argument with PRI members. [LJ
9/24/96, electronic edition]
 
The PRI and the PRD are the main contenders in Guerrero. The PRD
governs several towns, but historically it loses 60% of its
municipalities after one term. A Sept. 21 meeting of the party's
National Council discussed the question of how to expand the PRD
beyond its "hard vote" of about 17% in upcoming elections,
especially the 1997 congressional races. One proposal was that
the party should counter its image of "irrational opposition" by
insisting that all its protests present concrete alternatives to
the programs being protested. [LJ 9/22/96] But Orbelin Jaramillo,
a liberation priest currently working in the Zapata neighborhood
of Acapulco, predicts that abstention will be the real winner in
Guerrero. "Nobody believes in this," he says, referring to the
state's history of electoral fraud by the PRI. "Neither do I."
[LJ 9/28/96, electronic edition]
 
*10. MEXICO: PRIVATIZATION MONEY DISAPPEARS

Rank-and-file members of Mexico's governing PRI joined with some
hardliners on Sept. 21 in a raucus attack on the party's
"technocrats" during the PRI's 17th national assembly. The
technocrats, including President Zedillo and former president
Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-94), are US-trained proponents of
neoliberal economic programs and have dominated Mexico's national
government since 1982. The rank-and-filers voted against
Zedillo's planned privatization of Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX),
the country's largest state enterprise, and passed rules
requiring candidates for major government offices to have prior
electoral experience and 10 years of membership in the party.
Neither Salinas nor Zedillo held any electoral posts before
becoming president. But an attempt to expel Salinas from the
party for corruption was tabled.
 
Many suspect that the PRI's new populist, anti-corruption
campaign is meant simply to help the party in the 1997 elections.
[LJ 9/22/96] This view received some support on Sept. 25 when the
PRI's congressional majority abruptly shut down an investigation
into irregularities that occurred in Conasupo, the national food
agency, from 1982 to 1992. Raul Salinas, former president
Salinas' brother, headed the agency during part of the time; he
is currently in prison facing murder and corruption charges. The
probe had also raised questions about Zedillo's conduct when he
was in Carlos Salinas' cabinet [see Update #336]. [Reuter
9/25/96]
 
Meanwhile, new questions have arisen about privatizations carried
out by the Salinas administration. According to a Sept. 25 report
in the daily La Jornada, on Sept. 11 the attorney general's
office (PGR) registered the receipt of documents indicating that
firms owned by Television Azteca head Ricardo Salinas Pliego
transferred $190.9 million to their Citibank accounts in New York
in just 80 days, between February and April 1993. Salinas Pliego
was a business associate and friend of Raul Salinas (the two are
not related); he acquired the television network when the
government privatized it in 1993. Salinas Pliego denies that the
transfers took place, and Citibank, which admits to carrying out
similar transfers for Raul Salinas, says the documents are
forgeries. [LJ 9/25/96, 9/26/96, 9/28/96]
 
On Sept. 26, Beltran del Rio, a PAN federal deputy, told Televisa
television network that "[t]here are $1.344 billion that within
the privatization process should have gone into the
[government's] Contingency Fund, but since then it is not clear
where they ended up." Deputy Juan Antonio Garcia Villa, who heads
the congressional committee that audits public accounts, said
there were 3,089 financial irregularities in 1994, including the
disappearance of much of the money from the 1990 privatization of
Telefonos de Mexico (TELMEX), the telephone monopoly, which sold
for about $1.5 billion. [Reuter 9/26/96; Prensa Libre (Guatemala)
9/28/96 from AP, electronic edition]
 
As these scandals were breaking, New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman, who often gives Washington's views on foreign affairs,
announced that US president Bill Clinton's $50 billion bailout of
Mexico in February 1995 "worked." "To pay for the bailout," he
wrote, "Mexico cut the standard of living for most of its people
by 20%. There should have been a revolution, but there was barely
a demonstration." [NYT 9/25/96]
 
Correction: Due to a typographical error, Update #347 misspelled
the name of Oaxaca journalist Razhy Gonzalez Rodriguez.
 
*11. WHITE HOUSE AND CONGRESS AGREE ON IMMIGRATION LAW

After months of political maneuvering, in the early morning of
Sept. 28 US congressional leaders and the administration of US
president Bill Clinton reached an agreement on a new immigration
law, which will be tacked on to the 1997 budget legislation. The
1997 budget starts on Oct. 1, and the Congress's Republican
leadership says the legislation package will be passed in time
for the deadline. Clinton is expected to sign the bill quickly.
 
The new immigration law is aimed chiefly at undocumented
immigrants. It doubles the number of Border Patrol agents to
10,000 and speeds the deportation of immigrants who use false
documents. The Republicans dropped a provision cutting education
for the children of undocumented immigrants and several
provisions slashing benefits for legal immigrants even more than
the cutbacks required by welfare legislation signed into law on
Aug. 22. But the immigration law will contain the controversial
"exclusive jurisdiction" provision, which gives refugees just
seven days to appeal to an immigration judge if Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) agents deny their asylum claims.
[New York Times, 9/29/96] According to Georgetown University law
professor David Cole, the provision "would in fact bar any court
from hearing any challenge to decisions by the [INS]... Under
this provision, literally construed, if the INS adopted a policy
to selectively seek to deport only black aliens, no court could
hear a challenge to its actions." [Letter to editor, NYT 9/27/96]

END

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