WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #349, OCTOBER 6, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Cuba: US Military Nixed Missile Attack After Shootdown 2. Land Protests Continue in Bolivia 3. Bolivian Unionists "Globalize" Demands 4. Haiti: Two Arrested in Coup Plot 5. Foreign Minister: Haiti Needs Low Wages 6. Rebels Plan Caravan to Mexico City 7. Spain Calls Argentine Military to Testify on Disappearances 8. Argentina to Get FBI Office 9. Colombian General Arrested for 1987 Massacre 10. Rightwing Cuban-American Wins Defamation Lawsuit 11. Mass Graves Uncovered in Nicaragua 12. Brazil: Landless Sign Accord, Bank Workers Strike 13. US Covered Up Contra-Crack Evidence in 1986 14. In Other News: Costa Rica, Honduras 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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If you know someone who might be interested in subscribing, send their email (or regular mail) address to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org and request a free one-month trial subscription to the Weekly News Update on the Americas. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as "Weekly News Update on the Americas," and include our address so that people will know how to find us. Send us a copy of any publication where we are cited or reprinted. We also welcome your comments and ideas: send them to us at the street address above or via e-mail to nicanet@nyxfer.blythe.org CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/alr2/wnuhome.html http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/alr2/nsnhome.html *1. CUBA: US MILITARY NIXED MISSILE ATTACK AFTER SHOOTDOWN The Miami Herald revealed on Oct. 1 that the administration of US president Bill Clinton briefly considered attacking the Cuban air base at San Antonio de los Banos, about 20 miles southwest of Havana, in retaliation for Cuba's shooting down of two small US planes on Feb. 24. Within hours of the incident--in which two Cuban MiG jets shot down two planes belonging to the rightwing Cuban-American group Brothers to the Rescue as they were flying near Cuba--US national security adviser Anthony Lake asked the Pentagon for a list of military options. The military responded with plans for bombing runs and missile attacks on the base but "said it was a bad idea," according to an unnamed US official. "Cuba is only 90 miles away from Florida, and they have chemical and biological capabilities, and you have a nuclear power plant [at Turkey Point, Florida]... We were more likely to lose people in Cuba than in Iraq." After the shootdown Clinton reversed his opposition to the Cuban Freedom Act (generally known as "Helms-Burton"), a drastic tightening of the US trade embargo against Cuba. The official says: "There were some wild ideas. Helms-Burton was the mildest of responses on the table." The Herald also reports that there are currently no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert actions in Cuba. The White House ended them in December 1994, mainly because "[t]he cloak-and-dagger stuff just didn't pan out," according to one official. Over the years the CIA has bungled various attempts to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz; in 1988 Cuban television revealed that 10 Cuban intelligence officers the CIA was using as informants were actually double agents feeding the US false information. [Miami Herald 10/1/96] A group of US Congress members, mostly Republican hardliners on Cuba, have meanwhile charged that the Clinton administration could have prevented the Feb. 24 shootdown but refused to intervene. The accusation was first made on July 31 by Brothers to the Rescue head Jose Basulto, who was piloting a third plane at the time of the incident and was chased back to Florida by two MiGs [see Update #340]. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 10/2/96 from AFP] *2. LAND PROTESTS CONTINUE IN BOLIVIA Despite continued protests by campesinos, indigenous people, settlers and agroindustry owners [see Updates #344, 345, 347, 348], the Bolivian government presented its version of the National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) law to Congress on Sept. 30. [Inter Press Service 10/3/96] Even though the ruling four-party coalition has a large majority in Congress, its legislators have been critical of the government's version of the INRA law because of fears it will have a negative impact on agroindustry. Determined to get the law passed despite the massive opposition, President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada has called an emergency meeting of legislators from the ruling coalition to work out differences. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/3/96 from AFP] A group of campesino leaders began a hunger strike against the INRA law on Oct. 2, and the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) began a general strike on Oct. 3 in solidarity with campesinos, indigenous people and settlers who are seeking protection of their land rights under the new law. The general strike was observed on Oct. 3 by teachers, miners, health workers, university staff, and one sector of oil workers; strikers held several different marches in La Paz to kick off the strike. Violent clashes left several people injured when police used tear gas and some marchers responded with sticks, rocks and small dynamite charges. [Bolivian Social Communication Ministry summary of morning news 10/3/96; ED-LP 10/3/96 from AFP, 10/6/96 from EFE] On the night of Oct. 3, government representatives met with indigenous leaders in La Paz to seek a consensus on the INRA law. On Oct. 4, campesino and indigenous leaders took their demands to Congress, where they were received with applause by legislators. The campesinos want Congress to approve the version of the INRA law which had been worked out in consensus last May [not in 1995 as reported in Update #348]. "How are we going to return to our homes without our [land] titles?" pleaded Marcial Fabricano, president of the Indigenous Confederation of the Bolivian East, Chaco and Amazon Regions (CIDOB). [ED-LP 10/3/96 from AFP, 10/6/96 from EFE] The civic committees of the departments of Santa Cruz and Beni sponsored a 24-hour general strike on Oct. 4 to support agroindustry opposition to the INRA law. The committees called for civil disobedience if the legislature approves the government's proposed version of the law. Agroindustry owners believe that a provision of the law which imposes taxes on rural property will discourage agricultural investment and prevent them from using their land as collateral for bank credits. The civic strike shut down Santa Cruz completely: "Not even a fly is moving," said a committee representative. [ED-LP 10/5/96 from AFP, 10/6/96 from EFE; Evening news summary 10/4/96] In Beni, the strike was described as "total" by Fernando Velasco Cuellar, vice president of the Strike Committee and official spokesperson of the Beni ranchers. Velasco said that beginning Oct. 4, the ranchers of Beni, Pando and Santa Cruz departments would suspend all meat shipments to the capital. [Evening news summary 10/4/96] On Oct. 4, the government signed separate accords on the INRA law with CIDOB and with the settlers' organizations from Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Potosi. The settler groups and CIDOB suspended protest actions but said they would hold a vigil until the law is promulgated. Negotiations were continuing on Oct. 4 between the government and private agroindustry representatives over the law's tax provisions. Most campesino groups, however, are holding firm against the law's provision for an Agrarian Superintendency, which would give the state the power to repossess land. Roman Loayza, executive secretary of the Only Union Federation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB), announced that the campesinos reject the agreements reached with other sectors and that they will continue their pressure tactics. Loayza stressed that the campesinos consider their dialogue with the executive branch over, and from now on they will talk only with the legislative branch, where responsibility for the law now rests. COB general secretary Edgar Ramirez charged that CSUTCB and settler leaders were blackmailed in their meeting with the executive branch. Ramirez insisted that Loayza and campesino leader Modesto Condori did not sign any accords, despite heavy pressure and a "show" put on by leaders of CIDOB and of the Free Bolivia Movement (MBL), part of the ruling coalition. [Evening news summary 10/4/96] *3. BOLIVIAN UNIONISTS "GLOBALIZE" DEMANDS Some 20,000 members of the National Federation of Mining and Agricultural/Livestock Cooperatives (FENACO) are set to march to La Paz on Oct. 7 in solidarity with the campesinos and to protest a proposed reform to the Mining Code, according to FENACO leader Victor Choque. FENACO says the proposed reform would favor only the large mining consortiums, at the expense of small and medium- size mining ventures. [IPS 10/3/96; Evening news summary 10/4/96] Some 20,000 public education teachers in La Paz began an open- ended strike on Oct. 4, also in solidarity with the campesinos and against modifications to their pension system. Leaders of the teachers union proposed to the COB that their demands be "globalized" with those of the miners and campesinos. Those sectors which have not signed agreements with the government on the INRA law plan to step up their protest actions by blocking highways throughout Bolivia starting Oct. 7, with the support of rural teachers, miners and cooperative members. Governance Minister Carlos Sanchez Berzain has warned that if protests over the INRA law continue, the government may declare a state of siege and suspend civil rights. [ED-LP 10/3/96 from AFP; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 10/2/96 from AFP] The COB is taking advantage of the mobilization over the INRA law to build protest against the privatization of Bolivia's pension and education systems, and of the state-run oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). The government insists it will forge ahead with the "capitalization" (partial privatization) of YPFB, although authorities announced a delay in the process until Oct. 31. The postponement is at the request of the four transnational companies bidding on YPFB; the companies want more information about an accord Bolivia signed recently with Brazil on the construction of a gasline. Meanwhile, a survey by Bolivia's National Statistics Institute shows that 92% of those polled feel that the economic model of structural adjustment--in effect for more than a decade in Bolivia--only benefits an elite minority. [La Jornada (Mexico) 9/29/96 from ANSA, DPA, IPS, AFP, Prensa Latina] In other news, Nestor Martinez, a leader of the campesino coca growers union, reported new clashes with police troops over forced eradication of coca crops in the Chapare Agrarian Union Central. Three people were injured and seven were arrested in the clashes, which Martinez said involved a group of campesinos from the La Estrella and El Salvador unions. [Morning media summary 9/27/96] *4. HAITI: TWO ARRESTED IN COUP PLOT According to a Sept. 29 report on Radio Haiti Inter, on Sept. 28 Haitian police arrested two men plotting to assassinate several government officials and to launch attacks against poorer neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. Haitian police authorities confirmed the arrests to the media on Sept. 30. The men were Joseph Jean-Baptiste, the head of the Resistance Committee of Demobilized Soldiers, and another man whose name is variously given as Jean Claude, Jean Claude Antoine and Antoine Jean Claude. They were arrested at a house owned by Emmanuel ("Toto") Constant, the former head of the rightwing Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH). At the house police found automatic weapons, grenades and plans for the attacks, scheduled for Sept. 30, the fifth anniversary of a 1991 military coup that overthrew the government of left-populist Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Constant, who says he was on the payroll of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the past, is currently living in New York City, despite Haitian efforts to extradite him for murders and other crimes carried out by the FRAPH. [Haiti en Marche (Miami) 10/2-8/96; New York Times 10/1/96 from Reuter; Washington Post 10/1/96 from AP] The official commemoration of the anniversary came amid increasingly public tensions between former president Aristide and current president Rene Preval, who was Aristide's prime minister at the time of the coup. On Sept. 13 more than 30 US security agents began taking over Preval's security, replacing Aristide loyalists among the president's bodyguards. The US has suggested that Aristide supporters in the security force were responsible for the recent murders of several Haitian rightwingers [see Update #347]. On his return Sept. 21 from a trip to the Netherlands, Aristide angrily rejected the accusations, and then warned that Haitian officials shouldn't "let the alcohol of power go to their heads." The former president also criticized the US-sponsored economic plan that the Preval administration is trying to push through Parliament, saying that privatization, the most controversial part of the plan, "can't lead you to [increased production], you have to share out the land to give people something to eat." This came after Preval tried to downplay stories of tensions between himself and the former president. "[P]resident Aristide criticizes the government," he said on Sept. 17, "I criticize the government, the government criticizes itself... We in the government need to practice self-criticism." [HEM 9/25/96- 10/1/96; Haiti Progres (NY) 9/25/96-10/1/96] On Sept. 25, after many delays, the Haitian Senate finally passed a key element in the US-backed economic plan, the cutting of 7,000 public-sector jobs (about 20% of the total). On Sept. 30, US President Bill Clinton released $4.6 million to Haiti from a $19.6 million aid package the US has been holding up. [HP 10/2- 10/96] *5. FOREIGN MINISTER: HAITI NEEDS LOW WAGES During a visit to New York, Haitian foreign minister Fritz Longchamp told Inter Press Service that "Haiti needs to compete with other countries in the region to attract foreign capital" and that "to attract foreign capital, you need to consider the wages in those countries." A number of US-based organizations have been pressing US apparel companies to raise wages for workers in Haitian assembly plants that stitch their products. The National Labor Committee (NLC), the US textile and apparel workers union UNITE and the NY-based Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign are targeting the Disney entertainment corporation, which subcontracts items like Pocahontas pajamas to Haitian factories paying as little as $0.28 an hour. Longchamp says this campaign doesn't reflect Haitian realities: "I don't think we can wait for a time when wages in Haiti are comparable to [those in] the US economy." [IPS 10/1/96] According to the investigative biweekly CounterPunch, Disney is Hollywood's biggest corporate contributor to the US Democratic Party, and the third largest contributor to the Republicans. [CounterPunch, September 1996] *6. REBELS PLAN CARAVAN TO MEXICO CITY As of Oct. 5 the Mexican police and military had reportedly stepped up patrols in the southeastern state of Chiapas as the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) considered plans to send delegates to the National Indigenous Congress to be held in Mexico City Oct. 8-12. The military operations seem to be concentrated in municipalities with strong Zapatista support, notably Ocosingo and Las Margaritas, where all vehicles were being inspected, including one belonging to the International Red Cross. Local people said this was the most intensive policing since the EZLN rebellion started in January 1994. Foreign observers reported being harassed by National Immigration Institute agents. [La Jornada 10/5/96, 10/6/96, electronic editions] The National Indigenous Congress organizers had invited the largely indigenous rebel group to send delegates. The government insists, however, that the 1995 Law for Dialogue, Conciliation and Peace--which allows free movement for EZLN members in order to facilitate negotiations with the government--applies only inside Chiapas and that EZLN leaders will be arrested if they leave the state. The EZLN answered a Governance Secretariat communique on the subject with its own communique, signed by "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos": "First and only: UUUUY!!!! That's all." A number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots groups responded by putting together a caravan to drive the EZLN delegates to Mexico City starting on Oct. 4. The caravan was to include celebrities, members of the Mexican congress, the El Barzon debtors organization and several Mexico City neighborhood associations. The center-left opposition Party of the Democratic Revolutionary (PRD) decided not to join the caravan officially, but the party endorsed the Zapatistas' plan to attend the conference. A number of PRD leaders, including founder and 1994 presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, were to join the caravan. As of Oct. 5 the caravan had apparently still not set out. [EZLN Communique 9/30/96, translated by National Commission for Democracy in Mexico/USA (NCDM); LJ 10/3/96, electronic edition] The NCDM is calling for US EZLN supporters to mobilize to back the caravan. [Posting from Nuevo Amanecer Press 10/3/96] A Mexican Web site is calling for a "virtual march" of email letters to the Mexican government; more information is available by email at juan@ciber2.fciencias.unam.mex or at the Web site http://planet.com.mx/~chiapas/urgente.html *7. SPAIN CALLS ARGENTINE MILITARY TO TESTIFY ON DISAPPEARANCES Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon has called more than 100 Argentine military officers--including former dictator Jorge Videla--to testify in the disappearance of 300 Spanish citizens. One of those called is Adolfo Scilingo, who broke the military's code of silence last year by confessing his participation in throwing live prisoners from a plane into the sea [see Updates #267, 274]. On Sept. 24, Spanish lawyer Angel Garcia Castillejo and Isabelo Barros, human rights secretary of the Spanish opposition party United Left (Izquierda Unida), said that the list of Spanish disappearance victims had grown from 266 to 300 as a result of evidence collected while in Argentina. Barros said that six "Dirty War" veterans were willing to testify in Spain if their safety was guaranteed. Argentine human rights groups like the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo hope that trials in Spain will result in international arrest warrants for the guilty officers, preventing them from traveling outside Argentina. [Reuter 9/24/96 via Derechos: The Week in Human Rights 9/23-29/96] *8. ARGENTINA TO GET FBI OFFICE The Argentine daily Clarin has revealed that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will open an office in Buenos Aires to advise Argentine authorities on matters of security and terrorism, as part of the US policy of globalizing the fight against "international terrorism." The FBI can only advise the Argentine police and is not supposed to participate directly in actions. Peter Romero, Interim Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs, told Argentine authorities that programs of cooperation between the US and Argentina in security matters will be increased, including the exchange of experts on terrorism and donations of equipment. [ED-LP 9/15/96 from Clarin] [Peter Romero was nominated as ambassador to Ecuador in 1993 after his nomination as ambassador to El Salvador was blocked. Romero reportedly has links to the Salvadoran military and political right--see Updates #166, 170, 171, 181.] According to the Washington Post, Argentine interior minister Carlos Corach came to Washington during the week of Sept. 9 and met with FBI officials, US attorney general Janet Reno and ambassador Phillip Wilcox, the State Department's coordinator for "counter-terrorism." The meetings focused on extradition agreements, drug trafficking and the installation of the FBI office at the US embassy in Buenos Aires. Argentine Embassy officials said Corach was told the FBI office will be set up as soon as the US budget is approved. [WP 9/13/96] *9. COLOMBIAN GENERAL ARRESTED FOR 1987 MASSACRE Retired Colombian general Farouk Yanine Diaz returned to Colombia from the US on Oct. 3 to respond to charges that he participated in several massacres from 1987 to 1989, when he was commander of the Army's 2nd Division in Bucaramanga. The prosecutor's office in Bogota issued an arrest order against Yanine on July 25, and he was placed under arrest on Oct. 4 after presenting himself at the office. Judicial sources indicated that this was the first time in Colombia's history that a former general of Yanine's rank was ordered arrested. The principal charge against Yanine stems from the 1987 massacre of 19 merchants accused of being guerrilla sympathizers in the Middle Magdalena region. Yanine is considered to be responsible for the creation of paramilitary groups. [El Diario-La Prensa 10/5/96 from EFE] Before his return to Colombia on Oct. 3, Yanine was living in the Washington, DC area and working as a professor at the Inter- American Defense College. Yanine graduated from the US Army School of the Americas in 1969, and returned as a guest speaker there in 1990 and 1991. Yanine is also implicated in a massacre of 20 banana workers in 1988; in the murder of the mayor of Sabana de Torres in 1987; and in paramilitary activities associated with the death squad MAS. [Colombia Support Network Urgent Action 9/19/96; La Lagartija/Info SOA, 1995 list of SOA graduates] Testimony from Alonso de Jesus Baquero, who is himself allegedly responsible for the deaths of over 700 people, confirms Yanine's role in the creation of paramilitary groups. Testifying in Cali for three hours on Sept. 13 in front of prosecutors sent from Bogota, Baquero charged that in early 1988, Yanine suggested to him the necessity of creating an armed force that would operate parallel to the army and carry out work that the army could not do; this marked the beginning of the paramilitary groups. Baquero's transfer from the Bogota Model Prison to Cali occurred under the strictist possible security. "He is one of the most threatened people," explained a member of the security team. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 9/14/96, electronic edition] Meanwhile, some 20,000 campesinos from Bolivar department are marching to the oil port city of Barrancabermeja to demand that the government provide greater economic and social aid to their region. [La Jornada 9/29/96 from EFE, Prensa Latina, AFP, IPS, ANSA] Correction: Last week's Update (#348) misspelled the name of the capital city of Colombia's Cauca department. It is Popayan. *10. RIGHTWING CUBAN-AMERICAN WINS DEFAMATION LAWSUIT Jorge Mas Canosa, president of the far rightwing Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), announced at a Sept. 16 press conference at CANF headquarters in Miami that he had agreed to settle a libel suit against US weekly The New Republic for an article in its Oct. 3, 1994 issue headlined "Clinton's Miami Mobster." The magazine agreed to contribute $100,000 to CANF for a scholarship fund, to be administered by CANF but with the name "The New Republic Scholarship," providing education to needy Cuban-American students--and to apologize for the article in a correction in the magazine. Mas Canosa agreed to dismiss his suit against The New Republic and against freelance author Ann Louise Bardach, who wrote the article. [New York Times 9/17/96; Diario Las Americas 9/17/96] According to the New Republic's lawyer, Paul J. Schwiep of the Miami-based firm Aragon, Burlington, Weil and Crockett, the resolution was a victory for the magazine. Bardach was able to demonstrate that she did not author the title of the article which contained the word mobster, said Schwiep; responsibility for the title rested with editor Andrew Sullivan, who resigned for health reasons six months ago. "Bardach did not correct a single word of her article," emphasized Schwiep. According to CANF, Bardach "travels frequently to Cuba and once published a favorable interview with Fidel Castro in the magazine Vanity Fair." [DLA 9/17/96] "The New Republic and Mr. Mas Canosa are pleased to have resolved their dispute," read a joint statement from CANF and the magazine, "because, although they may have differences, they both have strongly expressed support for policies aimed at bringing an end to the Communist dictatorship of Fidel Castro and bringing democracy to Cuba." [NYT 9/17/96] The magazine also agreed to print a letter by Mas Canosa in its "Letters to the Editor" section responding to the accusations in the article. [DLA 9/17/96] This was Mas Canosa's second victory in a defamation case: in August, former US diplomat Wayne Smith--an outspoken opponent of US policy toward Cuba--was found by a court to have defamed CANF in a 1992 PBS documentary. [NYT 9/17/96; DLA 9/17/96] *11. MASS GRAVES UNCOVERED IN NICARAGUA The Commission for Human Rights in Central America (CODEHUCA) issued a statement on Oct. 2 urging an in-depth investigation of those responsible for clandestine cemeteries uncovered recently in Nicaragua. "The discovery of the graves is one more proof of the impunity with which murders occurred during the past decade," said CODEHUCA coordinator Daniel Camacho. "We condemn this wherever it comes from and we want it investigated until the ultimate consequences, [and] for those guilty to be punished, whoever they are." [El Diario-La Prensa 10/3/96 from AP] [The pro-Sandinista Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH), which is the Nicaraguan affiliate of CODEHUCA, seems to have remained silent so far on the newly discovered graves.] According to the Nicaragua News Service, published in Managua by the DC-based Nicaragua Network Education Fund, the rightwing Nicaraguan daily La Prensa recently published a series of articles exposing mass graves containing remains of people allegedly executed by the Sandinistas after the July 1979 overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza and under the administration of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in the 1980s. Citing reports from the fiercely anti-Sandinista Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH) and the Costa Rican paper La Nacion, La Prensa reported that a total of 15 mass graves have been discovered since 1990, three of which were found in August and September of this year. Former president and FSLN presidential candidate Daniel Ortega responded to the story by telling reporters that "if they want to discuss the issue of mass graves, they must begin by discussing the Somoza dictatorship." [NNS 9/21-27/96] Interestingly enough, the rabidly anti-Sandinista Miami daily Diario Las Americas has not played up the mass graves. Even Ortega's primary opponent for the upcoming Oct. 20 elections, rightwing presidential candidate Arnoldo Aleman, seems to have not drawn much attention to the report. Speaking on a television program, Aleman said that if he wins the presidency he will create a "truth commission" to investigate the crimes and corruption of recent years. "The people have a right to know the truth to begin a true reconciliation," said Aleman. [Aleman did not suggest that those who committed abuses should be punished; in any case, all perpetrators of abuses committed before 1988 are covered by an amnesty that went into effect that year.] Aleman did not mention the mass graves directly, and focused more on property confiscations than on human rights. [Diario Las Americas 10/3/96 from AFP] In other news, army chief Joaquin Cuadra says he will not testify before the Inter-American Human Rights Court (CIDH) on the October 1990 murder of 16-year old Jean Paul Genie because "I am not a witness." The CIDH called Cuadra to testify, but he said that "in consultation with the Presidency we decided not to go, because I wasn't there, I didn't see anything, I can't testify to anything, absolutely nothing." Genie was killed by bodyguards of then-army chief Gen. Humberto Ortega when he tried to pass a military caravan on a highway. A military court cleared Ortega and his eight bodyguards for lack of evidence in 1994, but the Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the case. According to Cuadra, the CIDH case "is a political trial against the Nicaraguan government for the delay of justice." [DLA 9/6/96 from AFP] *12. BRAZIL: LANDLESS SIGN ACCORD, BANK WORKERS STRIKE Brazil's Landless Movement (MST) reached an accord on Sept. 27 with the Sao Paulo state government and large landowners in the state to end land takeovers. Under the terms of the accord, landowners in the Pontal do Paranapanema region will grant 25% of 10,000 hectares of their estates to 700 campesino families, and the state government will free up resources to pay the landowners compensation for their property. "Once more we are giving a vote of confidence to the authorities and landowners," said regional MST leader Jose Rainha. "We will wait until Tuesday [Oct. 1] to see if we will have real access to the land." Tensions in the Pontal region had increased after landowners announced they were creating armed militias to defend their land from takeovers. Nearly 1,000 campesino families are occupying two estates in the zone. [La Jornada 9/29/96 from EFE, AFP, ANSA] Meanwhile, bank workers in Brazil have been shutting down bank branches with intermittent strikes to demand a salary increase of 21.16%. Spokespeople of the National Federation of Bank Unions (CONSIBA) said the labor action was being carried out "as we have planned" in the branches of different banks in the principal state capitals of Brazil. The strikes are designed to make bank offices close one day and stay open the next: "Our strength is in the surprise factor," explained CONSIBA leader Erika Kokay. "No one knows beforehand which branch will be shut that day, but every day more are [closed]." Spokespeople of the National Bank Federation (FENABAN) say that automatic teller machines have been partially destroyed in a number of cities. [Diario Las Americas 10/3/96 from EFE] *13. US COVERED UP CONTRA-CRACK EVIDENCE IN 1986 Federal and local narcotics agents in Los Angeles knew during the early 1980s that Nicaragua's contra rebels were selling large quantities of cocaine "mainly to blacks living in the South- Central Los Angeles area," according to a 1986 affidavit obtained by the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose, California. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office narcotics detective Thomas Gordon swore out the affidavit on Oct. 23, 1986 for a search warrant that was used four days later in a raid on a drug operation headed by Danilo Blandon Reyes, a contra supporter who now works as an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Detective Gordon's affidavit described Blandon as "the highest- ranking member" of an organization that "assists the contra movement with arms and money. The money and arms generated by the organization come through sales of cocaine. Informant #2 provided some 100 names of persons involved with the distribution of cocaine. All of these persons are either Nicaraguan and/or sympathizers to the contra movement." Blandon was delivering "up to 20 kilos a week" to one of his associates and distributing "as much as 10 kilos of cocaine per week" through "a beer bar at Central Avenue and Adams Street." The affidavit says that the DEA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had had informants inside the Blandon drug ring for several years. Named in the affidavit are: Blandon; his wife, Chepita; his father, Julio; a former Laguna Beach police detective named Ronald Lister; and Blandon's uncle, Orlando Murillo, a banker who is running for the Nicaraguan National Assembly in this year's Oct. 20 elections. The search warrant was used on Oct. 27, 1986 to raid Blandon's house and several other locations. At Lister's house the police found and seized films of military operations in Central America and documents about drug sales to fund military equipment for Central America. Lister tried to stop the raid, telling the officers that he was an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the police let him place a phone call to CIA headquarters in Virginia. Within 48 hours of the raid, federal agents arrived at the sheriff's office and removed all the material seized from Lister's house. Six of the seven detectives who staged the raid were indicted on federal corruption charges in the early 1990s; Detective Gordon was convicted of tax evasion. In the 1990 trial of another detective, former deputy sheriff Daniel Garner, defense attorney Harland Braun tried to introduce as evidence 10 pages that a police agent had secretly copied from the documents seized at Lister's house. The 10 pages were promptly sealed and Garner was hit with a gag order that kept him from discussing the documents with the media. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Office says all records of the 1986 raid have since disappeared. [SJMN 9/29/96, 10/3/96] In August the Mercury News ran a three-part series, by staff writer Gary Webb, charging that contra drug operations were partly responsible for the crack epidemic in US inner cities and that the CIA was complicit with or at least failed to stop the contras' drug selling [see Updates #343, 345, 347, 348]. On Oct. 4 the Washington Post ran a front page article headlined "The CIA and Crack: Evidence Is Lacking of Alleged Plot." The article says that Blandon's sales--about one ton of cocaine a year--were not large enough to affect drug use patterns in the US, and notes that Blandon himself denies any link to the CIA. Ironically, an accompanying article, filed from Nicaragua, points to a link between the DEA and Juan Norwin Meneses Cantarero, who brought cocaine from Colombia into the US for the Blandon ring. Meneses returned to Nicaragua in 1990 after the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) lost power in national elections; he is now serving time there for drug running. A Nicaraguan police investigator told the Post: "After analyzing the case, we believe Meneses was sent as a DEA informant here, perhaps to try to implicate senior Sandinistas officials in drug trafficking. Then he started trafficking behind the back of the DEA and got busted and they washed their hands of him." [WP 10/4/96] *14. IN OTHER NEWS... Some 5,000 demonstrators from community, religious and environmental organizations marched on Sept. 26 in northern Costa Rica to protest the government's granting of 10 concessions to US and Canadian mining companies and its plan to grant 141 permits to companies to begin gold extraction in the northern region. The Canadian company Placer Dome has already been mining gold for two years in the zone. Priest Joaquin Porras of San Carlos parish told the demonstrators, "It's time the Church took a position against the government's economic model, which involves the active participation of transnational companies." [El Diario-La Prensa 9/29/96 from AP]... The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) has brought criminal charges against Honduran armed forces chief Gen. Mario Hung Pacheco and five other officers for "abuse of authority, violation of official duties and disobedience to the authorities." CODEH brought the charges after the officers refused to let the organization inspect intelligence archives for clues on the 1982 disappearance and murder of Nicaraguan Amado Espinoza Paz and Honduran Adan Aviles Funez. According to CODEH, the officers disobeyed the order of Choluteca civilian court judge Celino Aguilera; on Sept. 20, Aguilera granted another judge, Antonio Pacheco, the right to carry out a judicial inspection to seek information about Espinoza and Aviles in the installations where the notorious counterinsurgency force Battalion 3-16 had operated. [Diario Las Americas 10/2/96 from EFE] END For New York area events, check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/alr2/creed.html (if you don't have web access, write nicadlw@nyxfer.blythe.org for info). ANNUAL UPDATE INDEX now 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 (specify which year or years you want). 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