WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #354, NOVEMBER 10, 1996 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Grenade Kills One in Honduras, Military Gang Blamed 2. Guatemala: Kidnap Stalls Peace Negotiations 3. Nicaraguan Rightist Wins in Recount 4. Mexican Rights Worker Kidnapped, EZLN Visits Paris 5. Mexico: EPR Renews Attacks After State Vote 6. Retirees Plan Mexico Invasion 7. Focus on Cuba's Castro at Summit in Chile 8. Ruling Party Reelected in Puerto Rico 9. Contra-Crack Story: Deny, Deny, Deny 10. Panama Pays US Invasion Victims, and Noriega Too... 11. Cuba Hit with Pilot Compensation, Anti-Terrorism Lawsuit 12. Other News: CISPES Sweat-Gear Catalog in Business Week 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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GRENADE KILLS ONE IN HONDURAS, MILITARY GANG BLAMED A Russian-made LPG-6 grenade tossed from a passing taxi exploded on Nov. 7 in a court building in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, killing a guard and injuring at least 22 people, including five lawyers and a judge. Attorney General Edmundo Orellana said he blamed the attack on "the enemies of justice, who want impunity to continue in force in Honduras." Orellana specifically said he suspected automobile theft gangs of carrying out the bombings. A note was found inside threatening "Death to Judge Mildred Castillo," whose offices are located in the building. The Criminal Investigations Department charged on Oct. 30 that at least nine military personnel are involved in auto theft gangs in Honduras, including Tegucigalpa police chief Lt. Col. David Abraham Mendoza. Mendoza denied the charges. Some 100 automobiles are stolen each month in Honduras, and vehicle theft has become an illegal trade as profitable in Central America as drug trafficking. It was the third bombing in Honduras in just over a month. There have been at least 42 bombings or attempted bombings in the country in the past 22 months, but this was the first in which a person was killed. The most recent previous attack was on Oct. 12, when fragmentation grenades exploded simultaneously at two clinical analysis laboratories in San Pedro Sula. The laboratories are owned by doctor Ramon Custodio Lopez, president of the Honduran Committee for Human Rights (CODEH). [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 11/8/96 from AP; La Nacion (Costa Rica) 11/8/96, electronic edition, from ACAN-EFE] Custodio said that he will prove that military personnel were involved in the attacks against his laboratories. "We have gone to the trials, we have gone to the judges, and what is the payment we receive? We have one victim murdered, who is Miguel Angel Pavon Salazar, we have a daughter murdered, we have two attacks, and today... the spokespeople of the military say that we must prove that [the perpetrators] are military personnel." [National Human Rights Commission of Honduras Informative Bulletin 11/4/96 from La Tribuna] Custodio had charged on July 16 that a conspiracy existed to "distort, discredit, lie and cover up for those responsible" for the murder of his daughter, Mercedes Burgos, on June 5 of this year. Burgos, a 39-year old school teacher, was shot in the temple as she was driving her car through a wealthy eastern neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. Custodio said authorities did not listen to his wife, Maria Elena Espinoza de Custodio, when she reported that death threats had been made against her daughter. [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 7/18/96 from AFP; National Human Rights Commission of Honduras Informative Bulletin 7/17/96 from La Tribuna] *2. GUATEMALA: KIDNAP STALLS PEACE NEGOTIATIONS The Guatemalan government announced on Nov. 7 that it will renew peace negotiations with the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) rebels. Negotiations were set to resume over the weekend of Nov. 9. The government had suspended the peace process on Oct. 28 after a unit of the URNG was found to have carried out the Aug. 25 kidnapping of 86-year old Olga Alvarado de Novella, a wealthy matriarch. The government announced its decision to renew the talks after rebel commander Gaspar Ilom said he would withdraw from the negotiations. Ilom is the top leader of the Organization of People in Arms (ORPA), one of the four groups that make up the URNG. The kidnapping was directed by ORPA second-in-command Rafael Augusto Valdizon Nunez, known as "commander Isaias," and was carried out by one of ORPA's urban commandos. [Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 11/8/96, electronic edition; La Prensa (Honduras) 11/8/96, electronic edition, from AFP] Valdizon was arrested on Oct. 19 while he was carrying a note from Novella to her family. After admitting that his forces had kidnapped Novella seeking a $6 million ransom, Valdizon then demanded--and was granted--his freedom in exchange for Novella's release. [New York Times 11/7/96] In an Oct. 30 statement, the URNG referred to Valdizon as an "ex- commander" and stressed that the kidnapping "was carried out without knowledge or authorization of the [ORPA] leadership." According to the statement, "None of the members of the General Command of the URNG had at any moment knowledge of the execution of this plan..." The rebel leadership said it had begun its own internal investigation of the case. The statement also insisted that URNG has complied with its promises to end all offensive military actions and stop charging war "taxes." [URNG statement 10/30/96 posted on Internet] On Nov. 4, the URNG issued another statement announcing that it had "decided unilaterally to suspend armed propaganda..." In the statement, the URNG proposed resuming peace talks immediately and skipping ahead in the peace agenda to an accord on a definitive ceasefire, leaving the remaining details for later, to make up for the time lost in the suspension of negotiations. Before the kidnapping scandal broke, government and rebel negotiators were set to discuss the reincorporation of URNG forces into civil society. [URNG statement 11/4/96 posted on Internet; Cerigua Special Bulletin 11/7/96] On Nov. 7, Ilom issued a statement announcing his resignation from the talks. "I am aware that the situation created by the kidnapping of Mrs. Novella has dealt a great blow to the credibility of the [peace] process and [has] affected the climate of trust between the [negotiating] parties," wrote Ilom. "But I am equally convinced that this unfortunate event has been used by reactionary forces with the aim of interrupting the negotiation process, breaking the revolutionary unity and distorting the country's democratic perspective." Ilom called on "the different sectors of Guatemalan society and the international community" to "continue supporting the Guatemalan peace process, resolutely and without restrictions." [Ilom statement 11/7/96 posted on Internet] Ilom's real name is Rodrigo Asturias Amado; he is the son of author Miguel Angel Asturias, who won the Nobel literature prize in 1967. [Prensa Libre 11/8/96] Sociologist Hector Rosada, who headed the government's Commission for Peace (COPAZ) during the administration of Ramiro de Leon Carpio (1993-1996), said he regretted Ilom's departure from the negotiations, as the rebel leader had helped the peace process "enormously." According to Rosada, Ilom was the commander who had most stimulated rapprochement between the negotiating parties and who had the most complete vision of Guatemala's return to institutionality. Jorge Galindo, leader of the National Federation of Public Employee Unions (FENASEP), said that the government had made a big publicity show of the kidnapping in order to weaken the URNG and change the correlation of forces at the negotiations table. [La Nacion (CR) 11/9/96 from ACAN-EFE] Ilom has designated URNG "diplomat" Jorge Rosal to replace him as ORPA's representative at the negotiations, according to a cable from the Guatemalan news agency Cerigua, broadcast on Sonora es la Noticia radio on Oct. 8. Rosal was the URNG's representative in Europe and was an active participant at negotiation sessions held in Oslo in 1994 and Madrid in 1990. [La Nacion 11/9/96 from ACAN-EFE] *3. NICARAGUAN RIGHTIST WINS IN RECOUNT Final provisional election results released on Nov. 8 by Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) show that Arnoldo Aleman of the rightwing Liberal Alliance won the presidency of Nicaragua with 51.02% of the 1,773,401 valid votes cast, compared with 37.75% for Daniel Ortega of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)--a higher margin than the 11% given in the preliminary count [see Update #352]. The CSE report indicates that the Liberal Alliance will have 42 out of a total 93 seats in the National Assembly, while the FSLN will have 37 seats. The remaining 14 seats will be divided up among nine smaller parties: four will go to the evangelical Nicaraguan Christian Path (CCN); two to the Conservative Party of Nicaragua (PCN); two to the National Project (PRONAL); and one each to six other parties. The new deputies begin their five-year terms in the National Assembly on Jan. 9, 1997. These projections could change in the unlikely event that the CSE accepts the FSLN's petition to annul the election results in the departments of Matagalpa and Managua and hold new elections in those departments. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 11/10/96 from ACAN-EFE, 11/9/96 from ACAN-EFE; Notifax: Noticias de Nicaragua 11/8/96] FSLN presidential candidate Daniel Ortega refused to recognize the results reported by the CSE. In a speech at Managua's central plaza on the night of Nov. 8, Ortega reiterated the FSLN's demand that elections be held again in Managua and Matagalpa departments, which account for about 40% of the national electorate. Ortega warned that "if the CSE rejects our demand, we reserve the right to question the legitimacy of these elections... We have a moral obligation not to stay silent about what is not legitimate, even if they make it legal." Ortega told an estimated 30,000 Sandinista militants gathered in the plaza that the FSLN would not condone violence but would wage a legal battle to reform the electoral laws that allow such irregularities to occur in the election process. "It is not with rifles that we are going to save this situation, but with the moral force of the people," he said. The dissident Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) has recognized the CSE's final reported results; an MRS communique issued Nov. 8 called on Nicaraguans to abide by the CSE's decision. The Organization of American States (OAS) election observer mission also indicated its support for the CSE's announced results. [La Nacion 11/9/96 from ACAN-EFE; La Jornada (Mexico) 11/9/96, electronic edition, from AFP, EFE, DPA, AP, Reuter] On Nov. 2 the FSLN officially requested that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) investigate the alleged participation of one of its agents "in the irregularities and actions of doubtful legal quality" that the party charges occurred in the elections. In a letter to USAID head Brian Atwood, Jose Prado Marciaq of the FSLN International Relations section accuses Victor Hugo Rojas Gonzalez of "open interference in the internal affairs of the Nicaraguan electoral process." Rojas Gonzalez is an official of a USAID-supported technical advice group known as CAPEL. His actions "lead us to presume the active and illegal participation of international officials financed by your government in all the irregularities," Marciaq wrote to Atwood. The US embassy answered the same day that the US's $9 million contribution to the electoral process had gone exclusively to non-partisan material and technical assistance. [Barricada (Managua) summary 11/4/96] Nicaragua's electoral crisis comes just as investors, especially from East Asia, are reviving a century-old plan for building a major railroad through the country as an alternative to the Panama Canal. Similar plans for "dry canals" are being studied for land routes through Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador, northwestern Colombia, and even the Tehuantepec isthmus in Mexico's Oaxaca state [see John Ross's Mexico Barbaro #26, 7/22/96]. [New York Times 11/10/96] *4. MEXICAN RIGHTS WORKER KIDNAPPED, EZLN VISITS PARIS In the early morning of Nov. 4 unknown assailants set a fire in the offices of the Coordinating Committee for Non-Governmental Organizations for Peace (CONPAZ), a human rights coalition based in San Cristobal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. Firefighters were able to control the fire, and there were no injuries. This was the third attack on the CONPAZ office in two months. [Mexico Update #97, 11/6/96 from La Jornada 11/5/96] Later the same day a CONPAZ administrator, Javier Lopez Montoya, was kidnapped along with his wife, Eva Lara Dominguez de Lopez and their two children, aged three and four. The assailants held the family for two days near the state capital, Tuxtla Gutierrez. They repeatedly beat Lopez, sexually molested Dominguez and threatened the entire family with death before releasing them at Chiapa de Corzo, about 60 km west of San Cristobal. The family is now said to be in hiding. [CONPAZ communique 11/7/96; Associated Press 11/7/96] The attacks came as the Chiapas-based rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) was moving towards a peace treaty with the government. EZLN leader "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" told the media on Oct. 19 that the group has reached its "limit" as an armed force and that the government has made an offer through which the rebels may be able to participate in the 1997 national legislative elections without having to constitute themselves as an official political party. [La Jornada 10/20/96] Marcos and other EZLN leaders arrived in San Cristobal on Nov. 7 to mark the formation of a peace commission. The rebel leaders surprised onlookers by taking a stroll through the colonial city with Amalia Solorzano, the widow of Revolutionary general and former president Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940) and mother of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano, founder of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Solorzano walked arm-in-arm with the ski-masked Marcos. [Reuter 11/7/96] During the same week an EZLN delegation was visiting France to build support for the Mexican rebels' proposed international movement against neoliberal economic policies. On Nov. 6 former political prisoners Javier Elorriaga Berdegue and Maria Gloria Benavides announced that at least five Paris suburbs--St.-Denis, Pantin, Bagnolet, Trembloy-en-France and Aubervilliers--were planning to form sister city relationships with pro-EZLN towns in Chiapas. Aubervilliers mayor Jacques Ralite said the French towns would form ties with Oventic, La Realidad, Morelia, Altamirano and Roberto Barrios, "for the ideals of justice, democracy and liberty that gave rise to the French Revolution and today give life to the noble struggle of the EZLN." [LJ 11/7/96, electronic edition] *5. MEXICO: EPR RENEWS ATTACKS AFTER STATE VOTE Six police agents were killed in attacks attributed to Mexico's other major rebel group, the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR), during the four days after the group ended a unilateral one-month truce on Oct. 27. The EPR claimed responsibility for two attacks on Oct. 28 against the military in Mexico state; one attack was directed at a military vehicle traveling on the federal highway from Mexico City to Toluca, and the other took place at an army barracks near the pre-Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan, northeast of the capital. The EPR claimed several soldiers were killed or injured; the military made no comment. [Reuter 10/31/96] In the early morning of Oct. 31 four EPR members assaulted a police station at Coacalco, a Mexico state municipality just outside Mexico City; one police agent died and two were wounded. That night a police patrol was ambushed in the southern state of Oaxaca on the Oaxaca-Tehuantepec highway at the village of San Pablo Macuilxochitl, a few miles east of the state capital. Four police agents died and three were wounded in the attack; one of the wounded agents died on Nov. 1. The EPR revisited the site on Nov. 1, carrying out "armed propaganda" and then retreating when the police arrived. There was also an attack on a police academy in Atoyac, Guerrero, northwest of Acapulco, on Oct. 30. [La Jornada 11/1/96, 11/2/96, electronic editions; Reuter 11/1/96] On Oct. 25 the EPR issued three communiques confirming that the truce it declared on Sept. 25 would end, as expected, on Oct. 27. The truce was intended to allow Guerrero's Oct. 6 municipal elections to take place without incident [see Update #348]. In one communique, dated Oct. 23, the rebels stated their position that "electoral struggle is not in contradiction to revolutionary armed struggle but contributes to its strengthening, to making it possible for the people to conquer political spaces which permit them to develop better the defense of their interests." The communique denied that the Guerrero elections had been "an example of the exercise of democracy" but said that the advances by opposition parties on Oct. 6 had opened up "political spaces." [LJ 10/27/96] The official results for Guerrero, released on Oct. 13, gave at least 22 of Guerrero's 76 municipalities to opposition parties: 19 to the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which won only six in the last election, one to the conservative National Action Party (PAN), and two to smaller local parties. One municipality, Tlacoachistlahuaca, remained in dispute as of Oct. 13. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) held on to 53 municipalities. In the state legislature the opposition for the first time won seats among the 28 elected by district, with three going to the PRD and one to the PAN. There are also 18 statewide seats, which are distributed according to Mexico's unusual form of proportional representation: the PRD, which won 34.71% of the vote, got nine seats, the PRI, with 49.53%, got six, and the PAN and smaller parties divided the remaining three. [LJ 10/14/96, electronic edition] The PRD is demanding a new vote in Acapulco, the state's largest city, where the PRI candidate won in a close race. On Nov. 2 a PRD federal senator from Guerrero, Felix Salgado Macedonio, rode a Harley-Davidson from Mexico City to Acapulco at the head of a caravan of 60 motorcyclists demanding new elections--and a 50% reduction for motorcycles on toll roads. [LJ 11/3/96] The EPR has also announced a Nov. 5-17 truce in Mexico state for the Nov. 10 state and municipal elections there. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/6/96 from AP] The state's more than six million registered voters will select the 75-member state legislature and the governments of all 122 municipalities, including the key cities surrounding Mexico City. Opinion polls show the PRI and the PAN in tight races in Toluca, Naucalpan, and Tlalnepantla, while the PRI and the PRD are fighting for Ecatepec and Nezahualcoyotl. Although the polls give the PRI a plurality in most of the races, the polls also show almost half the voters determined to vote against it. In the 1993 elections, the PRI won about 55% statewide, followed by 15% for the PAN and 12% for the PRD; the abstention rate was 53%. The votes in the area around Mexico City will be watched as a sign of how the 1997 municipal and legislative elections will go in the nation's capital. Nov. 10 will also bring local elections in the central state of Hidalgo and the northern state of Coahuila. [LJ 11/9/96, electronic edition; MEXPAZ Analysis #97, Heartbeat of Mexico, 11/5/96] *6. RETIREES PLAN MEXICO INVASION At least two former Cold War leaders apparently feel a US invasion of Mexico would be feasible and desirable if the situation grew chaotic enough to threaten US interests. Caspar Weinberger, defense secretary under former US president Ronald Reagan, has written a book giving fictionalized "scenarios" for the wars Weinberger considers most likely to occur over the next 12 years. The Next War includes a chapter describing an invasion of Mexico after the Mexican government is taken over by a charismatic populist professor linked to the drug cartels. Weinberger even gives a date for the charge across the Rio Grande: Apr. 14, 2003. The former defense secretary claims his scenarios are modeled on actual computerized war simulations used by the Pentagon. Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher wrote the introduction to The Next War, which she calls "an important book." [LJ 11/5/96, electronic edition] [The last US invasion of Mexico was an unsuccessful effort in 1916 to capture revolutionary general Francisco ("Pancho") Villa.] *7. FOCUS ON CUBA'S CASTRO AT SUMMIT IN CHILE The Sixth Ibero-American Summit begins on Nov. 10 in Santiago, the capital of Chile, amid extremely tight security. The presidents, foreign affairs ministers, and national delegations of 21 nations are participating in the summit. But stealing the show is Cuban president Fidel Castro, who arrived on Nov. 9 for his first visit to Chile in more than 20 years. His previous visit, during the rule of democratically elected Socialist president Salvador Allende, lasted more than a month and caused considerable controversy. This time Castro's presence has again sparked conflicts between rightwing and leftwing political forces in Chile. Chilean leftist parties have planned an event to honor Castro while he is in Chile, and several rightwing groups are planning protests against the Cuban leader. Representatives of 10 rightwing Cuban emigre groups have arrived in Chile to protest against Castro as well. In October the rightwing Independent Democratic Union (UDI) political party had tried, but failed, to get Chilean courts to compel Castro to testify while in Chile on charges that Cuba supplied weapons to Chilean resistance groups during the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the dictator who led the bloody 1973 coup that overthrew socialist president Allende. Pinochet is still the commander-in-chief of the country's armed forces. [CHIP News 11/5/96; El Diario-La Prensa 11/9/96 from EFE] It was announced on Oct. 4 that Pinochet and air force chief Gen. Fernando Rojas Vender will both be out of town during the summit, taking part in military exercises in northern Chile. [CHIP News 11/5/96; Independent (UK) 11/9/96] On Nov. 8, rightwing protesters picketed the Hyatt Regency hotel where the summit participants are staying; at least one UDI member was detained by police. The Chilean government has warned it will take action against anyone who disturbs public order, although it authorized an anti-Castro demonstration for Nov. 9 and a pro-Castro one for Nov. 10. One anti-Castro Cuban who is visiting Chile to take part in the protests, former political prisoner Maria Marquez, confessed admiration for Pinochet. "If only we Cubans had a general like him," said Marquez. [ED-LP 11/9/96 from EFE] Castro was to attend a ceremony on Oct. 10 at La Moneda national palace, the same palace where Allende reportedly killed himself as the coup began on Sept. 11, 1973, with an assault rifle he had received as a symbolic gift from Castro during the Cuban leader's previous visit. Castro is also expected to visit Allende's tomb in the Santiago General Cemetery. [ED-LP 11/9/96 from EFE; La Jornada 11/8/96] In other news, the Chilean Army recently returned $8,666 and some works of art belonging to Allende which were seized from his private residence a day after the coup, said Allende family lawyer Norma Henriquez. The money and Allende's valuable art collection disappeared from his house in Santiago during a raid organized by the military on Sept. 12. Henriquez said the return of the money and some of the works of art, which were in the possession of the Central Bank and the University of Chile, took place during the week of Oct. 14 following a lawsuit filed by the Allende family in the Supreme Court. Henriquez said only 20% of the art collection has been returned, while the rest remains unaccounted for. [CHIP News 10/21/96] *8. RULING PARTY REELECTED IN PUERTO RICO In Nov. 5 elections in Puerto Rico, incumbent governor Pedro Rossello of the New Progressive Party (PNP) won reelection with 51.2% of the vote, compared with 44.4% for Hector Luis Acevedo of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) and 3.8% for David Noriega of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). The PNP also won majorities in both houses of the legislature, as well as in seven of eight district governments and in 59 of Puerto Rico's 89 municipalities. In the capital, San Juan, however, the PNP's mayoral candidate lost to PPD candidate Sila Maria Calderon by a margin of about 4%. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/7/96 from correspondent & AP] According to preliminary results from the State Elections Commission, the PNP won 19 of the 27 seats in the Senate (75%) and 38 of the 51 seats in the House of Representatives (74.5%), a larger margin of victory than is permitted by Puerto Rico's Constitution. The Constitution does not allow any one party to control more than two thirds of the total of the House and Senate. If one party wins more than this proportion of seats, the "Law of Minorities" takes effect, dictating a complex adjustment scheme by which the total number of legislative seats will be increased until the winning party's dominance has been reduced to two-thirds. The adjustment scheme also takes into account the number of votes won by each party in the governor's race. [Diario Las Americas 11/9/96 from EFE] *9. CONTRA-CRACK STORY: DENY, DENY, DENY On Oct. 20-22 the Los Angeles Times ran a three-part series attempting to debunk a series published in August by the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose, California, linking the growth of crack use in US inner cities during the early 1980s to cocaine sales in Los Angeles by members of Nicaraguan contra groups. On Oct. 21 the New York Times ran a similar debunking piece by former Times Mexico correspondent Tim Golden. The articles follow an Oct. 4 effort by the Washington Post to deny the Mercury News story, which stressed that the contra groups had been formed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see Updates #343, 349]. A left-liberal weekly, The Nation, has also cast doubt on the story. An editorial by Washington editor David Corn in the Nov. 18 issue says that the Mercury News "went too far." Both "debunking and conspiracy-hawking distract from the real scandal: the warped priorities of Washington." The three mainstream dailies attack the Mercury News series by questioning the journalistic integrity of its main author, Gary Webb, by pointing to the lack of irrefutable evidence of CIA involvement, and by denying that the Los Angeles crack operation- -through South Central dealer Ricky Ross ("Freeway Rick")--was big enough to contribute to the crack epidemic. In response, the DC-based investigative biweekly CounterPunch questions the journalistic credentials of one of the Post's reporters, national security specialist Walter Pincus, who wrote in 1968 that the CIA had once offered him a job after sponsoring several trips he took to conferences in Vienna, Accra and New Delhi. [CounterPunch 10/16/96] Jack Blum--an adviser to the Senate sub-committee headed by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) that investigated the contra-cocaine connection from 1987 to 1989--confirms that the US government knew about the drug operations. "The truth is that the politicians closed their eyes," Blum testified to a Senate subcommittee on Oct. 23 of this year. "We knew about the connection between the cocaine trade on the West Coast and the contras." [LJ 10/24/96, quotation retranslated from Spanish] On Oct. 31, the Post itself ran an article--co-authored by Pincus--citing ex-contra representative Adolfo Chamorro, who says that in the summer of 1984 his CIA contact approved a deal for funding Eden Pastora's Costa Rica- based contra operation through indicted Colombian drug dealer George Morales. "I called our contact at the CIA, of course I did," Chamorro says. "They said [Morales] was fine." [WP 10/31/96] While some now dismiss the extent of Ricky Ross' crack operation, Joel Bleifuss of the weekly In These Times notes that the Mercury News was not the first paper to blame Ross for the crack epidemic. "If there was an eye to the storm," the Los Angeles Times wrote on Dec. 20, 1994, "if there was a criminal mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass-marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick...a favorite son of the Colombian cartels... [H]is coast-to-coast conglomerate was selling more than 500,000 rocks a day, a staggering turnover that put the drug within reach of anyone with a few dollars." [ITT 10/28/96] On Nov. 4 the CIA filed two documents with a US District Court in San Diego in relation to the scheduled Nov. 19 sentencing of Ross, who was convicted on drug charges last March. The documents say that internal CIA record searches conducted in 1986 and again this year showed no relation between the CIA and the Los Angeles cocaine operation. [WP 11/9/96] In related news, on Nov. 8 CIA inspector general Frederick Hitz told the House banking committee that during the early 1980s the CIA had conducted one two-week training session at the airport of the Arkansas town of Mena, and that it had also had contract work done on aviation equipment there. But he denied any CIA connection to drug or arms smuggling alleged to have occurred at Mena during the period, when US president Bill Clinton was state governor. Hitz also denied any CIA contact with drug smuggler Barry Seal except for one well-publicized incident in 1984 when Seal was sent to Nicaragua in an attempt to implicate the government, then controlled by the leftist Sandinistas, in cocaine trafficking. [WP 11/9/96] The repeated denials seem not to have affected widespread acceptance of the Mercury News thesis. At one point nearly 100,000 people a day were visiting the paper's Web site. [CounterPunch 10/16/96] South Central Los Angeles representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) draws crowds at campuses when she talks to students about the story. "We need town hall meetings," she tells them. "We need sororities and fraternities to hold some meetings. I want you to come alive on this." [WP 10/25/96] The left-leaning Mexican daily La Jornada notes that "the striking thing in all this is that the history of the secret US war in Central America, which many politicians...considered dead and buried, has been brought back to life, but this time the focus is not on its consequences in Latin America but [on its consequences] in the US." [LJ 10/24/96] [The Mercury News Web site can be accessed through the Weekly News Update home page, listed below. Reprints of the series can be ordered from the Mercury News at 408-920- 5999.] *10. PANAMA PAYS US INVASION VICTIMS, AND NORIEGA TOO... On Oct. 31, the Panamanian government paid over $1.6 million in compensation to some 3,508 families whose relatives were killed or whose property was destroyed during the US invasion of Panama on Dec. 20, 1989. Deputy Housing Minister Rogelio Paredes said this was the second payment made to those who were living in the Chorrillo neighborhood when US troops attacked the nearby headquarters of the now-defunct Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF). The first payment of about the same amount was made last December; two more payments are due to be made, for a total sum of $2,000 to each family. The money used for the payments comes from taxes charged by the government on video games. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 11/1/96 from ACAN-EFE] Meanwhile, Panamanian Social Security Fund (CSS) director Marianela Morales announced on Nov. 5 that former PDF chief and ex-dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega will begin to collect $1,500 a month in special pension payments from the Panamanian government for his service in the military. Noriega was ousted in the 1989 US invasion and is currently serving a prison sentence in the US for drug trafficking. "The pension system in Panama has no restrictions on whether someone has behaved well or badly, it only requires that you fulfill your years of service," explained Morales. [La Nacion 11/6/96 from ACAN-EFE] *11. CUBA HIT WITH PILOT COMPENSATION, ANTI-TERRORISM LAWSUIT On Oct. 24, the US government paid out $300,000 in compensation from a special Cuban government escrow fund to each of the families of four pilots who were killed on Feb. 24 of this year when Cuban air force jets shot down two Cessnas of the Florida- based rightwing group Brothers to the Rescue. Citing a State Department spokesperson who asked not to be identified, the Miami Herald reported on Nov. 9 that the funds were dispersed as a "humanitarian gesture" by Washington from the Cuban government's frozen accounts in US banks. Eva Barbas, mother of pilot Pablo Morales, told the Miami Herald that she had received the compensation check, dated Oct. 24. Frank Angones, lawyer for the families of Mario de la Pena, Carlos Costa and Armando Alejandre, said he could neither confirm nor deny reports that his clients had received the compensation payments. "The families have no comment," said Angones. "We're referring all calls to Washington." [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 11/9/96; El Diario-La Prensa 11/10/96] On Oct. 31, the Costa, Alejandre and de la Pena families brought three separate lawsuits for wrongful death in a US federal court in Miami against the Cuban government and the Cuban Air Force for shooting down the planes. Morales' family did not join the lawsuit against Cuba because Morales was not a US citizen and his mother did not reside in US territory when the planes were shot down. [El Nuevo Herald 11/9/96] The lawsuits were brought under the provisions of the US anti-terrorism law enacted on Apr. 19 on this year [see Update #326]. The law authorizes civil lawsuits against any foreign government which has committed a crime in violation of international law and which the US government determines to be supporting terrorism. [Diario Las Americas 11/1/96, 11/2/96] [Cuba is included on the US State Department's list of countries that sponsor international terrorism--see Update #327.] Relatives of Costa and Alejandre traveled on Nov. 8 to Rome, hoping to meet with Pope John Paul II before his planned meeting with Cuban president Fidel Castro. De la Pena's relatives, Miriam and Mario de la Pena, were to travel to Chile to discuss the shootdown of the planes during Castro's visit there for the Ibero-American Summit. [El Nuevo Herald 11/9/96] *12. IN OTHER NEWS... The conservative US magazine Business Week reports that the US- based Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) has mailed out 25,000 copies of a glossy "Sweat Gear" catalog, a parody of mail-order catalogs which highlights the low pay and bad working conditions in Salvadoran maquiladoras that produce apparel for the US market. The catalog promises that the garments are "pre-sweated right on the factory floor," with "maximum sacrifice from our workers...going to the bathroom only twice a day, continuing to work even when fatally ill." According to Business Week, the American Apparel Manufacturers Association says El Salvador has tougher labor laws than the US and proportionately more inspectors. [Business Week 11/18/96] [Contributions to the CISPES Worker Rights Campaign can be sent to Box 1801, New York, NY 10159.] END For New York area events, check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/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. 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