WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
                ISSUE #356, NOVEMBER 24, 1996
       NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
     339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499

1. Unionists Black Out Haitian Capital
2. Public Workers Strike in Venezuela
3. Panama President Pulls a "PATCO"
4. Nicaraguan Rightist Finally Wins, Seeks Accord
5. Mexican Rulers Scuttle Reform After Electoral Setback
6. Mexican Police Kill Three at Campesino Roadblock
7. Mexico: PEMEX Explosion, Output Up, New Rebels
8. Bolivians Protest New Pension Law
9. Honduras: Evicted Campesinos Finally Relocate
10. Paraguay: Ruling Party Loses Capital in Municipal Vote
11. Argentine Unionists Shoot it Up at Street Protest
12. Peru: Army Officers Charged in TV Station Bombing
13. CIA Drugs: Venezuelan Indicted in "Regrettable Incident"
14. In Other News: Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico & Cuba
 
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*1. UNIONISTS BLACK OUT HAITIAN CAPITAL

Parts of Port-au-Prince were without electricity Nov. 11-12 when
workers from the state-owned electric company, Electricite
d'Haiti (EDH), shut down several turbines. Four workers were
arrested for sabotage, and police occupied two EDH plants. The
union has been fighting plans to privatize EDH; tensions rose
late last month as about three dozen workers were fired or laid
off and the government began investigating the union for
corruption. Tensions are also high at Teleco, the phone company,
another of the nine state enterprises slated for privatization.
On Oct. 8 Teleco engineer Jean-Robert Bosse accused the company
and its director, Jean Jaunasse Elysee, of losing some $12
million in revenues through corruption and mismanagement of deals
with the US firm MCI. Bosse was fired, but on Oct. 25 Elysee
billed MCI for $2.85 million he said the US company owed Teleco
for calls made by UN troops over the past year. Bosse said the
other $9 million was lost by Elysee's predecessor, Paul Lacombe,
now a consultant for Teleco. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #26, 11/16/96;
Haiti Progres (NY) 11/20-26/96]
 
Supporters of President Rene Preval's left-populist government
seemed especially upset by the EDH strike. "[Former US president]
Ronald Reagan is very popular this week in the Haitian capital;
everyone says that during the air controllers' strike in the US
in 1981 he didn't beat around the bush," writes the pro-
government Miami-based Haitian weekly Haiti en Marche. "He fired
them all on the spot." [HEM 11/20-26/96] In another indication of
his government's sense of insecurity, on Nov. 13 Preval formally
requested the UN to keep its troops in Haiti for another eight
months. [Haiti Info 11/16/96; HP 11/20-26/96] Meanwhile, Haitians
continue to flee the ongoing economic crisis. On Nov. 2 a group
of 279 Haitians left in a motorized sailboat and then apparently
disappeared in bad weather. They landed in eastern Cuba on Nov.
6. One 2-year old girl died of dehydration and malnutrition
despite efforts by Cuban doctors to save her life. The other
Haitian boat people are being housed in a refugee camp at Maisi
in eastern Cuba. [Washington Post 11/23/96]
 
*2. PUBLIC WORKERS STRIKE IN VENEZUELA

Tens of thousands of public employees in Venezuela began a four-
day national general strike on Nov. 19 to demand payment of a 25%
salary increase and transportation and food subsidies decreed by
the government for public employees last April. The subsidies
were supposed to be paid on Nov. 15, and the government is
blaming Congress for the delay. Spokespeople from the Unitary
Federation of Public Employees (FEDEUNEP) said that 98% of the
public employees were taking part in the strike. Public employees
in Venezuela earn monthly salaries that range from about $98 to
about $277; the cost of feeding a family of five in Venezuela is
calculated at around $258. A number of public employees banged on
pots and pans and used other noisemakers in a lively
demonstration in front of the Finance Ministry in Caracas on Nov.
22, while others maintained their occupations of public buildings
in the capital. Demonstrations were also held in the other state
capitals. More actions are planned for the week of Nov. 25 if the
subsidies remain unpaid. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 11/20/96 from
AP; El Universal (Caracas) 11/23/96] 
 
In other news, violence broke out in Venezuela when street
vendors resisted police attempts to evict them from the community
of Petare, a heavily populated area in the heart of Sucre, one of
the five municipalities that make up the Caracas metropolitan
area. Sucre mayor Raul Bermudez recently issued a decree banning
"informal commerce." [Diario Las Americas (Miami) 11/12/96 from
AFP]
 
*3. PANAMA PRESIDENT PULLS A "PATCO"

Panamanian president Ernesto Perez Balladares has declared
illegal a strike by the country's 94 air traffic controllers and
has warned that any controllers who strike will be fired and
"will never get their jobs back." The controllers began an open-
ended strike on Nov. 19, to demand a law regulating their
profession and increasing their salaries beginning in 1997. Perez
denied that the controllers had been thrown out of the control
towers, even though the eviction was shown on local television
and was admitted by Jose Isaz, security chief of Tocumen
International Airport. Perez said the controllers were trying to
"occupy their posts without working, so that no one could replace
them," and he warned that anyone participating in this sitdown
action would likewise be permanently dismissed. According to
Perez, the strike will cause problems of flight cancellations at
the airport for "two or three days," but emphasized that
replacements would be found because "fortunately, no one is
irreplaceable." Claudio Dutary, vice president of the Panamanian
Association of Air Traffic Controllers (APACTA), said that the
government will bring 10 air traffic controllers from the US to
replace the strikers. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/20/96 from Notimex]
 
On Nov. 19, the government fired 43 controllers. Starting on the
morning of Nov. 20, ten controllers from the US company
Westinghouse took over operation of the radar systems, while the
control towers remained in the hands of workers who were not
participating in the strike. Many airlines resumed their service
at the aiport on Nov. 20, while some waited until the next day.
"For us, the strike no longer exists," said Eustacio Fabrega,
director of the government's civil aeronautics office. [ED-LP
11/21/96 from AP]
 
On Nov. 21 some 60 air controllers held a peaceful protest march
to press their demands. The Commercial Air Pilots Union announced
that it would discuss the air controllers strike at its general
assembly on Nov. 22. The union representing pilots of the Panama
Canal also expressed concern over the government's decision to
fire the striking controllers. Meanwhile, the Civil Aeronautics
School announced that it has already chosen 20 applicants to
begin training in radar control next January, as soon as the US
instructors arrive. And the public prosecutor's office is
planning to bring criminal charges against the strikers for
attacking "collective security" with their job action. [La Prensa
(Panama) 11/22/96] 
 
*4. NICARAGUAN RIGHTIST FINALLY WINS, SEEKS ACCORD

On Nov. 22 Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) officially
declared former Managua mayor Arnoldo Aleman of the rightwing
Liberal Alliance the winner in the Oct. 20 presidential elections
over Daniel Ortega Saavedra of the leftist Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN). The formal declaration of a victor was
delayed while the CSE considered a request from the FSLN to void
the vote in Managua and Matagalpa departments because of
irregularities and possible fraud. The FSLN won 37 seats in the
93-member National Assembly and about 50 of the country's 145
municipalities. Shortly after the official proclamation, Aleman
said that he would seek a political agreement with the FSLN if it
accepted the elections as legitimate. "I'm going to call
Commander Ortega so that we can make an accord together to bring
this country out of the enormous poverty in which it finds
itself... Once Don Daniel [Ortega] recognizes our victory, I'll
call him..." Aleman, who is to be inaugurated on Jan. 10, said
that without an accord between all sectors, "no economic program
we might have is going to work." [El Diario-La Prensa 11/23/96
from Notimex]
 
During his campaign Aleman had rejected any possibility of an
accord with the FSLN if he won, although he moderated his
confrontational approach in the last weeks. In August he refused
to sign a "Minimum National Agenda" agreed to by all the other 21
presidential candidates. "I already have my own agenda," he said
at the time. [La Jornada (Mexico) 10/20/96] Meanwhile, Aleman's
Liberal Alliance coalition is starting to unravel, with the
National Liberal Party (PLN) withdrawing its two representatives
from the Alliance's political coordinating committee. Aleman has
become "arrogant," PLN representative Enrique Sanchez Herdocia
said, "forgetting who helped him win the elections." The FSLN is
having its own quarrels, with Managua mayoral candidate Carlos
Guadamuz claiming that the FSLN National Directorate sabotaged
his campaign and encouraged people to vote for former tourism
minister Herty Lewites, an independent allied with the Sandinista
Renewal Movement (MRS), which split from the FSLN last year.
Guadamuz, who heads the Sandinista radio station Radio Ya, came
in third in the official returns; Lewites came in fourth. [Report
from Managua by Toby Mailman, 11/20/96]
 
*5. MEXICAN RULERS SCUTTLE REFORM AFTER ELECTORAL SETBACK

Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) continued
a pattern of losing ground to the opposition when the party faced
voters on Nov. 10 in the northern state of Coahuila and the
central states of Hidalgo and Mexico. Falling short of a
majority, the PRI won 45.9% of the total popular vote in the
three states, according to preliminary figures on Nov. 11 with
93% of the vote counted. The two main opposition parties split
the majority, with 32.5% going to the conservative National
Action Party (PAN) and 21.47% to the center-left Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD). The PRI won 176 of the 244 municipal
races but lost the three largest cities in Coahuila to the PAN.
The conservatives took a total of 33 municipalities in the three
states, while the PRD won 32. Voter turnout was low, as is usual
in local Mexican races: about 3 million voted out of 8 million
registered voters. [La Jornada 11/12/96; Washington Post
11/13/96]
 
Campaigning was especially intense in Mexico state, where the PRI
spent about $8.85 million, the PAN $3.8 million and the PRD
$885,000. Nearly half of the state's 11 million residents live in
the industrial suburbs around the federal capital district, and
the parties were studying the Nov. 10 vote for signs of how
Mexico City will vote next July 6 when the city elects a mayor
for the first time since its founding by the Aztecs more than 600
years ago. Nationwide elections for the federal congress will
also take place next July. [LJ 11/10/96] Preliminary counts
showed the ruling party winning 72 of Mexico state's 122
municipalities--down from 108 in the 1993 elections--with 25
going to the PRD, 23 to the PAN and one to the Ecologist Green
Party (one race remained in dispute). The PRI lost in most of the
largest municipalities, although it held on to the state capital,
Toluca, and Ecatepec, a Mexico City suburb. The PAN took most of
the other major Mexico City suburbs, including Tlalnepantla,
Naucalpan and Cuautitlan de Romero Rubio. The PRD won
Nezahualcoyotl, a large working-class city just east of the
Mexican capital. The PRD also won a number of smaller
municipalities in the state's rural southwest, a region close to
and similar to the impoverished western states of Guerrero and
Michoacan. The PRI won 30 seats in the state legislature, to 22
for the PAN and 18 for the PRD, giving left and right a potential
majority when they agree to oppose the ruling party.
 
When the new mayors take office on Jan. 1, 3.3 million of the
state's inhabitants will be in PAN municipalities, while 2.33
million will be in towns governed by the PRD. Party national
president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and other leaders say
Nezahualcoyotl will be an "ordeal by fire" for the seven-year old
PRD, which has generally tended to win in small rural
municipalities. The PRD promises "honesty, administrative
efficiency and social participation" by all sectors, in contrast
to the top-down styles of the PRI and the PAN. [LJ 11/13/96,
11/15/96] Lopez Obrador also provoked some laughter and
controversy in a Nov. 16 address when he cautioned newly elected
PRD mayors from several states to avoid corruption and
extramarital affairs. Guerrero senator Felix Salgado Macedonio
told reporters that "democratic revolution isn't incompatible
with love," while Lazaro Mazon Alonso, the new mayor of Iguala,
Guerrero, noted that he was single and that in his city "there
may be a new first lady every month." [LJ 11/17/96, 11/18/96]
 
The PRI responded to its losses by abruptly backing out of 17
points in an electoral reform agreement worked out during 22
months of negotiation between all the major parties. PRI
legislators in the federal Chamber of Deputies dropped
provisions--included in reform legislation that Mexican president
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon sent to Congress on Oct. 31--to
tighten limits on campaign spending and to ease restrictions on
coalition candidacies. PRI deputies passed the diluted reform
bill on Nov. 15 by 282-142. All opposition deputies voted against
the bill, which still has to be approved by the Senate, and all
but one of the PRI legislators backed it. After he spoke against
the bill from the podium, dissenting PRI deputy Alejandro Rojas
Diaz Duran found that his chair had been moved into the PRD
section by three PRI colleagues--including Deputy Eugenia Mendez,
known to Mexican legislators as "the queen of the Bronx cheer."
[Reuter 11/15/96; LJ 11/96]
 
"It will not surprise me if next week there's another action by
the EPR, claiming that there is no option left but armed
struggle," said Sergio Aguayo, head of the Civic Alliance
election-monitoring group. He was referring to the Revolutionary
Popular Army, a guerrilla organization that emerged last June.
"And they have a point," he added. [WP 11/16/96]
 
*6. MEXICAN POLICE KILL THREE AT CAMPESINO ROADBLOCK

On Nov. 9 Mexican Army units and agents of state judicial and
public safety police attacked a group of about 1,000 campesinos
blocking a highway in the southeastern state of Chiapas. Three
campesinos were shot dead in the operation and many more were
wounded or injured by tear gas. Early in the morning hundreds of
police arrived at a section of the Venustiano Carranza-Tuxtla
Gutierrez highway being blocked by residents of Laja Tendida,
Venustiano Carranza municipality, to demand higher prices for
corn. Agents flew two helicopters over the protesters, dropping
tear gas grenades, taunting the campesinos and telling the
police: "Give it to them, advance and let them know who they're
dealing with." The agents then beat and shot at the campesinos,
who belong to the Chiapas Corn Producers Council, a statewide
organization including members both of the PRI and the PRD.
"Look, they left her without a father," Uvelinda Robles, the
widow of one of the victims, told reporters afterwards, pointing
to the couple's month-old daughter. "They left her without food,
they left her without a future, they left her alone without
anything." The state government charges that the protesters were
vandalizing the cars of motorists who tried to use the highway.
[LJ 11/10/96]
 
On Nov. 12 representatives of the Chiapas-based rebel Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN) warned that the level of violence
by the Chiapas state government is endangering the group's peace
talks with federal negotiators. "Any problem that we would want
to fix, the [state] government will always respond with that
violence," "Commander David" said, referring to the Laja Tendida
incident and the kidnapping of a human rights worker and his
family the week before [see Update #354]. "We believe it is no
longer possible to continue [the talks] in Chiapas... Maybe we
will have to move to the capital, maybe to the White House, maybe
to Europe..." [Associated Press 11/13/96]
 
*7. MEXICO: PEMEX EXPLOSION, OUTPUT UP, NEW REBELS

A huge fire broke out on Nov. 11 at the Petroleos Mexicanos
(PEMEX) plant in San Juan Ixhuatepec, also called San Juanico, a
suburb just north of Mexico City in the Federal District (DF)
near Mexico state. Three PEMEX workers and one fire fighter were
killed; more than a thousand soldiers, police and fire fighters
from two states and the DF fought for two days to contain the
fire in three huge petroleum tanks. The smoke rose a kilometer in
the air; it could be seen from the center of Mexico City and
added to the capital's severe air pollution problems. In 1984
more than 500 San Juanico residents were killed in a similar
PEMEX explosion. [Mexican Labor News and Analysis, Vol. 1, #21,
11/16/96]
 
On Nov. 21 the Finance Secretariat reported that the real Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) rose 7.4% in the third quarter over the
same quarter in 1995. This was the largest quarterly increase
since 1981 and topped government predictions by half a percentage
point. The growth was led by a 24.9% jump in the construction
sector, much of it from government energy projects. But growth
remained slow in the consumer sector. "This is still a tale of
two economies," HSBC James Capel Research Mexico chief economist
Gray Newman told the Wall Street Journal. "If you spoke with the
average Mexican and told them they have just lived through the
strongest growth in their adult life, they certainly wouldn't
believe you." [New York Times 11/21/96 from Bloomberg Business
News; WSJ 11/22/96] Meanwhile, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) economics professor Rudiger Dornbusch is warning
that the peso is overvalued. "You'd think that the 1994 economic
crisis would have taught Mexican policy makers a lesson," he
writes, but "the same strategy that led to that disaster is being
used again." [Business Week 11/25/96] Dornbusch is one of the few
mainstream US economists who saw weaknesses in the peso before it
melted down in December 1994, setting off the current recession
in Mexico.
 
On Nov. 20, the anniversary of the start of the 1910 Mexican
Revolution, a seven-page document was sent to the media
announcing the existence of a new rebel group, the Revolutionary
Army of Popular Insurgence (ERIP). The group's "Declaration of
the North" praises the EZLN and EPR for "their heroic exploits in
favor of the marginalized social classes," and says the ERIP will
fight in the country's northern and central regions. A week
earlier EZLN leader "Subcommander Marcos" had warned: "There are
three or four armed groups that the government does not want to
recognize in [the states of] Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Veracruz and
Puebla." [Reuter 11/21/96; El Diario-La Prensa 11/24/96 from EFE]
 
*8. BOLIVIANS PROTEST NEW PENSION LAW

A week of marches, demonstrations, work stoppages and hunger
strikes in Bolivia to protest changes to the country's pension
system culminated on Nov. 22 with a 24-hour general strike.
Workers, doctors, pensioners, journalists and small business
owners all took part in the protests against a social security
reform law which would replace the country's existing
"Complementary Fund" pension system with a plan of privately-
owned "Pension Fund Administrators" (AFPs), or individual savings
accounts. The proposed law is being discussed in the House of
Deputies but is expected to be passed soon. [El Diario-La Prensa
11/19/96 from Notimex, 11/22/96 from EFE; Bolivian Ministry of
Social Communications (MCS) summary of morning media 11/20/96,
11/21/96, evening media 11/22/96]  Some 4,000 people took part in
a demonstration in La Paz on Nov. 12 after the Senate approved
the pension reform law. [Diario Las Americas 11/14/96 from EFE] 
 
The Bolivian Workers Central (COB) called a series of scaled work
stoppages against the social security reform, starting on Nov. 18
with a strike by doctors and health workers. Nov. 19 brought a
work stoppage by producers; teachers and university staff struck
on Nov. 20; and merchants closed up shop on Nov. 21. As of Nov.
22, at least 338 people had joined a national hunger strike which
had been started the previous week by union leaders from the
manufacturing and mining sectors. [ED-LP 11/19/96 from Notimex,
11/22/96 from EFE; MCS summary of morning media 11/14/96,
11/15/96, 11/21/96, evening media 11/14/96, 11/22/96] On Nov. 20,
all remaining pension funds held in the current system were
formally frozen by order of the Bank Superintendency; most had
already been frozen the previous week. Also on Nov 20, a group of
pensioners occupied the offices of the Ministry of Capitalization
(Privatization) and insulted Capitalization Minister Alfonso
Revollo, demanding his resignation. The COB said it will sue the
government for freezing the pension accounts. [MCS morning media
summary 11/21/96] 
 
On Nov. 21 the Catholic Church postponed a planned meeting with
COB leaders after a group of workers began a hunger strike at the
offices of the La Paz Episcopal Conference. The Episcopal
Conference, which groups 28 bishops, was in the midst of its
national meeting in the city of Cochabamba; the bishops were
planning to meet with the COB delegation before issuing a message
to the country about the current social, political and economic
situation. [ED-LP 11/22/96 from EFE]
 
During the Nov. 22 general strike, a march by workers, pensioners
and bondholders in La Paz completely blocked off the downtown
area; protesters from the nearby suburb of El Alto marched to
join the demonstrations in La Paz. Similar protests were held in
other cities, including Sucre and Potosi; in Potosi 90% of the
population took part in a civic strike, accompanied by a huge
march in the morning and a 10-hour vigil in the central plaza.
[MCS evening media summary 11/22/96]
 
*9. HONDURAS: EVICTED CAMPESINOS FINALLY RELOCATE

On Nov. 4, 123 campesino families of the Tacamiche community in
Honduras began moving to their new homes in El Porvenir, San
Manuel municipality, Cortes department, after signing a
definitive accord with the Honduran Fund for Social Investment
(FHIS). FHIS minister Manuel Zelaya met on the night of Nov. 1
with the entire group of Tacamiche residents at the Sula social
club in La Lima, Cortes, where the 123 families have been camped
out on a dance floor for the past nine months since they were
evicted from their homes last Feb. 4 by Tela Railroad Company,
the Honduran subsidiary of US banana company Chiquita Brands
International [see Updates #314, 315]. At 10 am on Nov. 4, the
accord was signed at the new community in San Manuel by the
Tacamiche campesino leaders, San Manuel mayor Adonilo Palma and
the FHIS director. The accord stipulates the funding of several
public works projects authorized by President Carlos Roberto
Reina and scheduled to begin immediately. The public works
include completion of the last 30 of 123 houses, the installation
of electricity, and extension of the sewer and drinking water
systems. The first stage of the sewer and drinking water systems
is already complete. A school with six classrooms and a local
health center have also been finished. [National Human Rights
Commission of Honduras Informative Bulletin 11/4/96; Diario Las
Americas 11/6/96 from AFP]
 
*10. PARAGUAY: RULING PARTY LOSES CAPITAL IN MUNICIPAL VOTE

In municipal elections held on Nov. 17 in Paraguay, the ruling
National Republican Association (ANR), or Colorado Party,
associated with ex-dictator Alfredo Stroessner, lost control of
the capital, Asuncion, but retained 73% of the municipalities in
the rest of the country, and 12 of the 17 departmental capitals.
Voter turnout was extremely high, about 91%, and nationally the
ANR won 51% of the vote. Martin Burt of the opposition Authentic
Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), who ran on an alliance ticket with
the National Encounter Party (PEN), won the Asuncion mayoral post
with 52.8% of the vote, defeating Colorado candidate Angel
Barchini, who got 43.9%. The PLRA nearly doubled its number of
municipalities from the 45 it has controlled since 1991, when the
country's first democratic elections were held; among its
victories this year are the departmental capitals Concepcion, San
Pedro, and Pedro Juan Caballero. The PLRA did best in the capital
district and the adjoining Central Department, winning ten of the
19 municipalities that make up the Asuncion metropolitan area,
while the ANR won the other nine. The ANR is concerned about the
gains made by the opposition, and is taking a hard look at its
own campaign strategy in preparation for the 1998 presidential
elections. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/24/96 from AP, AFP; ABC Color
(Asuncion) 11/24/96]
 
*11. ARGENTINE UNIONISTS SHOOT IT UP AT STREET PROTEST

On Nov. 20, some 2,000 members of the Argentine General Workers
Confederation (CGT) held a demonstration outside the National
Customs Administration (ANA) building in Buenos Aires to protest
a corruption scandal involving that institution, and to express
anger at the government's economic policy and at a labor
"flexibilization" plan. CGT leader Rodolfo Daer was at the march,
as were the main leaders of the dissident Argentine Workers
Movement (MTA), Juan Palacios and Hugo Moyano, and Customs Union
leader Carlos Sueiro. A clash between members of the militant
truck drivers union and the pro-dialogue construction workers
union turned the demonstration into a gun battle which left at
least ten people injured, one of them by gunfire. Thousands of
people gathered the same day at a demonstration in front of the
National Congress, called by the opposition Argentine Workers
Confederation (CTA), which also urged workers, unemployed people
and pensioners "to organize now against the coming [labor]
flexibilization." [Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 11/21/96
from DYN; El Diario-La Prensa 11/22/96 from AFP; Diario Las
Americas 11/22/96 from AFP]
 
On Nov. 21, Daer publicly apologized to the Argentine people for
the gunfight at the CGT march. Speaking at a forum of business
executives, President Carlos Saul Menem blasted union leadership
for not being able to contain the violence at the demonstration.
[ED-LP 11/22/96 from AFP] Menem is now saying he will wait until
the end of this year before instituting the labor flexibilization
plan by decree. Daer warns that if the decree is issued, "there
will be a permanent fight" over it, though the CGT leadership
seems not inclined toward calling an open-ended general strike,
which some unionists are promoting. [Diario Los Andes 11/20/96
from DYN]
 
*12. PERU: ARMY OFFICERS CHARGED IN TV STATION BOMBING

Gen. Enrique Delgado Velasquez, chief of an infantry division in
southern Peru, has been arrested and tried in a military court
for attempting to cover up for three soldiers under his command
who dynamited the offices of Global Television, it was reported
on Nov. 21. A military source said that Delgado was fired,
arrested and transferred to Lima, where he was held in a military
installation. Replacing him in his post was Gen. Walter Chacon
Guzman. The attack against Global TV and Radio Samoa de Puno took
place on Oct. 17; initially it was blamed on leftist rebels, but
the police later proved it was carried out by three non-
commissioned officers from the headquarters of the army's 4th
Infantry Division at Manco Capac, in Puno. After they were
captured, Angel Sauni, Luis Barrantes and Javier Urquizo admitted
to having planned the attack. Also charged in the case is a
commander with the last name Quiquia, chief of intelligence in
Puno. 
 
Speaking before the Congress, Interior Minister Juan Briones said
the three officers carried out the attack on their own
initiative, contracted by an adviser of the Puno regional
government, Guido Mendoza, who is now a fugitive. Opposition
forces in the legislature are charging that the attack was part
of an intelligence plan to silence the press in Peru. Leftist
legislator Javier Diez Canseco suggested that the attack was
specifically targeting the TV news program "La Clave de Global"
of journalist Cesar Hildebrandt. The show is known for its
independence and for its critical stance toward the government,
particularly toward intelligence adviser Vladimiro Montesinos.
[El Diario-La Prensa 11/22/96 from AFP; Caretas #1441, 11/21/96]
 
Canseco's charges were echoed by columnist Fernando Rospigliosi
in the Nov. 21 edition of the weekly magazine Caretas.
Rospigliosi remarked that Hildebrandt's daily program has "the
most radical position of criticism against the government on
Peruvian TV," and pointed out that while the show started out
with low ratings, its popularity soared when it covered a scandal
involving charges that Montesinos was linked to drug trafficking
[see Update #343, 345]. Rospigliosi noted that the government of
President Alberto Fujimori has always concentrated on controlling
the television media, while tolerating more criticism from the
print media.
 
According to Rospigliosi, the three non-commissioned officers
used dynamite they got from the army headquarters to carry out
the attack. Rospigliosi reports that Sauni and Barrantes were
both intelligence officers working as undercover agents within
the civilian regional government, and says it has been proven
that Sauni is a member of the notorious Colina paramilitary
group. The Colina group is an army death squad which has been
linked to a number of murders [see Update #261], including the
July 1992 disappearance and murder of nine students and a
professor from La Cantuta University. [Caretas 11/21/96]
 
The latest scandal comes at a time when the Fujimori government's
popularity has been slipping. A recent poll by the firm Analistas
y Consultores shows Fujimori with a 48.5% approval rating, a
considerable drop from the 62.5% approval he had at the beginning
of the year. [Diario Las Americas 11/19/96 from AFP] While 48.5%
is still a reasonably high approval rating, Fujimori's policies
are less popular. Citing a poll taken between Nov. 1 and 4 by the
Imasen firm, the daily La Republica indicated that 55% of
Peruvians disagree with the policy of privatization, and only
36.3% approve of it, while 65.7% support a referendum on
reelection that Fujimori sought to defeat [see Update #353];
51.6% believe the government has not shown enough interest in
investigating corruption charges. [ED-LP 11/17/96 from La
Republica]
 
*13. CIA DRUGS: VENEZUELAN INDICTED IN "REGRETTABLE INCIDENT"

On Nov. 20 a US federal judge in San Diego gave Los Angeles crack
dealer Ricky Ross ("Freeway Rick") a life sentence for buying 220
pounds of cocaine in 1994 from Oscar Danilo Blandon, a Nicaraguan
informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The
life sentence is mandatory under federal guidelines because of
Ross's two prior convictions, but the defense had tried to fight
it after newspaper reports indicated that Ross had first entered
crack sales through an operation Blandon was running in the early
1980s to fund the Nicaraguan contras, who were sponsored by the
US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see Updates #343, 349, 354,
355]. The CIA denies that it is linked to contra drug
trafficking, and US district judge Marilyn Huff ruled that "the
conduct of Ross...is not excused by any so-called tenuous ties to
the CIA." [Washington Post 11/21/96]
 
Early in the week of Nov. 18 a Miami grand jury indicted Gen.
Ramon Guillen Davila, former head of a CIA-sponsored anti-drug
unit in the Venezuelan National Guard, in connection with a 1990
incident in which US Customs seized one ton of pure cocaine his
group was shipping into Miami International Airport. On Nov. 19,
1993, just as the CBS program "60 Minutes" was about to broadcast
the results of its own investigation into the affair, the CIA
admitted that it had approved the shipment, despite objections
from the DEA. US official sources indicate that Gen. Guillen and
the Venezuelan National Guard may have shipped a total of 22 tons
of cocaine into the US between 1987 and 1991. Gen. Guillen
insists that his unit only shipped about two tons. "We always
told US authorities," he says. "Nothing could be done without
their authorization. I defend the CIA. I believe the CIA did an
excellent job." [Wall Street Journal 11/22/96; New York Times
11/23/96]
 
In 1993 the CIA claimed the 1990 shipment--which it called "a
regrettable incident"--was made in order to gather intelligence
on drug traffickers. CIA agent Mark McFarlin, who had worked with
counterinsurgency programs in El Salvador, was let go from the
CIA for approving the shipment but never faced criminal charges.
Gen. Guillen's anti-drug unit was set up as part of the same CIA
anti-drug program that established the National Intelligence
Service (SIN) in Haiti. Patrick Elie, drug policy adviser to
former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, charged in 1993
that "all the SIN has done is spying and political repression"
and that the CIA trained SIN agents in "wet operations"
(political assassinations) [see Updates #198, 199].
 
Elie himself has been in preventive detention in Virginia since
April of this year on charges of impersonating a diplomat [see
Updates #327, 331, 342]. Elie accuses Haitian ambassador Jean
Casimir of plotting against current Haitian president Rene
Preval, and says that US officials and representatives of ultra-
conservative senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) have visited him in
prison to ask for his "cooperation" in US investigations
concerning Haiti. Committees have formed in both the US and Haiti
to demand Elie's release pending his trial, which is set for late
January. [Haiti Info Vol. 4, #26, 11/16/96] Former president
Aristide, who was in the US to accept the William Moses Kunstler
Award for Racial Justice, visited Elie in prison on Nov. 19 and
talked with him for nearly two hours. [Haiti Progres 11/20-26/96]
 
*14. IN OTHER NEWS...

At least one person was killed and five injured by police gunfire
during a violent eviction of shantytown residents in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic. Alfredo De Oleo was shot in the
chest; he died at the Dominican Social Security Institute (IDSS)
hospital, according to reports from the hospital and from Ruben
Dario Baez, spokesperson for the evicted residents. Witnesses say
police fired shotguns at the people living on publicly-owned land
in the "El Cafe" neighborhood in southern Santo Domingo, while
residents threw rocks at police. Spokesperson Gustavo Olivo of
the National Properties Department insists his department had
nothing to do with the eviction, and reiterated the government's
policy of formalizing, with easy payments, the situations of
people who have lived for years on government-owned lands.
[Diario Las Americas 11/20/96 from EFE]... An explosion on Nov.
21 in a shoe store in the Rio Piedras shopping district of San
Juan, Puerto Rico, destroyed a six-story building, killing 20
people and injuring 80 others. The explosion may have been
triggered by a gas leak; a full investigation is under way. [El
Diario-La Prensa 11/22/96, 11/24/96 from AFP]... Cuban president
Fidel Castro met with Pope John Paul II for 35 minutes at the
Vatican on Nov. 19. No details of the meeting were revealed, but
the Pope reportedly accepted an invitation from Castro to visit
Cuba--the only Latin American country he has not yet visited--
sometime during 1997, possibly in December. [DLA 11/20/96 from
EFE] Nicaraguan leftist Tomas Borge, founder and deputy general
secretary of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN),
editorialized in the daily Barricada that "this meeting between
the representative of God on Earth and Fidel, representative of
man on earth, is purifying and encouraging." [DLA 11/22/96 from
EFE]
 
END

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