WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #377, APRIL 20, 1997 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Brazilian Landless Reach Capital 2. Nicaraguan Producers Strike, President Backs Off 3. Four Killed in Bolivian Coca Region 4. Police Attack Protesters in Argentina, One Killed 5. Argentina: Solidarity With Neuquen Protesters 6. Peru: Rebel Standoff Continues, Top Officials Resign 7. Peru: Attacks on Press, Agents, Unionists, Campesinos... 8. Free Trade News: "No Sweat" Pact, Runaway Prisons 9. Other News: Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, Honduras, Dominican Rep. 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. To subscribe, send a check or money order for US $25 payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. 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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 full contact information 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 CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/nsnhome.html *1. BRAZILIAN LANDLESS REACH CAPITAL In the largest protest yet against the neoliberal policies of Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, at least 20,000 people demonstrated in Brasilia on Apr. 17 to welcome some 1,500 landless campesinos who had marched 2,000 km for two months from three different cities [see Updates #369, 374]. Organizers said 100,000 participated in the demonstration, while the Buenos Aires daily Clarin reported 40,000 to 60,000; other news sources gave 20,000 or more. The marchers were to meet with President Cardoso on Apr. 18; they plan to camp out in the capital until May 1 to continue their protest. The "March for Agrarian Reform, Jobs and Justice" was organized by the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST); the marchers' arrival in Brasilia marked the first anniversary of the massacre of 19 campesinos by militarized police in Eldorado de Carajas municipality of the northern state of Para on Apr. 17, 1996 [see Update #325]. No arrests have been made in the killings, which were videotaped by a television news team. More than 100 people have been killed in land disputes since Cardoso took office in 1995, promising to give land to 280,000 campesino families during his four-year term. The MST is demanding land for 4.8 million peasants, but presidential spokesperson Sergio Amaral says that Brazilians would have to pay an additional $38 billion in taxes to finance such a sweeping agrarian reform. About half of Brazil's arable land is owned by 2% of its population. [Clarin 4/18/97, 4/19/97; Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 4/18/97 from Reuter; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/18/97 from Notimex; New York Times 4/18/97 from AP; Independent (UK) 4/19/97] The government initially tried to isolate support for the marchers and especially the MST, a leftist grassroots movement which has dramatized its demands by organizing massive occupations of large estates. But as public support grew in the last few weeks of the march, Cardoso began calling the action "positive because it reflects a democratic spirit." [News from Brazil by Servico Brasileiro de Justica e Paz (SEJUP) #269, 4/16/97] Polls now show 85% of the population supporting the MST. [Diario Los Andes 4/18/97 from Reuter] "There will be more and more occupations," MST leader Joao Pedro Stedile said at the Apr. 17 demonstration. "We don't expect the government to carry out [a] proper land reform program as an act of generosity." [Independent 4/19/97] The MST example seems to be spreading. Housing groups are reportedly planning a protest for June 3 involving the occupation of several public areas in many states. "Our objectives are similar [to those of the MST]. The only difference is that they want land to use to plant crops and we [want] land for houses," said Raimundo Bonfim, one of the campaign's coordinators. [SEJUP #268, 4/3/97] In other news, port workers in Santos, Sao Paulo state, went on strike Apr. 15 to protest the seizure by federal police of two ships and the arrest of 25 workers early that morning. Unionists had been occupying the ships since Apr. 2 while contract negotiations were under way. The strike closed down the Santos port, the largest in Latin America, and set off sympathy strikes in ports throughout Brazil. The strikers returned to work on Apr. 18 after a tentative settlement had been reached. [Bulletins 4/17/97, 4/18/97 from http://www.portodesantos.com/sindicatos/] *2. NICARAGUAN PRODUCERS STRIKE, PRESIDENT BACKS OFF Rightwing Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo, who took office on Jan. 10, faced his first major challenge from left and grassroots organizations when agricultural producers began blocking highways on Apr. 14. The National Farmers and Ranchers Union (UNAG) and other producers' groups had called the action the week before to demand an agreement with the government to let them negotiate their debts with the national banking system. The call was quickly endorsed by a number of groups opposing Aleman's neoliberal economic policies, including planned layoffs of 12,000 state workers and a "review" of some 14,000 land titles given out in the agrarian reforms of the two previous administrations. The main opposition party, the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which held power from 1979 to 1990, organized support for the action. The FSLN's talks with the new government on economic issues had been stalled since Mar. 17 [see Updates #373, 376]. [Report by Toby Mailman (Managua) 4/14/97; Reuter 4/15/97] The Nicaraguan Farmworkers Association (ATC) also asked for support from abroad; solidarity statements can be faxed to 505-02-278-0616 or emailed to atcnic@nicarao.apc.org.ni. [ATC Communique 4/13/97] The producers' action started early on Apr. 14 when groups of as many as 300 protesters used paving stones, tree trunks, old buses and burning tires to build barricades at 38 points around the country. Although demonstrators set up barricades in the capital, the main thrust was blocking highways leading into Managua and other cities, principally in the departments of Leon, Matagalpa, Boaco, Esteli, Jinotega and Masaya. The Pan-American Highway was shut off at Sebaco, in Matagalpa department. Thousands of farmworkers, producers, cooperative members, transport workers, small property owners and unemployed workers marched in the cities of Matagalpa and Esteli to support the blockades, which the police said were carried out by less than 5,000 protesters. FSLN general secretary and former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra told reporters the next day that this was the first time in Nicaraguan history that protests in the departments were larger than the ones in the capital. [La Prensa (Honduras) 4/16/97 from ACAN-EFE, 4/17/97 from AFP; Mailman 4/15/97] The magazine Revista Confidencial and other rightwing media warned that the FSLN was planning massive looting and even the overthrow of the government. But both the protesters and the 7,000 police agents deployed to control them generally avoided violence as the police dismantled barricades and the protesters rebuilt them. [Notifax (Managua) 4/14/97; Mailman 4/15/97] A total of 17 injuries had been reported for the entire week as of Apr. 18. [La Jornada (Mexico) 4/19/97 from AFP, EFE, DPA, AP, PL, ANSA] The protests were notably non-partisan. Demonstrators carried Nicaraguan flags rather than the FSLN banner; protesters told observers that they came from a variety of political groups. [Mailman 4/15/97] The producers tightened their blockades on Apr. 15 and 16. Both the FSLN and President Aleman insisted that the only solution was a resumption of talks on the broader issues. But Ortega demanded that international observers join the negotiations, while Aleman set the lifting of the strike as a precondition. [Mailman 4/16/97; Agence France Presse 4/16/97] On Apr. 16 the other Central American presidents, meeting in a "mini-summit" in Guatemala, voiced their support for Aleman, who was unable to attend due to the crisis at home. US ambassador Lino Gutierrez warned that the protests would drive away foreign investment and cause "instability in the whole region." [Notifax 4/17/97] Meanwhile, shortages of food and gasoline began to affect Managua and other cities. On the evening of Apr. 16 Governance Minister Jose Antonio Alvarado announced that the police would intervene to put an end to the unrest. But UNAG threatened another escalation of the strike, which independent economist Juan Jose Medina estimated was already costing the country $1.5 million a day. On Apr. 17 the plan for police action was countermanded and Aleman held a three-hour meeting with Ortega at the president's private home outside Managua. Afterwards Ortega said that Aleman had agreed to send the National Assembly a bill--proposed by the FSLN earlier in the year [see Update #371]--to suspend the evictions of campesinos from disputed property for three months. Ortega said the president had also agreed to honor existing land titles and to limit the layoffs of government employees to 3,000. [Mailman 4/17/97; Reuter 4/17/97; La Prensa (Honduras) 4/18/97 from AFP] Aleman and Ortega met again on Apr. 18, along with government ministers and leaders of the strike. After five hours of talks, the president read a seven-point communique confirming the agreements from the day before and establishing a bilateral group to negotiate the producers' bank debts and five working commissions to discuss other disputed issues. The government also retreated from earlier plans to limit the activities of non- governmental organizations (NGOs). Ortega in turn called on the strikers to end their protest. Asked by the press if he had given in, Aleman said that "for the peace of Nicaragua, I give in with pleasure and satisfaction," but insisted that he had not agreed to a co-government with the FSLN. [LJ 4/19/97 from AFP, EFE, DPA, AP, PL, ANSA] *3. FOUR KILLED IN BOLIVIAN COCA REGION Four people were killed, 24 wounded by bullets and more than 100 arrested on Apr. 17 as campesinos tried to protect their coca crops from eradication by agents of Bolivia's elite anti-drug Mobile Rural Patrol Unit (UMOPAR), the Ecological Police and the government's Coca Reconversion Department (DIRECO) in the area of Eterazama, in the Chapare region. Rural worker Albertina Orellana de Garcia was killed by a bullet fired by an UMOPAR agent, as were two other campesinos. Police agent Jose Laura Nacho was also killed. The campesinos retaliated against the police attacks by burning the local DIRECO offices in Eterazama. The government is blaming "organized drug traffickers" for the violence, and has placed the region under heavy military and police control. Local area residents told the press that during the confrontations, bullets and tear gas were fired on the cocaleros from helicopters. Defense Minister Alfonso Kreidler and cocalero leader Evo Morales met on Apr. 18 in Eterazama to seek a resolution to the crisis in the Chapare, as more than 2,000 campesinos gathered in the surrounding area in a state of alert and vigilance. [Bolivian Ministry of Social Communication (MCS) summaries of morning & evening media 4/18/97; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 4/19/97; El Diario (La Paz) 4/19/97] Miguel Lora, leader of the Federation of Urban Education Workers, said the massacre at Eterazama was carried out by combined forces of UMOPAR and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). [Los Tiempos 4/19/97] An autopsy performed on the bodies of the three campesinos at the Viedma hospital in Cochabamba showed that all three were shot in the back with bullets from M-19 rifles, fired by anti-drug forces shooting from the air. The two unidentified campesinos are thought to be Marcos Herbas y Helio Escobar, both reported as disappeared. [El Diario 4/19/97] The Union Confederation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB) declared Apr. 18 a day of national mourning and announced that the federation's executive committee will take part in a national "selective" hunger strike beginning on Apr. 21 to protest the police repression in the Chapare. CSUTCB also called for occupations of government offices. The populist Homeland Conscience party has asked Congress to compel Governance Minister Victor Hugo Canelas to testify on the Eterazama violence. [Los Tiempos 4/19/97] [Victor Hugo Canelas took over as governance minister after Carlos Sanchez Berzain resigned on Apr. 1 to run for a parliamentary seat in the June 1 general elections. Sanchez Berzain had quit in November in order to be eligible for the presidential candidacy for his party, the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR), but resumed his post after he lost the nomination to ex-Justice Minister Rene Blattman. When Blattman withdrew from the presidential race a few weeks later and resumed his job as justice minister, it was too late for Sanchez Berzain to be eligible for the presidential candidacy under Bolivia's electoral laws [see Updates #360, 364, 368]. [MCS evening media summary 3/31/97, morning media summary 4/1/97]] The Bolivian Workers Central (COB) union federation has sent letters to the International Labor Organization (ILO), Amnesty International, the Andean Commission of Jurists and the Inter- American Human Rights Commission of the Organization of American States (OAS) condemning the police attacks in Eterazama and noting that the government hides itself behind the shield of the war against drug trafficking in order to repress coca growers in the Chapare. [Los Tiempos 4/19/97] Before the massacre took place, Justice Minister Rene Blattman had decided to establish four new human rights offices in Chapare because of the number of complaints received from cocaleros about abuses by UMOPAR troops. [MCS morning summary 4/14/97] Meanwhile, the union federations representing Bolivia's urban and rural teachers announced on Apr. 18 that they will begin an open- ended general strike on May 12 and will renew their street protests to reject the government's salary offer. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/19/97 from Notimex] Health workers began a national general strike on Apr. 1 and stepped up actions to include a hunger strike on Apr. 14. [MCS morning media summary 4/14/97] As of Apr. 17, the health workers strike continued without solution. [MCS morning summary 4/18/97] On Apr. 17, the 45th anniversary of the COB's founding, COB general secretary Edgar Ramirez accused the government and private enterprise of spreading unfounded rumors about a serious internal crisis in the union federation. [MCS evening summary 4/17/97] The COB has called on supporters to boycott the June 1 general elections. [Los Tiempos 4/19/97] *4. POLICE ATTACK PROTESTERS IN ARGENTINA, ONE KILLED A young woman was killed, several people were injured and over 100 demonstrators were arrested on Apr. 12 when agents of the police and the National Gendarmeria cracked down on demonstrations in the adjoining cities of Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul in the western Argentine province of Neuquen, where a strike started by teachers on Mar. 10 has sparked a broad provincial protest movement with national support [see Update #375]. Television footage of the Apr. 12 incidents showed police handcuffing children and violently shoving them into police trucks. Some of those arrested were between 10 and 14 years old. Police also threw tear gas canisters into homes, and entered homes and arrested and beat local residents. Barricades set up by protesters on national Route 22 have cut off access since Apr. 9 to Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul, and to the petrochemical plants of the Argentine oil company YPF. The area was once considered a model of petrochemical development but is now suffering the worst unemployment in its history since YPF was privatized and 4,000 of its workers laid off. Neuquen governor Felipe Sapag blames the federal government economic policies for his province's unemployment crisis. [La Jornada 4/13/97; Diario Los Andes 4/15/97 from DYN; Clarin 4/19/97] The protesters have a list of more than 30 demands, including tax exemptions to allow the relocation of industry in the area, and the creation of a historic reparations fund for Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul. [Diario Los Andes 4/17/97 from DYN] Thousands attended the funeral on Apr. 14 for Teresa Rodriguez, the young woman killed by a police bullet on Apr. 12 in Cutral- Co. On the same day residents of the provincial capital Neuquen, led by bishop Agustin Radrizzani, staged a massive march in repudiation of the police violence. Police spokespeople in Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul said on Apr. 15 that they had been ordered to leave the protesters alone. [Diario Los Andes 4/15/97 from DYN] On Apr. 16, more than 500 people gathered around an assembly set up on a truck bed in front of a YPF distillery tower, at which members of the neighborhood committees--along with the mayors of Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul, both of them from Sapag's Popular Neuquino Movement, and 11 provincial deputies-- tried to work out a solution to the standoff. Participants in the assembly resolved to continue blocking Route 22. Some participants burned their party membership cards from the Popular Neuquino Movement. [Clarin 4/17/97, 4/18/97] Leading the latest protests and highway blockades, along with the "piqueteros" (picketers) who also led protests in the province last June, are ski-masked youths who call themselves "fogoneros" (stokers or firemen) and are referred to locally as "los muchachos" (the boys). The fogoneros are in control of the barricades and remain camped out in tents and tending bonfires. [La Jornada (Mexico) 4/13/97; Clarin 4/17/97] Mostly working- class youth under 20 years old, and mostly male, the fogoneros have no faith in politicians and have resisted taking part in negotiations between the piqueteros and the government. [Clarin 4/16/97, 4/18/97] At the Apr. 16 assembly, the fogoneros stayed in the background, making fun of the local mayors and ignoring calls from assembly participants, who invited them to get up onto the truck bed and make their statements from there. [Clarin 4/17/97] One masked fogonero in Cutral-Co told a correspondent from the Buenos Aires daily Clarin: "Last week I turned 19. I was born in Cutral-Co and I am the son of oil workers. I have three younger siblings, who are also in this here with me. There's not much I can tell you about my life. I'm just one more unemployed person." The youth, who identified himself only as "Negro," said his father died a year ago, "bitter and without a dime. When I was young, I wanted to work at the YPF refinery or driving some big truck. But I ended up sweeping the sidewalks until they fired me." The youths decided to call themselves fogoneros to differentiate themselves from the more middle-class and older piqueteros. "The piqueteros were bought out by Sapag," explained Negro. "First they were great rebels, and later they ended up selling themselves out. We're never going to sell out," he promised. "I don't believe in politicians or in unionists; they all sold us out," Negro added. "I went out into the streets because I'm tired of getting screwed over and I'm going to stay here until the gendarmes return." [Clarin 4/16/97] A second assembly of Cutral-Co and Plaza Huincul residents decided on Apr. 18 to accept an agreement reached between the provincial and national governments and to lift the blockades from Route 22. However, there was a tense standoff between the assembly participants and the fogoneros, and it seemed likely the fogoneros would refuse to lift the barricades, even though many of them reportedly acknowledge that their opposition to negotiations is "suicidal." [Clarin 4/19/97] The Neuquen teachers, meanwhile, returned to work on Apr. 16 after accepting a provincial government offer to annul all resolutions that implied layoffs and to pay 50% of the wages from the 37 days they spent on strike. The teachers' other demand, the revocation of a 20% salary cut applied by decree to all state workers in January 1997, will be resolved by the legislature. A mixed commission will be formed to evaluate in 30 days the rulings of the Provincial Education Council in effect since Jan. 2. According to the teachers, these measures were preparations for the application of the Federal Education Law, which they reject because "it will diminish the level of education and affect sources of jobs." [Clarin 4/17/97] *5. ARGENTINA: SOLIDARITY WITH NEUQUEN PROTESTERS Teachers at all levels of the Argentine education system held a national strike on Apr. 14 to protest the police violence in Neuquen. Marta Maffei, secretary general of the Confederation of Education Workers of the Republic of Argentina (CTERA), said the strike was observed by 95% of teachers throughout the country. In a speech to strikers at the demonstration in Buenos Aires, Maffei demanded the resignations of Interior Minister Carlos Corach and Neuquen governor Felipe Sapag. Maffei was applauded and cheered by the crowd when she said Corach was the "principal responsible party" for the death of Teresa Rodriguez, and called Sapag an "old fogey, governor of the dictatorship, who now sits down and works out the problems when there is a corpse on the table." Police arrested 41 young protesters, including 16 alleged members of the ultra-left group Quebracho and of the Liberation Party, during the teachers' march in the capital. All 41 detainees were released on Apr. 15, after being photographed to determine which of them took part in damaging the Casa de Neuquen, a YPF building and a bank branch. [Diario Los Andes 4/15/97 & 4/16/97 from DYN] President Carlos Saul Menem blamed the violence in Neuquen and Buenos Aires on "groups that have acted in other times and which are now rearming themselves in the environment of subversion." [Diario Los Andes 4/16/97 from DYN] The General Workers Confederation (CGT) was harshly criticized by the CTERA and by the country's more radical union leaders for calling only for three one-hour strikes, one per eight-hour shift, for Apr. 17 to protest the Neuquen repression. Truck drivers union leader Hugo Moyano of the Argentine Workers Movement (MTA) called the CGT's behavior "imbecile" and said CGT leader Rodolfo Daer "has been incapable of drawing support around a dead worker." [Diario Los Andes 4/15/97 from DYN] The MTA has called for a national general strike to support the Neuquen protesters. [La Jornada 4/13/97] Much to the surprise of the MTA unions, the Argentine Workers Central (CTA), of which the CTERA is part, finally backed the CGT's call for the one-hour strikes. [Clarin 4/18/97] The strikes were largely unobserved, with a few exceptions--notably in the province of Cordoba, where some 2,500 people marched in the provincial capital in a demonstration against the provincial structural adjustment plan, the national economic model and the repression in Neuquen. The march was organized by the Light and Force union, which is protesting the privatization of the provincial energy authority. [Diario Los Andes 4/18/97 from DYN; Clarin 4/18/97] The CGT has called for a national 24-hour strike sometime in May to reject the government's neoliberal economic polices and the police repression in Neuquen. The strike is being backed by the MTA and the CTA. The strike date will be announced on May 1. [Diario Los Andes 4/18/97 from DYN] The Argentine Commission of Solidarity with the Zapatista Rebellion [in Chiapas, Mexico] (COSOREZA) has issued a call for solidarity with the Neuquen protesters. Messages protesting the police violence in Neuquen and supporting the protesters' demands can be sent to Interior Minister Carlos Corach at fax #541-311- 1156 or 541-312-9328 or email ; to President Carlos Saul Menem at fax #541-331-1849 or 541-331-0474 or email or ; and to Neuquen governor Felipe Sapag at fax #549-948-9448. [COSOREZA message posted 4/13/97 by ] *6. PERU: REBEL STANDOFF CONTINUES, TOP OFFICIALS RESIGN The Lima daily La Republica reported on Apr. 19 that the commando of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) holding 72 hostages in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima may have taken a step toward easing its demand for more than 400 MRTA members to be released from Peruvian prisons. The commando's leader, Nestor Cerpa Cartolini, has reportedly given mediators a list of 30 MRTA prisoners whose release is a priority due to serious health problems. The list includes MRTA founder Victor Polay Campos, former MRTA "Special Forces" chief Peter Cardenas Schulte, MRTA commander Maria Lucero Cumpa Miranda, the Chileans Maria Pincheira Saez and Alejandro Astorga Valdez, and US citizen Lori Berenson. La Republica notes that "it will be very difficult for the government to accept the release of [MRTA] heads like Victor Polay..." [LR 4/19/97] Some 100 relatives of the wealthy and prominent hostages being held by the MRTA released balloons and doves into the air during a silent march on Apr. 17 to mark the fourth month since the commando's surprise bloodless attack during a party at the residence on Dec. 17, and to demand a peaceful solution to the crisis. [Diario Las Americas 4/19/97 from AFP] Interior Minister Juan Briones Davila and national police chief Lt. Gen. Ketin Vidal Herrera resigned on Apr. 19 under mounting criticism for the security lapses that led to the MRTA assault on the residence. Vidal, who led the 1992 capture of Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, also known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) leader Abimael Guzman, has been replaced by Gen. Fernando Dianderas Suotone. In announcing his resignation and Vidal's replacement, Briones admitted that the MRTA's assault on the diplomatic compound was a result of "deficiencies in security..." A successor for Briones has not yet been named. [Washington Post 4/20/97 from uncited news services; El Universal (Caracas, Venezuela) 4/20/97] *7. PERU: ATTACKS ON PRESS, AGENTS, UNIONISTS, CAMPESINOS... Radio news reporter Gines Barrios showed up on the outskirts of the central Peruvian city of Huancayo with signs of torture on Apr. 13, four days after being abducted by assailants wearing ski masks. Barrios directs a political news program for Doble B radio station in Huancayo and has often criticized state officials and exposed military abuses against civilians on his show. Barrios said the kidnappers were interested in his reasons for criticizing local authorities, especially sub-prefect Zenaida Calzada Arias. The kidnappers also wanted to know of his ties to opposition politicians, he said. [Agence France-Presse 4/12/97 via Arm the Spirit MRTA solidarity web site] The Barrios affair is the latest in a string of incidents involving journalists critical of the military and President Alberto Fujimori. In a similar incident, La Republica general editor Blanca Rosales Valencia and the paper's political chief, Juan de la Puente, were attacked by unknown assailants on Apr. 1; de la Puente escaped, and Rosales was abducted for 45 minutes before being released. Neither was injured, and their vehicle reappeared later undamaged. The newspaper believes the incident was politically motivated. [LR 4/3/97] On Apr. 13, officials from Frecuencia Latina television network condemned harassment against the network by government intelligence and tax officials, presumably as retaliation for interviewing former army intelligence agent Leonor La Rosa Bustamante, who says she was tortured in the basement of the Ministry of Defense, and for airing a report about agent Mariella Barreto Riofano, allegedly decapitated by army intelligence officials [see Update #376]. [AFP 4/12/97] Peru's Congress voted 56 to 11 on Apr. 11 to oppose the creation of a special commission to investigate the two cases. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/13/97 from AP] Retired Maj. Santiago Martin Rivas, former leader of the paramilitary Colina group, spoke on television on the night of Apr. 13 to deny that he was involved in the murder and decapitation of Barreto, his former lover, with whom he has a four-year old child. "I am not a murderous beast, I am a professional who has studied abroad and no one can prove that I killed anyone," said Rivas. [Diario Las Americas 4/15/97 from AFP] Rivas graduated from the Cadet Orientation Course at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) in 1977. [Info SOA list of graduates, July 1995] Former Army Intelligence Department (DINTE) agent Mesmer Carles Talledo sent two letters in 1994 and 1995 to retired Gen. Rodolfo Robles Espinoza--recently persecuted by the army and now considered a defender of human rights--revealing that union leader Pedro Huillca Tecse was murdered in 1993 by members of the Colina group, headed by Rivas. Carles is serving a life sentence in Yanamayo prison. The Federation of Civil Construction Workers of Peru announced on Apr. 16 the start of an international campaign to clarify the circumstances of Huillca's murder, which at the time was attributed to the PCP. [La Republica 4/17/97, 4/19/97] In other news, Peruvian campesino coca growers in the Alto Huallaga region are demanding that the government put an end to aerial fumigations in the area because the chemicals used to kill the coca plants are also destroying legal crops--including the alternative experimental crops intended to substitute for drug cultivations--as well as ruining the soil and causing strange diseases among local residents. Leaders of the Cocaleros Defense Front of Alto Huallaga charge that the aerial fumigations are leaving some 50,000 campesinos without a way to survive. Front coordinator Juan Raymundo Navarro says that the fumigations are carried out by planes of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) coming from the Santa Lucia anti-drug base. [La Republica 4/13/97] *8. FREE TRADE NEWS: "NO SWEAT" PACT, RUNAWAY PRISONS On Apr. 14 US president Bill Clinton announced that nine US apparel firms were signing an agreement to "end deplorable and unacceptable" working conditions in shops they use, "mostly overseas but, unbelievably, sometimes here at home as well." Liz Claiborne, L L Bean, Nike, Karen King, Nicole Miller, Patagonia, Phillips-Van Heusen, Tweeds and Reebok agreed not to contract with domestic or foreign manufacturers that employ children under 14, deny "freedom of association and collective bargaining," require staff to work more than 60-hour weeks ("except in extraordinary business circumstances") and pay less than the local minimum or prevailing wages. Compliance is to be checked by vaguely defined "independent monitors." Charles Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee (NLC), which has brought public attention to sweatshop conditions in Haiti, El Salvador and Honduras, called the pact a "real step forward" but said it will require pressure from the public to work. [Washington Post 4/15/97] The agreement was praised in editorials by the Washington Post and the New York Times. The Times said that the agreement "correctly rejected the idea of imposing a 'living' wage" rather than the local minimum wage, which is below subsistence level in some countries. "An externally determined wage would almost surely victimize the world's worst-paid workers" by making them less competitive, according to the editorial. [WP 4/16/97; NYT 4/16/97] But Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange, a San Francisco- based solidarity group, called the agreement "business as usual" and said: "It's not good enough to be the best plantation owner on the block." [WP 4/15/97] A statement by Benjamin and other human rights activists details four "horrors" of the agreement. ["Apparel Task Force Fiasco: What the Agreement Really Means," 4/12/97, Campaign for Labor Rights at clr@igc.apc.org or 541- 344-5410] Earlier in the month Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), a Haitian group organizing maquiladora workers, warned that independent monitors, even human rights groups, would themselves need to be monitored by the workers. The problem, the group says, is "a huge void: there is no international workers' organization able to coordinate and unify workers' struggles throughout the world." [Batay Ouvriye Statement, April 1997, translated by Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign, 212-592-3612] Meanwhile, in a bizarre twist of neoliberal policies, Arizona correctional authorities are exploring the possibility of building a private 1,800-inmate prison in the neighboring Mexican state of Sonora. The inmates would be Mexican immigrants who have been convicted in Arizona. The goal is in part to take advantage of lower wage costs in Mexico. Arizona state corrections director Terry Stewart says: "It's so simple and common-sensical that I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before." [NYT 4/20/97] *9. IN OTHER NEWS... On Apr. 17 Mexican immigration authorities told Vilma Nunez de Escorcia, director of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH), that her visa was not correct and that she must leave Mexico within 72 hours. Nunez is a former president of the Central American Human Rights Commission (CODEHUCA) and is prominent in Nicaragua's Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Also deported were Frank LaRue of Guatemala's Center for Human Rights Legal Action, Benjamin Cuellar of the Central American University (UCA) in El Salvador and French citizen Gilbert Deboisvieux. The human rights activists were visiting the states of Guerrero, Chiapas and Oaxaca, and had issued a number of statements about human rights violations there. [Toby Mailman (Managua) 4/18/97]... On Apr. 16 Honduran Supreme Court judge Marco Tulio Alvarado Crespo denied a US request for the extradition of former Haitian police chief Col. Joseph Michel Francois. The US had had Francois arrested on Mar. 6 in Honduras on charges of conspiring to ship 33 tons of Colombian cocaine into the US during the late 1980s and early 1990s [see Update #371]. The judge rejected the request on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence and that the crime was not committed within the US. US State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns said his government was "very disappointed" and would appeal the decision. Francois told reporters he was so "moved" by the judge's decision that he had almost cried in court. [La Prensa (Honduras) 4/17/97, 4/18/97 from AFP]... Prisoners at the Valledupar prison in northern Colombia released all 11 of their hostages on Apr. 13 after reaching an agreement with government representatives. The 10 points of the accord include commitments on due process and guarantees for the leaders of the rebellion, as well as health services and legal and social assistance for inmates. The rebellion began on Apr. 3 [see Update #376]. [El Diario-La Prensa 4/14/97 from EFE]... Candido Amador Recinos, a leader of the Chorti indigenous nation in Honduras, was murdered on Apr. 12 just outside Copan Ruinas by unidentified assailants. Amador was secretary general of the Honduran Advisory Council for the Development of Indigenous Ethnic Groups (CAHDEA). The killers stole a backpack containing important documents about the Chorti land struggles. Indigenous leaders have threatened to call massive protests if the murder is not solved within a reasonable time. The Copan Association of Ranchers and Farmers has issued a communique denying any involvement in the murder. [La Prensa (Honduras) 4/15/97, 4/16/97]... Protests in the Yamasa and Pantojas neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic's capital city left 34 people injured in clashes with police on Apr. 15. Police arrested 20 youths in Yamasa as the community completed the second day of a civic strike demanding public works. Most of the 26 people injured in Yamasa were hit by bullets; four police were slightly hurt by a homemade bomb. The protests in Pantojas occurred when police evicted dozens of families occupying private lands in northwestern Santo Domingo. Some 2,840 doctors who work for the Dominican Social Security Institute meanwhile began a partial strike to demand a 50% salary raise. The doctors' current minimum monthly salary is equivalent to $357. [ED-LP 4/16/97 from EFE, AP] 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 for info). 1996 INDEX OUT NOW!!! ANNUAL UPDATE INDEX available for each year from 1991 through 1996. Ascii text versions free to subscribers via electronic mail. Send your request to (specify which year or years you want--each is over 100kb). Each index will be sent as a separate text message (not an attached file) unless you request otherwise. STILL 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 1996 SOURCE LIST STILL 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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