WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #387, JUNE 29, 1997 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Militarized Police Strike in Brazil 2. Striking Teachers Fired in Panama 3. Nicaraguan Students Protest Cuts 4. Ups and Downs for Nicaraguan President 5. Chilean Students Occupy Schools 6. Chile Probes IRA Link to Rebel Escape 7. Peru: Ports, Protests and Pardons 8. Mexico's Dinosaurs Brace for Election 9. Mexico: Fraud, Murder and LaRouche 10. Mexican Billionaires Invest in Costa Rica 11. Other News: Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba 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. MILITARIZED POLICE STRIKE IN BRAZIL Some 12,000 agents of the Militarized Police (PM) and state civilian police detectives from Minas Gerais state, Brazil, marched in Belo Horizonte, the state capital, on June 24 to demand a pay raise that would bring their monthly salaries up to $800 from $387. When the protesters tried to take over the governor's palace, other military police agents guarding the building fought back. Shots were exchanged and one police agent, Valerio dos Santos Oliveira, was seriously injured by a bullet wound in the head; he remained in a coma as of June 27. Shouting: "The police, united, will never be defeated," the demonstrators marched to police headquarters in the central area of the city, where they threw rocks, broke windows and tried to seize the building, chanting "murderers, murderers." The army was called in to protect the governor's palace, and soldiers continued to patrol the streets the next day. More clashes occurred on June 25 as the PM strike spread to other cities of Minas Gerais, and four more police strikers were injured in a confrontation between 4,000 striking PM agents and army shock troops in Belo Horizonte. On June 26 some 1,000 army troops guarded the state capital with tanks and artilleried vehicles. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso rushed to meet with state governor Eduardo Azeredo; he urged the governor to "stay firm and not negotiate" with the rebellious police agents. About 12,000 of Minas Gerais state's more than 41,000 PM agents work in the state capital. The protests began on June 13 with a march by 400 military police agents in Belo Horizonte and continued the next day with a strike, prompted by the government's decision to grant pay raises only to higher-ranking officers and not to the regular agents. After negotiating with Azeredo's representatives, the PM agents suspended the strike and set a deadline of 10 days for their demands to be addressed. [News from Brazil from Servico Brasileiro de Justica e Paz (SEJUP) #277, 6/26/97; Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 6/26/97 from AFP; Clarin (Buenos Aires, Argentina) 6/27/97, 6/26/97] On June 27, the PM agents in Minas Gerais won a 50% raise, bringing their monthly salaries to $574 a month. Governor Azeredo admitted that he decided to capitulate to police demands in the hopes of restoring calm. Presidential spokesperson Sergio Amaral said the government was worried that what happened in Minas Gerais might provoke a "domino effect" across Brazil. Retired colonel Ivan Bastos, president of the Officers Club of the PM in Rio, told the daily newspaper O Globo that "the example of Minas Gerais awakened the conscience of other police agents that they must fight for better salaries." Indeed, on June 26 some 10,000 PM agents in Ceara state issued a demand for a 66% raise and warned they would mobilize in protests if their demands were not met. By June 27 the police rebellion had spread to at least eight Brazilian states, and there were even fears that the protests might spread into the ranks of the army. Police mobilizations took place in the states of Paraiba, Espirito Santo, Rio Grande do Sul and Bahia; police also aired demands and warnings in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Para and the federal capital district. In Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state, some 300 police agents demonstrated on June 26 for better pay. The march was supported by the state's teachers, who are currently on strike demanding wage increases. The daily newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo reported on June 27 that a special forces military battalion from Rio which has authority to act anywhere in Brazil has been put on a state of alert. [Clarin 6/28/97 from AP, EFE, ANSA] The government is counting on a difference between Minas Gerais and other states. According to Amaral, "the Minas Gerais police force is considered one of the best trained in the country," which explains the public's support for police strikers in Belo Horizonte. Protests might play differently in Para or Rio states, where police are known for using violence against the public and for their links to drug trafficking. [Clarin 6/27/97] The PM crisis has erupted just as the "Real Plan," the economic program designed by current president Fernando Henrique Cardoso which has controlled inflation with severe structural adjustment measures, is about to mark its third anniversary on July 1. Cardoso's popularity has dropped from 47% in mid-December of last year to 39% now. [Clarin 6/28/97 from AP, EFE, ANSA] According to a poll of more than 16,000 people taken by the Getulio Vargas Foundation in the city of Rio de Janeiro, 20% of Rio residents don't even know the name of their country's president, even though 97% of those surveyed have a television and watch the news between five and seven times a week. [Clarin 6/23/97 from AP] *2. STRIKING TEACHERS FIRED IN PANAMA Teachers in Panama's public high schools began an open-ended national strike on June 27 after the government insisted it will not rehire 112 teachers fired for going on strike. Some 25,000 public school teachers had been staging scaled work stoppages since June 17 to protest a law that would "decentralize" and "modernize" education. The teachers particularly object to a clause of the law which reduces their vacation pay from three months to two months. The government had already fired five teachers for allegedly inciting students to protest; on June 25 the government issued a list of another 107 teachers it was dismissing, many of them union activists and local strike leaders. Private school teachers held a one-day strike on June 27 in solidarity with the public teachers, and participated in a massive march of 15,000 people that same day to protest the firings. The private school teachers say they are considering whether to join the open-ended strike. [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/27/97 from AFP, 6/28/97 from ACAN-EFE] On June 28, a group of teachers in Los Santos blocked provincial education director Antonio Moreno and Education Ministry adviser Marta Guerra inside a local radio station for an hour, insisting that the officials were misinforming the community in their broadcast. In Las Palmas, Veraguas province, a group of indigenous people and teachers from Veraguas, Chiriqui, Bocas del Toro and Los Santos provinces shut down the Panamerican Highway for two hours to support striking teachers and oppose mining projects on indigenous land. [El Panama America 6/29/97] On June 27 the teachers picketed the National Bank headquarters, the Planning Ministry building and the offices of the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB). The National Action Unity Front (FUAN), a coalition of 50 organizations, announced a series of actions beginning June 30, including shutting down streets and staging simultaneous pickets, to demand the rehiring of the fired teachers and withdrawal of the education decentralization bill from the Assembly. [EPA 6/28/97] University students at the Chiriqui Autonomous University's School of Humanities and Education in the city of David, Chiriqui province, shut down the university for the second consecutive day on June 27 in support of the striking teachers. [La Prensa (Panama) 6/28/97] The Parents Federation of Panama has pledged its support for the teachers, urging parents to not send their children to school and to help with financial assistance for the fired teachers. The group also urged parents to picket in front of schools to support the strikers. [EPA 6/29/97] The teachers plan to file an appeal about the firings on June 30; they say the dismissals were illegal because they were done en masse and because the government did not inform the workers but simply sent a list of those fired for publication in the daily newspapers. Labor Minister Mitchell Doens said the firings were legal because according to the Education Law, teachers who are absent from work for more than five days are considered to have abandoned their jobs. Legislative Assembly secretary general Victor Degracia has recommended closing all public schools and firing all teachers currently on strike. [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/27/97 from AFP, 6/28/97 from ACAN-EFE] Enelda Rosales, coordinator of the United Panamanian Teachers union, urged teachers not to let themselves be intimidated by the government's threats to shut down schools; the government's plan is "to shut up the teachers so that afterwards there will be no organized belligerent group here," said Rosales. [La Prensa (Panama) 6/28/97] In a national poll of 1,149 adults commissioned by Panamanian daily La Prensa and conducted by the Dichter & Neira firm, 55% of respondents backed the teachers while only 11% supported Education Minister Pablo Thalassinos. Another 16% said both sides were right, and 5% did not respond. Asked if they support the teachers strike, 56% said yes, 33% said no. But 84% said they disagreed with the firing of the striking teachers, while only 10% supported it and 4% would not answer. [LP 6/29/97] In a June 27 editorial, Panamanian daily La Prensa notes that the Education Ministry sent its list of fired teachers to all the other newspapers but not to La Prensa, and blasts the move to fire strike leaders. Education Minister Thalassinos, writes La Prensa, "has thus confirmed what many had suspected: that he does not have the slightest interest in resolving the conflict or in going to the negotiations table; he wants a fight, he wants to test forces with the teachers, thinking perhaps that if he breaks the unions now, tomorrow they [the government] will be able to impose presidential reelection without any serious resistance." [LP 6/27/97] Meanwhile, on June 27 Panama's Civil Aeronautics Department (DAC) graduated 28 new air traffic controllers who will become permanent replacements for some of the 88 controllers fired last November for striking over wages [see Update #356]. US air traffic controllers had temporarily replaced the fired strikers. [La Prensa (Panama) 6/28/97] In other news, on June 27 Panama's Legislative Assembly gave its final approval to Law 94, which grants the president extraordinary powers to legislate by decree. The law specifically authorizes the president to carry out the reorganization of the banking sector and the privatization of the national railroad. [La Prensa (Panama) 6/28/97] *3. NICARAGUAN STUDENTS PROTEST CUTS Between 15,000 and 20,000 Nicaraguan university students marched in Managua on June 25 to demand that the National Assembly override President Arnoldo Aleman's veto of legislation that would have given the universities $36 million this year--6% of the government budget, as required by the 1987 Constitution. Aleman has also insisted that the money be disbursed to the individual universities, not to the National Council of Universities (CNU) [see Update #380]. The mostly peaceful march, accompanied by a dance band from Nicaragua's Atlantic Coast, was one of the largest demonstrations since Aleman took office on Jan. 10. It coincided with a day of protest called by the left opposition Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/26/97 from AFP] The mood changed on June 26 after the Assembly voted 47-42 to uphold the veto, reducing the university budget by $9.3 million. Dozens of students rushed into the National Assembly building, threatening deputies from the ruling Liberal Alliance (AL) coalition, while police used tear gas to disperse students outside the building. FSLN deputy Rita Fletes charged that the police had fired rifles and shotguns, and three other FSLN deputies--Damaso Vargas, Edwin Castro and Carlos Palma--were injured slightly when they confronted the police. [Notifax (Managua) 6/26/97; Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 6/27/97 from Reuter; La Jornada (Mexico) 6/27/97 from Reuter, AFP, ANSA, EFE] The protests grew the next day, with students raising barricades at the Central American University (UCA), Metro Center and the Carretera Sur and burning two or possibly three vehicles belonging to the mayor's office. Some 16 students were treated for injuries from tear gas, and anti-riot police reportedly beat a doctor when they broke into a hospital where students had taken refuge. At the end of the day, Managua's Channel Four reported that police chief Franco Montealegre and members of the CNU had agreed to a truce in which the students would retire to the universities and the police would stay away from the campuses. [Notifax 6/27/97; Diario Los Andes 6/28/97 from AFP] *4. UPS AND DOWNS FOR NICARAGUAN PRESIDENT The protests came as tensions were rising between the government and the FSLN. Talks between the two sides broke down on May 14. A major stumbling block has been President Aleman's plan to lay off almost 3,000 government employees this year, beginning on July 1. To replace the stalled talks with the FSLN, Aleman has called for a national dialogue of all the larger parties, unions and other groups, to start on June 30. Former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, now the FSLN's general secretary, announced on June 22 that his party would not attend. [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/23/97 from ACAN-EFE] Ortega raised the temperature some more on June 23 when he told an FSLN assembly: "If the government prevents the people from protesting in the streets in a civic way, there's no other remedy but to return to the armed struggle, to prevent somocismo from being enthroned again in Nicaragua." The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua as dictators 1936-1979. [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/25/97 from AFP] Returning from a two-day trip to the US on June 26, Aleman lent his support to a call from pro-government deputies to bring Ortega to trial for "sedition, rebellion and conspiracy to commit crimes." [LJ 6/27/97 from Reuter, AFP, ANSA, EFE] Ortega denies being worried about the possible charges, but notes that "[t]here are institutional and constitutional methods to relieve a government when it closes off the people's democratic space for protesting." [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/29/97 from EFE] The latest poll from Borge and Associates shows that Aleman's favorable rating has fallen almost 21% since February, to 48.6%. Ortega's has risen 12 points over the same period, to 45.1%, although he has a 50.5% negative rating. [Notifax 6/26/97] The week brought some good news for Aleman, who used his trip to the US to appeal to US president Bill Clinton to let tens of thousands of Nicaraguan immigrants remain in the US. On June 24, the same day that Aleman was making his plea in Washington, US district judge James Lawrence King issued a preliminary injunction in Miami halting all deportations from Florida, Georgia and Alabama of Nicaraguans and other immigrants with the same temporary amnesty status. The injunction is effective until next January, when King will hear a class-action suit against US attorney general Janet Reno on the deportations. King said he had rarely seen such a "dramatic, heart-rending and powerfully persuasive case of irreparable harm." Seven Nicaraguans marked the decision by ending a 17-day hunger strike they had been holding in the Plaza de la Cubanidad in Miami. [Washington Post 6/25/97; New York Times 6/25/97] *5. CHILEAN STUDENTS OCCUPY SCHOOLS Some 50,000 Chilean university students, supported by professors and staff, remained on strike as of June 28 after negotiations with the government broke down on June 25. The protests began in Santiago universities more than five weeks ago and were expanded into a national strike on June 12 [see Updates #384, 385]. Students are demanding more funding for higher education and greater student participation in university administration, planning and budget decisions. The national mobilization is being led by the Chilean Students Federation (CONFECh). On June 27, Carabineros police agents arrested some 40 students who were occupying the central building of the Metropolitan Technological University and handed them over to the courts to be charged with illegal usurpation of a building and damages to public and private property. Just hours later the building was retaken by another group of students. On June 26, some 300 students from the University of Chile sat down in the street, blocking a main section of the Alameda near the Plaza Italia in Santiago, a central traffic spot, during the afternoon rush hour. Carabineros police agents who arrived to clear the roads were reportedly greeted by the students with paint bombs and rocks. More than 50 students were briefly detained. In the southern city of Temuco on June 26, students from the Border University tried to seize the regional governor's office but were stopped by police who arrested 25 students. The students then went on to occupy the Panamerican highway and another access route, blocking traffic for 45 minutes on the only two routes out of the city. After police came and unblocked the roads, the students moved their protest to the headquarters of the Andres Bello campus; police were called in and arrested some 20 students. On June 25 in Santiago, police arrested 108 students of the University of Chile who were occupying the central building on campus. [La Tercera (Chile) 6/27/97; Diario Las Americas (Miami) 6/28/97 from EFE; El Mercurio (Chile) 6/28/97, 6/27/97] Claudio Gonzalez Villagra, a student at the Federico Santa Maria Technical University in Talcahuano, was seriously injured on June 28 when he was hit in the head by a tear gas grenade thrown by Carabineros to break up a student demonstration. As of June 29, Gonzalez remained hospitalized in critical condition. Student leader Yanni Signorelli said the police action violated university autonomy, since the police entered the campus without permission from the university authorities. [LT 6/29/97] The internal conflict over autonomy at the University of Chile which helped spark the broader protest movement is also continuing. Danilo Nunez, vice president of the University of Chile Student Federation (FECh) and a member of the Socialist Party, has accused both the FECh and the commission of deans of being intransigent in the negotiations; FECh president Rodrigo Roco, from the Communist Party, says only the deans' commission is to blame. University of Chile students are also demanding the resignation of rector Jaime Lavados and the reform of the university statutes, which were dictated under the regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. [EM 6/27/97; Diario Las Americas 6/27/97 from AFP] *6. CHILE PROBES IRA LINK TO REBEL ESCAPE Judicial sources indicated on June 4 that Chilean courts will ask Ireland to help investigate the alleged participation of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the dramatic helicopter escape of four Chilean rebels from Santiago's Maximum Security Prison (CAS) on Dec. 30 [see Updates #362, 371, 379]. Chilean police believe that alleged IRA members Christine and Frances Shannon were accomplices in the escape, along with Argentine Carlos Distefano. Members of Chile's Carabineros police force went to England and Ireland in March to seek help with the investigations; Irish involvement in the escape was suspected from the beginning because of its similarity to a prison breakout by IRA leaders in Dublin on Oct. 31, 1973. The four members of the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR) who escaped from the CAS remain at large. They had been serving life sentences for the 1991 murder of rightwing senator Jaime Guzman and the kidnapping from September 1991 to February 1992 of business executive Cristian Edwards del Rio, a member of the family that owns the Chilean daily newspaper El Mercurio. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/5/97 from AFP; El Mercurio 6/4/97] Gen. Mario Morales, director of the national prison guard, has concluded that none of the CAS prison guards were complicit in the FPMR breakout, although he admitted "failures of an administrative character in the security systems as well as in the procedures followed in that prison unit." Charges against several of the guards on duty at the time have been dropped, and the guards have been transferred to other posts. [El Mercurio 6/7/97] *7. PERU: PORTS, PROTESTS AND PARDONS During a visit to the port city of Chimbote in the northeastern Peruvian department of Ancash, President Alberto Fujimori was greeted with a noisy protest by thousands of local residents-- workers, retirees, students, homemakers--who were protesting unemployment, low wages, attacks against the press and the firing of three judges from the Constitutional Court (TC). The protest was so vociferous that Fujimori started fumbling his words and had trouble finishing his speech, in which he was announcing the inauguration of the new High Court of Justice building in Chimbote. After unveiling the plaque on the new building, an enraged Fujimori was finally forced to ask local bishop Luis Bambaren for permission to get in his vehicle and leave. The protest lasted about an hour; it ended after Fujimori left the area. [La Republica (Lima) 6/28/97] Fujimori then flew to the far northeastern port city of Paita, in Piura department, to inspect a fishing plant at the port. Warned that an angry crowd was awaiting him in the city with demands for solutions to the damages caused by El Nino--an ocean current and weather phenomenon which has caused serious losses in farming, fishing and other industries--Fujimori left directly from the port without entering the town, further enraging the protesters. [LR 6/28/97] [On June 20, Fujimori declared a 120-day state of emergency in nine departments to combat the effects of El Nino. The departments are Tumbes, Piura, Ancash, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Arequipa, Moquegua, Puno and Tacna. [DESCO Resumen Semanal #924, 6/18-24/97]] At least 14,000 people marched on June 26 in the northwestern Peruvian city of Chiclayo, Lambayeque department, to protest the Fujimori's "arbitrary and authoritarian" government and demand long-awaited public works. The march took place as a 24-hour departmental civic strike was being held in Lambayeque to demand completion of the Olmos hydroelectric and irrigation complex, delayed for over 50 years, and several other infrstructure projects. Organizers insisted the civic strike was not political, although Agence France-Presse's coverage suggested that the two actions were coordinated in promoting both political and civic demands. [Diario Las Americas 6/28/97 from AFP; LR 6/24/97, 6/27/97] On June 25, the Peruvian government granted pardons to and released from prison 116 people who had been unjustly imprisoned accused of terrorism or treason, primarily by military courts in summary trials. Although the pardons do not erase the offense from the criminal records of the people who were released, the Congress is currently considering several bills that would clear the records of those pardoned. The pardons were granted based on the recommendations of a special commission named last August to review cases. The first pardons were granted in October of 1996 after heavy pressure from human rights groups. The process of pardons was suspended during the more than four months from Dec. 17 to Apr. 22 when rebels from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) were holding 72 hostages in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima. On June 27 Fujimori said he would now allow the process to be extended; Belgian priest Hubert Lanssier, the most active member of the special pardon commission, had been pressing for an extension until at least this August of the time allotted to process the more than 1,000 cases remaining for review. None of those pardoned are considered to have any links with the MRTA or Peru's larger rebel group, the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path). [El Diario-La Prensa 6/26/97 from AFP; LR 6/28/97] *8. MEXICO'S DINOSAURS BRACE FOR ELECTION Some 120,000 supporters filled Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo, on June 28 for the final rally of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano's campaign for the governorship of the Federal District (DF). Cardenas, a founder of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), is heavily favored to win the DF race on July 6. He told the cheering crowd that he would demand an accounting from the current DF authorities--members of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)--so that they "won't leave us with empty coffers" when the new governor takes office on Dec. 5. Until this year the federal president appointed the DF governor, who is in effect Mexico City's mayor. On July 6 Mexicans will also choose the entire 500-member federal Chamber of Deputies, one fourth of the 128-member federal Senate, six state governors and a number of local officials. Polls released on June 27--the last polls allowed by Mexican electoral law before the vote--show the PRI in deep trouble after 68 years of dominating Mexican politics. Final polls by the Opinion Studies Center (CEO) of Guadalajara University give Cardenas 45.5% among DF voters, against 17.4% for the PRI's Alfredo del Mazo Gonzalez, and 15.6% for Carlos Castillo Peraza of the conservative National Action Party (PAN), usually considered the main opposition party. Most samplings gave the PRI an edge in the six states with races for the governor's office: Campeche, Colima, Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi and Sonora. [El Diario-La Prensa 6/29/97 from AFP] But a poll commissioned by the PRD shows its candidate, Layda Sansores, ahead in Campeche, with 48% to 39% for PRI candidate Antonio Gonzalez Curi. In its eight- year history the party has never won a state governorship.[La Jornada (Mexico) 6/22/97] The most important vote may be for the Chamber of Deputies, where the PRI has held a majority for 68 years. A national CEO sampling of 3,677 Mexicans June 12-15, released June 25, showed 30.7% for PRI congressional candidates, 30% for the PAN and 20.9% for the PRD. The PAN was the big loser in the latest CEO results: a Dec. 17 poll by the same group had shown the PAN with 42.5%, while the PRD had only 13%; the PRI has stayed at about the same level. [LJ 6/26/97] A poll of 1,207 adults released on June 27 by the magazine Voz y Voto shows that the PRI still has strength in rural areas, where it can expect 42.29% of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies race. But the poll shows the ruling party with only 27.28% of the urban vote, giving it about 31% of the total national vote. An Indemerc-Lou Harris poll, also released June 26, gave the PRD 48.55% in the DF, while the PAN would get 20.63% and the PRI would trail with 18%. Indemerc sampled 1,600 Mexico City residents. [Associated Press 6/27/97] *9. MEXICO: FRAUD, MURDER AND LAROUCHE Under Mexico's "governability" provisions, the PRI doesn't require an absolute majority to control the Chamber. Any party that wins at least 42.2% in the popular vote and 163 of the 300 "uninominal" deputies, who are elected directly, will be awarded enough "plurinominal" seats (from the 200 seats filled by proportional balloting) to hold a majority of 251. The PRI might be able to meet these conditions with "low-intensity fraud" in key election districts; some analysts think a fraud level of 2-3% would be enough to save the Chamber for the ruling party. [John Ross, Mexico Barbaro #72, 7/4/97] PRI campaign managers deny responsibility for "This Is the Sun the PRD Offers You," a three-minute video depicting the PRD, whose logo is a yellow Aztec sun, as a party of violent revolutionaries. The night of June 25 a group of PRD federal deputies brought reporters to two DF workshops producing thousands of copies of the video. No one has admitted to financing the operation, which the PRD says violates electoral laws against defamation. The attorney general's office (PGR) says there is no electoral violation but that the video's producers may be charged with copyright infringement. [LJ 6/26/97, 6/28/97] Meanwhile, posters are appearing in Mexico City saying the PRD is part of a vast "narcoterrorist" conspiracy. The posters are signed by the Ibero-American Solidarity Movement (MSIA) of US rightwinger Lyndon LaRouche, Jr. According to the MSIA the conspiracy includes Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia of San Cristobal de las Casas in the southeastern state of Chiapas, and most of Latin America's center-left parties. The MSIA claims to have close relations with the Mexican army and with rightwing Argentine colonel Mohamed Ali Seineldin, imprisoned for a 1990 coup attempt. [LJ 6/25/97; Nuevo Amanecer Press--Europa 6/26/97] Meanwhile, political violence is rising as the elections approach. PRD activist Agustin Garcia Dominguez was gunned down on June 14 in Santa Maria Cortijos, a coastal town in the southern state of Oaxaca. He was the tenth PRD murder victim in the state this year. PRD activist Oliva Vargas Carro and three members of her family were murdered in their home on June 4 as Vargas' youngest three children watched [see Update #384]. [Reuter 6/15/97] On the night of June 12 unknown men kidnapped and severely beat Victor Hugo Campos Linas and his son Alvaro de Jesus Campos Gonzalez after they left the local PRD office in Mexico City's Jardin Balbuena neighborhood. Campos Linas is PRD candidate for alternate federal deputy from his election district. "Now let's see who from your damn party's going to come save you," one of the attackers laughed as the PRD activists were beaten. [LJ 6/15/97; Mexican League for the Defense of Human Rights (LIMEDDH) 6/23/97] Federal deputy Victor Quintana, also from the PRD, was kidnapped, robbed and beaten in the San Juan Mixcoac neighborhood on the morning of June 19, after he left a forum entitled: "Don't Shoot, I'm a Journalist." He linked the attack to the June 12 burglary at the offices of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Equipo Pueblo [see Update #386]. [LIMEDDH 6/21/97] Not all the victims are from the PRD. A rising young PRI leader, Martha Hernandez, was murdered in the DF's Iztapalapa delegacion (borough) on June 6. PRI directors hint that she was killed by the PRD. PRD activists, in turn, say Hernandez was one of the "most progressive" leaders in the Iztapalapa PRI and had had differences with a local cacique (party boss), Maria Elena Gonzalez Lazo. [LJ 6/17/97] *10. MEXICAN BILLIONAIRES INVEST IN COSTA RICA Miguel Angel Rodriguez, presidential candidate of Costa Rica's Social Christian Unity Party (PUSC) in the February 1998 general elections, fell dramatically in popularity after news came out of his meeting in May with Mexican billionaire politician Carlos Hank Gonzalez. An opinion poll published on June 5 showed Rodriguez with 31.5% of voter preferences, against 42.8% for Jose Miguel Corrales of the ruling social democratic National Liberation Party (PLN). [El Diario-La Prensa 6/6/97 AFP] Rodriguez was well ahead of Corrales with 41.5% in an opinion poll published on May 18, before the Hank Gonzalez scandal erupted. The Mexican politician, a powerbroker in the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), has been accused of massive corruption and of links to drug trafficking. Rodriguez and three other PUSC leaders, including former president Rafael Angel Calderon Fournier, spent two days at Hank Gonzalez' country residence in Santiago Tianguistenco, in Mexico state, May 18-19. The PUSC leaders say they were trying to encourage Mexican investment in their country. Rodriguez is also interested in investment from Puerto Rico: on a recent visit to the island, he met with local business people at a $1,000-a plate breakfast. The PLN has its own contacts with Mexico's rulers. On May 27 President Jose Maria Figueres admitted that he met Hank Gonzalez at a dinner for potential Mexican investors last year. According to the Costa Rican daily La Nacion, Hank Gonzalez' interests in Costa Rica include investments in the TRIBASA consortium and in pineapple plantations in the Northern Zone community of Pital de San Carlos. [Tico Times (Costa Rica) 5/30/97] Mexican business groups have invested $400 million in Costa Rica in the past two years, following the April 1994 signing of a bilateral trade agreement, according to Mexico's ambassador to Costa Rica, Jose Rafael Castelazo. [Inter Press Service 6/4/97] *11. IN OTHER NEWS... Some 30,000 Honduran teachers and professors staged a one-day strike on June 26 to demand wage increases. The average monthly salary for teachers is about $100; the teachers are demanding a raise equivalent to $60 more per month. Finance Minister Juan Ferrera says the government doesn't have enough money to meet the teachers' demands. [La Prensa (Honduras) 6/27/97 from AFP]... Teachers in Guatemala held a march on June 25 to commemorate the 53rd anniversary of the government's murder of teacher Maria Chinchilla and to protest the current government's privatization policies. June 25, Teacher's Day, marks the day in 1944 when security forces under the command of then-president Jorge Ubico attacked a march for social justice and killed Chinchilla. [Cerigua 6/25/97]... Some 3,000 members of Colombia's armed forces returned on June 24 to the area in Caqueta department which had been demilitarized to allow rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to hand over 70 soldiers they were holding as prisoners of war [see Update #386]. Local residents, fearing the army will retaliate against them for cooperating with the rebels, have asked the International Red Cross to remain in the area. Armed forces chief Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett has promised there will be no retaliations. [ED-LP 6/25/97 from AFP] Analysts say the FARC may have 18,000 combatants; they suggest rebels are the de facto authorities in as much as 50% of Colombian territory. [Reuter 6/25/97]... Argentina's justice minister Elias Jassan resigned on June 26 as President Carlos Saul Menem's cabinet continued to be shaken by evidence of links to millionaire entrepreneur Alfredo Yabran, a prime suspect in the murder of news photographer Jose Luis Cabezas last January [see Update #386]. Jassan denied and then admitted to receiving phone calls from Yabran. His replacement is Raul Granillo Ocampo, a close Menem associate who is currently Argentina's ambassador to Washington. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 6/27/97]... The Mexican communications firm Grupo Domos has now officially ended its operations with Cuba's telephone system, according to the Miami Spanish-language daily Nuevo Herald. Domos is turning its share over to a partner, the Italian firm Stets. The Mexicans are blaming Stets and the Cuban government for the failure of the joint venture, which started in 1994; they are reportedly also feeling pressure from the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, a US law tightening the 35-year old US embargo against Cuba. [La Jornada 6/28/97 from Notimex, AFP] 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, dated March 1996, accompanied by a resource list and organizing leaflet. 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