WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #600, JULY 29, 2001 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Haiti: 3 Dead in Police Academy Attack 2. Chile: Police Raid Mapuche Center 3. Ecuador: Indigenous Begin March 4. Colombia: Oxy Finds No Oil on U'wa Land 5. Colombia: Ex-Army General Arrested 6. Colombia: US House Approves Military Aid 7. Colombia: Judge Orders Halt to Spraying 8. Peru: New President Inaugurated 9. Panama: Youth Protest at US Embassy 10. Guatemala: Judge Flees, Abuses Increase 11. Guatemala: Maquila Unionists Assaulted 12. Guatemala: Campus Military Base Protested 13. Bolivia: President Quits, Envoy Bashed 14. Mexico: EZLN Prisoners on Hunger Strike 15. Mexico: Ecologists' Appeal Rejected 16. Cuba: US Congress Wavers on Embargo 17. Other News: Antigua, Uruguay, Puerto Rico 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. Please specify if you want the electronic or print version: they are identical in content, but the electronic version is delivered directly to your email address; the print version is sent via first class mail. For more information about electronic subscriptions, contact . Back issues and source materials are available on request. If you are accessing this Update for free on electronic newsgroups, we would appreciate any financial support you can contribute. We are a small, all-volunteer organization funded solely through subscriptions and contributions. Please also help spread the word about the Update. If you know someone who might be interested in subscribing, send their email (or regular mail) address to and request a free one-month trial subscription to the Weekly News Update on the Americas. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as "Weekly News Update on the Americas," and include our 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 *1. HAITI: 3 DEAD IN POLICE ACADEMY ATTACK Six men wearing camouflage uniforms and armed with assault rifles stormed a police academy and a jail early on July 28 in the Haitian town of Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, killing three police agents. The assailants first attacked a police lockup, threatening to kill inmates if they didn't chant "Long live the army"--the rightwing army was disbanded in 1994. They then drove to the police academy, where they sprayed the barracks with gunfire, according to Commander Jean Yonel Trecil. The attackers shot senior officer Eddy Cantave dead after forcing him to lead them to a SWAT team compound where heavy arms are stored. They also killed a cadet and an officer on guard duty at the compound. Four other police agents were wounded by gunfire in the attack. According to radio reports, there was also an attack on a police station in the suburb of Mirebalais in which one police agent was killed and three were kidnapped. The attackers are presumed to be former members of the army, which overthrew left-populist Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a September 1991 coup during his first term. [Miami Herald 7/29/01 from wire services; Prensa (Panama) 7/29/01 from DPA] The attacks came as Aristide and the center-right Democratic Convergence (CD) continued to negotiate over Aristide's May 31 proposal--accepted by the Organization of American States (OAS) in June [see Update #593]--to constitute a new electoral council and hold early legislative elections. The talks were reportedly slowed down both by CD intransigence and by Aristide's absence on an official visit to Cuba July 16-20. [Haiti Progres (NY) 7/18/01, 7/25/01] *2. CHILE: POLICE RAID MAPUCHE CENTER On July 20, Chilean officials raided the headquarters of a Mapuche indigenous organization, the Council of All Lands, in the city of Temuco. The Mapuches present at the Council reportedly put up resistance; four people were arrested. The raid--carried out without a warrant--sparked protests in Temuco, in outlying Mapuche communities and in Santiago on July 25 and 26. Police arrested 125 people at a July 25 march by 2,000 Mapuches and their supporters in Temuco; police also reportedly attacked the Council's headquarters, smashing windows and spraying tear gas inside. Ten civilians and 14 police agents were reported injured. [El Mostrador (Chile) 7/25/01, 7/26/01, 7/27/01; La Tercera (Chile) 7/26/01, 7/27/01; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/27/01 from AP; Servicio Informativo "alai-amlatina" 7/26/01] *3. ECUADOR: INDIGENOUS BEGIN MARCH On July 24, Ecuador's indigenous and grassroots organizations began a mass march that will spread across the country to protest the government's economic and social policies. The mobilization, called by the broad Coordinating Committee of Social Movements (CMS), began in Zamora Chinchipe, in the southern Amazon region. Marchers are expected to reach Quito on Aug. 10, Ecuador's independence day. The protests focus on opposing a bank bailout and the planned privatization of the electric company and other public institutions. Also participating in the mobilization are striking doctors and health workers, teachers, retired workers demanding higher pension payments, and other sectors. The mobilization followed the July 23 decision by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), to maintain its suspension of dialogue with the government until the next CONAIE congress is held on Oct. 12. [La Hora (Quito) 7/25/01; El Telegrafo (Guayaquil) 7/24/01; El Diario-La Prensa 7/24/01 & 7/25/01, both from EFE] Some 3,000 striking doctors marched in Quito on July 26 [see Updates #597, 599]. Riot police used tear gas to attack a group of 1,200 doctors from around the country who had gathered at the Eugenio Espejo hospital and were trying to join the march; some 30 newborn infants had to be treated for tear gas inhalation when the gases spread into the hospital's maternity ward. [ED-LP 7/27/01; LH 7/27/01; ET 7/27/01] The government insists it can't afford to give doctors or anyone else a raise. Hector Teran, president of the National Confederation of Public Servants (CONASEP), said his sector's wage demands could be met with $40 million--about 10% of what the government has spent on a bailout of the Filanbanco and Pacifico banks. [LH 7/19/01] *4. COLOMBIA: OXY FINDS NO OIL ON U'WA LAND Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) has stopped drilling at the Siriri field in Colombia (formerly called the Samore bloc) after finding gas and condensates but no oil, a company official said on July 27. Occidental still considers it "possible" that oil may be discovered at the Siriri site, a spokesperson said, but drilling will not resume for at least a year as more seismic studies will probably be needed and the company will have to consider security concerns and the site's highly complicated geological structure. The Siriri field is located near the Venezuelan border in the 47,000-hectare Gibraltar Basin, about 140 km from Occidental's existing Cano Limon field in eastern Colombia. Exploration at Siriri started in February 2000, and its possible reserves were at first estimated by the company at 1.4 billion barrels. At the time test drilling began, Occidental rated the chances of discovering a commercially viable oil deposit at Siriri to be about 20%. [Reuters 7/27/01] The Siriri field is located on the traditional land of the U'wa indigenous people, who have been trying to stop the drilling project for nine years with help from international supporters, using nonviolent tactics ranging from shareholder resolutions to civil disobedience. The latest news came as thousands of U'wa take part in AjReowa, a special time of fasting, meditation, teaching, singing and prayer which lasts from June through August. Their prayers have been focused on driving Oxy away from their land. The U'wa believe that oil is the blood of Mother Earth, and that its extraction kills her. [U'wa Updates 7/28/01] *5. COLOMBIA: EX-ARMY GENERAL ARRESTED Colombian retired army general Rito Alejo del Rio was arrested on July 23 in Bogota on charges that he sponsored rightwing paramilitary death squads from 1995 to 1997, while serving as commander of the army's 17th Brigade, based in the northwestern department of Antioquia. Del Rio was forced into early retirement amid human rights accusations in April 1999 [see Update #480]. According to Robin Kirk of Human Rights Watch, "an abundance of information" links Del Rio to paramilitary activities. Troops under his command actively aided the paramilitaries by providing intelligence information or by setting up roadblocks during massacres to prevent the entry of anyone who could stop the killing, according to Kirk. She also said paramilitary forces based in Antioquia and neighboring Cordoba department under the command of leader Carlos Castano began expanding nationwide during Del Rio's tenure in the area. Coming a day before the US Congress was set to vote on a new military aid package for Colombia, Del Rio's arrest was clearly timed to make it appear that the government is severing its longstanding ties to notorious human rights violators. Cracking down on army officers who work with the paramilitaries is one of several conditions governing current US aid to Colombia's security forces. [AP 7/23/01; Los Angeles Times 7/24/01] Del Rio took a Cadet Orientation Course from the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) in 1967, when the school was based in Panama. [SOA Watch website, http://www.soaw.org] *6. COLOMBIA: US HOUSE APPROVES MILITARY AID On July 24, the US House of Representatives voted 381 to 46 to approve a $15.2 billion foreign aid bill that includes the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI, also known as the Andean Counter-drug Initiative), a package of $676 million in mostly military aid for Colombia and its neighboring countries. The bill has now gone to the Senate for consideration. In addition to the ARI, the bill includes $2.7 billion in military and economic assistance for Israel, $2 billion for Egypt, $768 million for the states of the former Soviet Union and $600 million for Southeast Asia and the Balkans. The deal was sweetened for Democrats with the inclusion of $474 million for AIDS programs and $425 million for reproductive health assistance. The House defeated, in a 240-188 vote, an amendment by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) that would have shifted $60 million from the ARI and military assistance programs to a World Bank trust fund to fight AIDS. The House voted 249-179 against an amendment by Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) that would have cut the aid to Colombia by $100 million, with half that money going into tuberculosis programs and the other half into child survival programs. McGovern said his goal was to alert the Colombian armed forces that patience is running out with individual officers accused of working with rightwing paramilitary groups which massacre civilians. The House approved by voice vote an amendment by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) which caps at 500 the number of US military personnel in Colombia, and limits the number of US civilian contractors who can operate there to 300. President George W. Bush had sought to eliminate the cap on civilian contractors. The contractors, many of them retired US military personnel, are involved in many of the ongoing US operations in Colombia, including piloting the planes that spray herbicides over drug crops. After listening to fumigation supporters in a debate over the spraying program, Conyers withdrew an amendment that would have halted the program, which has been criticized as harmful to local residents and the environment. Rep. David Obey (D-WI) blasted Congress for failing to adequately debate the Colombia aid issue. "The Congress ought to have a full-blown, detailed briefing on this issue," Obey said. "The leadership of both parties has been disgracefully negligent to allow us to drift into this war without any real thought about what the outcome is going to be." Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) also expressed concern: "I think there's a great deal of uncertainty over how this program is working," he said. Hoekstra introduced an amendment--which was approved by voice vote--to hold up $65 million in aid to Peru until the Bush administration certifies Peru has acted to prevent the shooting down of civilian planes. Last April a Peruvian Air Force plane opened fire on a plane mistakenly believed to be carrying drugs, killing a US missionary and her infant daughter [see Updates #586, 591]. Congress approved $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia last year, in a bill promoted by then-president Bill Clinton, a Democrat [see Updates #543-546]. Much of that funding has yet to be disbursed, but the new initiative is to ensure that financing "continues in 2002 for both a military component and social programs that include alternative development for coca farmers forced out of work by aerial eradication," according to the Miami Herald. [AP 7/25/01; Reuters 7/25/01; Washington Post 7/25/01; MH 7/25/01] *7. COLOMBIA: JUDGE ORDERS HALT TO SPRAYING On July 27, Colombian circuit judge Gilberto Reyes Delgado ordered the "immediate suspension" of all aerial spraying of herbicides over the countryside in Colombia while he decides on a legal complaint filed July 18 by the Colombian human rights group Minga, acting on behalf of 62 indigenous communities in the country's southern Amazon region. Minga lawyers argued that the government had violated the law by going ahead with the fumigation program without prior public consultation. Under the Colombia's 1991 Constitution, a consultation process is required before implementing any project that could affect the country's indigenous communities. The complaint also argued that the spraying should be suspended until a proper study is completed into its effects on humans and wildlife. A legal ruling is expected during the week of July 30 after Judge Reyes hears arguments from the government. If the judge rules against continued spraying, the government will almost certainly appeal the decision. [St. Petersburg Times (Florida) 7/28/01] The US-sponsored fumigation program, which targets coca and poppy fields as part of an anti-drug strategy, has come under increased scrutiny in recent weeks. On July 24, Klaus Nyholm, director of United Nations (UN) counternarcotics programs in Colombia, called for international monitoring of the spraying to examine the affected areas and the mix of chemicals being used. Nyholm said the UN has collected ample evidence that herbicides are being forcibly sprayed on the food crops of subsistence farmers. [AFP 7/24/01; AP 7/24/01] Meanwhile, a group of 20 US activists followed up a July 8-17 visit to Colombia with a July 18 vigil at the site of the US military's training school for Latin American officers in Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest the fumigation program and US military aid and intervention in general. Eleven of the activists were arrested after crossing onto the grounds of the former School of the Americas (SOA), now renamed as the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHISC). During their trip to Colombia, the activists witnessed the effects of the spraying and spoke with local residents who had been affected by it. [SOA Watch Press Release 7/18/01] *8. PERU: NEW PRESIDENT INAUGURATED Alejandro Toledo Manrique was inaugurated on July 28 to a five- year term as Peru's new president. Toledo was sworn in by the new Congress, whose 120 members were seated on July 23. In his inaugural speech, Toledo addressed the 12 heads of state from South American nations and Panama who were present at the ceremony, urging them to back "an immediate freeze on arms purchases in the region." [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/24/01, 7/29/01 from EFE; CNN en Espanol 7/28/01] On July 26, Toledo revealed the names of his cabinet members, headed by lawyer Roberto Danino as prime minister (chief of the cabinet). Danino lives in Washington, where he works for the influential law firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, and is a member of several corporate and organizational boards of directors, including Coca Cola, the Americas Society, the Mountain Institute and the Carnegie Endowment. As economy minister, Toledo confirmed his choice of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a Miami resident and former president of First Boston International [see Update #593]. Kuczynski is president of the Latin American Enterprise Fund and a member of the board of directors of the ROC Taiwan Fund, among other institutions. First vice president Raul Diez Canseco, elected on the ticket with Toledo, will also serve as minister of industry. The presidency minister will be economist Carlos Bruce. To serve as defense minister, Toledo chose legislator David Waisman, a civilian who headed congressional investigations into wrongdoing by former president Alberto Fujimori and his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos Torres. Prominent political commentator and analyst Fernando Rospigliosi, another civilian, will head the interior ministry. As foreign minister, Toledo selected lawyer Diego Garcia Sayan, who served as justice minister during the transition government that called new elections following Fujimori's ouster last fall. Fernando Olivera, leader of the Independent Moralizing Front (FIM) party, will be the new justice minister. [CNN en Espanol 7/27/01] On July 25, Peruvian police arrested former attorney general Blanca Nelida Colan on charges that she covered up a corruption network. The same day, police arrested Jose Portillo, former chief of the electoral institute, and three other people for alleged participation in the falsifying of signatures that allowed Fujimori to run for a third consecutive term. [CNN en Espanol 7/26/01 with info from Reuters, AP] *9. PANAMA: YOUTH PROTEST AT US EMBASSY Young people participating in the 2nd World Youth Festival demonstrated in front of the US Embassy in Panama City on July 26 to protest the presence of representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the country. The young people blocked traffic on Avenida Balboa while shouting slogans against IMF policies. Several demonstrators scaled the embassy fence to hang protest banners as police watched. No arrests or other incidents were reported. Later the same day, students and youth from the festival joined activists from the National Confederation of Trade Union Unity (CONUSI) at a separate demonstration at the US embassy, where they protested plans for the hemispheric trade initiative known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA in Spanish). This time riot police prevented demonstrators from hanging banners on the embassy fence. Police reported no violence or arrests. [La Prensa (Panama) 7/27/01] The World Youth Festival took place July 21-28 at the now- abandoned former Howard US Air Force Base in Panama, with the participation of some 8,000 young people from around the world. Several columnists in the daily La Prensa complained that many of the participants seemed more interested in partying than attending workshops or events focused on social issues. [LP 7/24/01, 7/25/01, 7/29/01] Six Costa Rican participants went to the Grassroots Human Rights Coordinating Committee on July 24 to charge that the festival was badly organized, that organizers had sought to avoid debate on political issues and that police harassed some of the female participants at the festival. The six also complained that the Panamanian government had denied entry to a group of Cuban delegates. [LP 7/25/01] *10. GUATEMALA: JUDGE FLEES, ABUSES INCREASE Guatemalan judge Iris Yasmin Barrios Aguilar, a member of the three-judge panel that convicted three military officers on June 8 in the April 1998 murder of Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, left Guatemala on July 22, reportedly to study in Spain. She had received threats during the trial, and in March she escaped uninjured when two grenades were thrown at her home [see Updates #582, 593]. The head judge in the trial, Eduardo Cojulun, has also received threats, as has the third judge, Amada Guzman. "I still haven't decided, but for safety I am analyzing leaving the country," Judge Cojulun said on July 24. [Prensa Libre (Guatemala City) 7/25/01; La Prensa (San Pedro Sula) 7/25/01 from AP; Hoy (NY) 7/25/01 from AP] On July 27 the London-based human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) released a report charging that Guatemala is experiencing "a systematic campaign to undermine and silence the work of activists from human rights organizations." The report covered a variety of crimes, including death threats and robberies of office equipment, files and computers from non- governmental organization. It cited the case of the US nun and human rights advocate Barbara Ann Ford, who was shot dead on May 5 in a busy section of Guatemala City [see Update #589]. The government rarely solves such crimes, the report notes: "Impunity is a clear demonstration not only that those who are guilty can literally get away with murder, but also that their attacks are aimed at organizations and people who dare to combat impunity and seek justice." [PL 7/28/01] On July 27, the same day the AI report was released, National Civilian Police detectives announced they had arrested a suspect in the Ford murder a day earlier. The suspect, Walter Guillermo Castillo Luna ("Willy"), was arrested for a July 23 attack on a currency exchange business in which two men were killed and Castillo was wounded. Police claimed Castillo's fingerprints matched one found on Ford's truck. Also on July 27, the Third Judgment Court set Oct. 10 as the trial date for Col. Juan Valencia Osorio, Col. Juan Oliva Carrera and Gen. Edgar Godoy Gaitan, who are accused of masterminding the September 1990 murder of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang by Army Specialist Sgt. Noel de Jesus Beteta. Beteta is serving a 30-year sentence for the murder. [Guatemala Hoy 7/28/01] The three officers were indicted in June 1996 but were freed on bail [see Update #334]. The highest-ranking of the accused officers, Godoy Gaitan, was implicated in the early 1990s in questionable purchases of Sikorsky helicopters from Jordan in connection with the now-defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In 1995 investigative journalist Allan Nairn reported that Godoy had been paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [see Updates #105, 213, 256, 270]. Godoy took a military intelligence course at the US Army's School of the Americas (SOA) in Panama in 1975 and graduated from the SOA Command and General Staff College in 1987, after the school had been moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. [SOA Watch website] On July 18 the Guatemalan government extended for 30 days a "state of alarm" it had declared a month earlier, ostensibly to help the police capture 41 convicts who had escaped from the Escuintla high-security prison. The state of alarm suspends constitutional guarantees on arrests, interrogations and freedom of mobility for vehicles. [La Semana en Guatemala 7/23/01] *11. GUATEMALA: MAQUILA UNIONISTS ASSAULTED Non-union Guatemalan workers at two apparel plants in Villa Nueva, near Guatemala City, attacked leaders of the plants' newly formed unions during the lunch break on July 18, throwing food, bottles and rocks at the unionists and threatening to lynch them. The two plants, Choishin and Cimatextiles, are maquiladoras (tax- exempt assembly plants producing for export) owned by the Korean- based company Choi & Shin's. Korean managers watched from nearby as the unionists were assaulted; a top supervisor from the Choisin plant led the attack, which followed a meeting of all the line and area supervisors from the factories that morning in Cimatextiles' offices. The union leaders were unable to get away until late afternoon, when observers from the United Nations Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA), the Labor Ministry, the local media and several non- governmental organizations arrived at the plants. The unionists reported the incident to the Public Ministry, the Labor Ministry and COVERCO, a local organization that monitors factory abuses. A similar incident occurred on July 19. The unions at the two plants were organized clandestinely over the past year. They went public on July 9 and applied for official recognition from the government; the Cimatextiles union was recognized, and government officials said Choishin would also receive recognition. The plants produce for the New York-based Liz Claiborne apparel company, which has a labor code of conduct and contracts COVERCO to monitor the plants; the company is also on the board of the Fair Labor Association (FLA), an organization that coordinates the internal and independent monitoring of garment factories. Labor rights activists are asking people to contact Liz Claiborne (212-354-4900, fax 212-626-3416, http://www.lizclaiborne.com/lizinc/lizworks/ workers/contact.asp) and ask it put pressure on Choi & Shin's to end the abuses and to agree to negotiate with the union. People can also contact Guatemala's ambassador to the US, Dr. Ariel Rivera-Irias, to ask the government to ensure the unionists' safety and prosecute the assailants. [Campaign for Labor Rights/Labor Alerts 7/22/01 from US Labor Education in the Americas Project (US/LEAP)] *12. GUATEMALA: CAMPUS MILITARY BASE PROTESTED Some 1,000 students, parents and school personnel from the Pedro Molina Normal School in the Guatemalan city of Chimaltenango began a march on July 24 to Guatemala City to demand the removal of a military base from their school. After spending the night in the Guatemala City suburb of Mixco, on July 25 the marchers entered the capital's Central Square, where they were joined by members of the University Students Association. According to school director Abraham Coloma, Military Zone 302 occupied nearly 70% of school's land in November 1981; the school's activities have been limited by the presence of the military base ever since. The demonstrators met with a government commission in the presidential offices. Coloma said the commission listened to his concerns but did not make any commitment to close down the military base. The two sides agreed to continue conversations on Aug. 2. [Prensa Libre (Guatemala City) 7/26/01] *13. BOLIVIA: PRESIDENT QUITS, ENVOY BASHED President Hugo Banzer Suarez will go home to Bolivia and officially announce his resignation on Aug. 6, Information Minister Manfredo Kempff announced on July 27. Banzer, a former military dictator, will then return to Washington, where he is undergoing chemotherapy for what is likely to be terminal cancer [see Updates #597, 599]. Vice President Jorge Quiroga will be sworn in as president to serve out Banzer's term, set to end on Aug. 6, 2002. Banzer's entire cabinet will offer its resignations to allow Quiroga to select his government ministers after taking office. [El Diario (La Paz) 7/29/01; CNN en Espanol 7/27/01] Mexican art critic Alberto Hijar Serrano threw a glass of wine in the face of Bolivian ambassador Gary Prado Salmon at a book party in Mexico City on July 26, saying: "To Che's health, murderer." Prado is the only surviving Bolivian officer involved in the October 1967 capture and execution of Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto ("Che") Guevara de la Serna. Mexican leftists noted that during his confirmation hearings before the Bolivian Senate in November 2000, Prado said that in Mexico he would work to "analyze and follow the activities of insurgent and irregular groups in some entities, because of the influence that these can come to exercise in our native communities because of the commonplace phenomenon of imitation." [La Jornada (Mexico) 7/28/01] *14. MEXICO: EZLN PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE Six prisoners associated with Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Front (EZLN) started a hunger strike on July 24 to protest "the lies of the government" about its indigenous policies, according to their communique. Three of the strikers are imprisoned in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital of the southwestern state of Chiapas, and three are in Villahermosa, Tabasco. Following medical advice, Rafael Lopez Santiz, a prisoner in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, who suffers from diabetes and gastritis, decided not to join the strike. Two prisoners in the central state of Queretaro also supported the action but did not participate. The federal and the Chiapas governments released many of the approximately 100 rebel prisoners earlier in the year in an effort to renew talks with the EZLN, which is demanding the release of the rest [see Updates #570, 577, 582]. Authorities responded angrily to the hunger strike. In Tuxtla Gutierrez, Social Readaptation Center (CERESO) #1 director Erasmo Ramirez Figueroa entered the strikers' cell and personally tore down tissue paper banners reading: "Liberty, justice and dignity" and "Long live the EZLN." He returned one hour later and twisted the arm of striker Alejandro Mendez Diaz, threatening to beat and transfer the prisoners if they continued their strike. [Voz de Cerro Hueco (prisoners' group) communique 7/24/01; communique from Fray Bartolome de las Casas Human Rights Center and other San Cristobal-based organizations 7/25/01; report from Estacion Libre 7/24/01] EZLN supporters in the US are calling for groups to organize demonstrations at local Mexican consulates and to send faxes. People can also send letters of support to the prisoners (in Spanish if possible) at bajlum_vozcerrohueco@ hotmail.com. [Chiapaslink 7/25/01] *15. MEXICO: ECOLOGISTS' APPEAL REJECTED A Mexican judge denied an appeal by Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, two imprisoned environmentalists from the southern state of Guerrero, in mid-July. The two men are campesinos who mobilized communities throughout Guerrero to protest the activities of the wood and paper industries in the region. They were arrested in May 1999 on charges of drug and weapons possession. Montiel has since won the Goldman Environmental Award and the Sierra Club's Chico Mendes Award for his work; in February 2001 federal president Vicente Fox Quesada promised that his government would investigate the case [see Updates #532, 577]. The appeal was based on the fact that confessions used as the basis of the original convictions were taken under torture; the judge ruled that torture was not a sufficient reason for appeal. [Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary 7/27/01] On July 26 the parks committee of the New York City Council passed Resolution 1809A calling on the Mexican government to free Montiel and Cabrera. "I'm optimistic that the approval of this resolution will send a clear message to Mexico that New York City isn't going to tolerate injustices against anyone anywhere in the world," said the resolution's sponsor, council member Kathryn Freed. [Hoy (NY) 7/27/01, quote retranslated from Spanish] *16. CUBA: US CONGRESS WAVERS ON EMBARGO On July 25 the US House of Representatives voted 240-186 in favor of an amendment introduced by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) stipulating that the US Treasury Department may not use its funds to enforce restrictions on travel to Cuba. The amendment was added to a $30 billion Treasury Department appropriations bill. The restrictions are an important part of the embargo the US has maintained against Cuba for 40 years in order to weaken its leftist government. The House voted 227-201 against another amendment, introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), which would have eliminated the legislative mechanisms that keep the embargo in operation. "The concentration of interests against the embargo is really extraordinary," rightwing Cuban-America Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) remarked. "There are interests ranging from business people to traditional friends of Castro and now even to people who call themselves dissidents." Despite the victory for embargo opponents, the House Republican leadership is expected to kill the travel amendment during conferences with the Senate. A similar bill passed in the House in 2000 but failed in the Senate. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 7/26/01; New York Times 7/26/01; Miami Herald 7/26/01] On July 26, the day after the embargo vote, the Cuban government sponsored a huge march it had planned to show Cuban resistance to US policies, especially the embargo, and to a Miami jury's June 8 conviction of five Cubans for espionage against the US [see Update #594]. Some 1.2 million Cubans--more than 10% of the population--turned out for the march along the Malecon road in Havana to honor the 48th anniversary of the attack on the Moncada barracks led by Fidel Castro Ruz. Castro, president since 1959 and set to turn 75 in August, walked with the marchers for a little less than half the 3.5-mile route. [ENH 7/27/01 from Reuters; El Universo (Quito) 7/27/01 from AFP, EFE; NYT 7/27/01 from AP] Meanwhile, the 20-year old Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), the most powerful of the rightwing Cuban- American organizations, is suffering from internal conflicts. Longtime CANF spokesperson Ninoska Perez Castellon, a popular radio talk-show host, and her husband Roberto Martin Perez, who was a prisoner for 28 years in Cuba, quit the group on July 19, apparently feeling that the current leadership is too soft. A major issue has been lobbying by Jorge Mas Santos, who took over after his father's death in 1997, to have the Latin Grammy Awards held in Miami. Hardliners are afraid artists from Cuba may be invited to perform or may come to accept awards. [MH 7/21/01; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/21/01 from EFE] *17. IN OTHER NEWS... On July 24, police on the Caribbean island of Antigua used rubber bullets and tear gas against some 200 demonstrators who were trying to stop the delivery of construction materials to the Carlisle Bay Hotel. Some protesters reportedly threw bottles and rocks at police. Residents in the southern village of Old Road are angry about plans to add about 50 rooms to the hotel's current 64; they believe the expansion would be an environmental risk because it is too close to the sea. Villagers had been trying to negotiate a compromise with the hotel through the Antiguan government. [AP 7/24/01 via Sacramento Bee website]... Uruguay's main labor federation, the Inter-Union Workers Plenary- National Workers Convention (PIT-CNT), shut down the country on Aug. 25 with a 24-hour general strike to protest privatization and other neoliberal economic policies, and to demand more jobs and better wages. There were a few minor incidents involving damage to vehicles. The PIT-CNT called the strike a "plebiscite" against government policies. It was supported by the center-left Frente Amplio (Broad Front) political coalition, which has presented an alternative economic plan; the government has rejected the plan as "unviable" and "dangerous." [El Diario-La Prensa 7/26/01 from AP]... The 5,893 voters on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques were scheduled to vote on July 29 in a referendum on the continued use of the island for bomb testing by the US. Opponents of the bombing expect voters to support an immediate end to the tests. The US government is not bound by the plebiscite, which was organized by the Puerto Rican government. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 7/29/01 from AP] Ignoring the referendum, the Navy has scheduled a new round of exercises to begin on or after Aug. 1. [ED-LP 7/26/01 from EFE] END VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED to help research and write the Weekly News Update on the Americas via email (from anywhere). 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