WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #604, AUGUST 26, 2001 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Dominican Republic: More Protests, Police Kill Two 2. Panama: Banana Workers Strike 3. Ecuador: Banana Producers Strike 4. Peru: Maoist Rebel Resurgence? 5. Bolivia: Families Mark Coup Anniversary 6. Bolivia: Altiplano Campesinos Sign Truce 7. Colombia: Indigenous March in Cauca 8. Colombia: Peace Communities Face Threats 9. Colombia: Army Attacks as US Plans Visit 10. Argentina: US Leads War Games 11. Argentina: IMF Offers $8 Billion Loan 12. Brazil: Ready to Break AIDS Drug Patent 13. Mexico: VW Workers Strike Again 14. Mexico: False Arrests in Bank Bombings? 15. Mexico: "Dirty War" Report Planned 16. Cuba: New Embarrassments for Miami Right 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. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: MORE PROTESTS, POLICE KILL TWO Dominican police shot to death a 14-year old boy on Aug. 24 as residents of the Ejido neighborhood of Santiago de los Caballeros, 130 km north of Santo Domingo, blocked streets in a protest against the blackouts that have left their community without electricity for more than 18 hours at a time. The boy, whose last name was Fernandez, was killed when police fired at the protesters with rifles and shotguns. His death caused residents to step up their protests. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/26/01 from AFP] Protests took place a day earlier, Aug. 23, in several neighborhoods of Santo Domingo and in the town of Licey al Medio, 140 km north of the capital, where the United to Win Committee (CUPAVE) charges that the blackouts are lasting as long as 24 hours at a time. [ENH 8/24/01] On Aug. 16, three people--including a police major--were wounded by bullets and at least 10 people were arrested during protests in the Capotillo neighborhood of Santo Domingo. Capotillo residents were protesting the electricity blackouts, the insufficient supply of drinking water and the high cost of domestic (cooking) gas. Residents said the community had not had electricity or drinking water in three days. One of the injured civilians, a protester, said he was shot after being arrested; while recovering in the hospital, he remained handcuffed to the bed and guarded by police. [Hoy (Santo Domingo) 8/17/01] On Aug. 15, police shot to death Tarzania Altagracia Martinez Batista, a young mother of three, as she sat in front of her home in the San Martin neighborhood of San Francisco de Macoris, during protests prompted by a 20-hour blackout. At least one person was wounded and more than 20 people were arrested in the protests. Two police agents were subsequently arrested for killing Martinez. [El Nacional (Santo Domingo) 8/16/01] Since April, when the latest surge of protests began, Dominican police have killed at least nine civilians during protests, and at least three others in areas where no demonstrations were taking place [see Updates #586, 590-595, 597-598]. *2. PANAMA: BANANA WORKERS STRIKE At 6am on Aug. 20 more than 3,000 workers began a sitdown strike at the 18 banana plantations of Puerto Armuelles Fruit Company (PAFCO), a division of the US-based Chiquita Brands which operates in Panama's Pacific coast region. [La Prensa (Panama) website last-minute news 8/20/01] Antonio Osorio, lawyer for SITRACHILCO, the Union of Workers of the Chiriqui Land Company (a Chiquita affiliate that operates in Panama's Atlantic coast region), said Chiquita Brands had sent a note from its Cincinnati headquarters to President Mireya Moscoso, asking her to intervene in the conflict and "twist our arm." The letter apparently warned that Chiquita might have to shut down PAFCO altogether as the labor crisis and other problems had made the situation there "unsustainable." [El Panama America (Panama) 8/21/01, 8/22/01] By Aug. 24, when the strike entered its fifth day, union official Edgar Omar Williams reported that negotiations with the company had advanced considerably, leaving two main points unresolved: the transfer of personnel to other job sites; and the new collective bargaining agreement. [LP 8/24/01] *3. ECUADOR: BANANA PRODUCERS STRIKE Small- and medium-scale independent banana producers in the southern Ecuadoran province of El Oro began an open-ended strike on Aug. 16 to demand that exporters comply with the officially established minimum price of $2.90 per box. The strike was joined on Aug. 18 by producers in the central province of Los Rios, and on Aug. 20 by producers in Cotopaxi and Guayas provinces. By Aug. 21, producers in El Oro had set up highway blockades and halted transport of the fruit. Residents of El Oro province began a civic strike on Aug. 22 to support the banana producers. [El Telegrafo (Guayaquil) 8/20/01, 8/23/01; La Hora (Quito) 8/22/01, 8/23/01] *4. PERU: MAOIST REBEL RESURGENCE? Combined Peruvian army and police troops clashed on Aug. 7 with armed rebels from the Maoist Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) in the jungles of Satipo, Junin department. The troops were sent in from Lima on Aug. 6 to track down a rebel unit which had reportedly entered an native Ashaninka community in Cutivireni. The five-hour clash left four police agents dead and three others with bullet wounds; the surviving troops had to be airlifted out of the area, and the bodies of the dead agents were not recovered until Aug. 12. Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi Capurro said between 12 and 15 rebels were killed in the combat, although the deaths could not be confirmed. [La Republica (Lima) 8/9/01, 8/10/01, 8/13/01; El Mostrador (Chile) 8/9/01; El Observador (Montevideo) 8/9/01 from EFE, 8/17/01 from AP, AFP] On Aug. 14, Rospigliosi said the government was considering reopening the military's old counterinsurgency bases in several areas in order to step up actions against the rebels. [LR 8/15/01] On Aug. 15 he said a routine investigation was under way to determine whether the Interior Ministry had made a mistake in sending police to attack Sendero fighters on Aug. 6. [LR 8/16/01] The Sendero column based in Satipo is reportedly the same one that ambushed an army helicopter on Oct. 2, 1999, killing at least five and possibly more than 13 soldiers, four of them high- ranking officers. That attack took place as the National Intelligence Service (SIN) was allegedly conducting secret negotiations with the column's leaders [see Updates #506-509, 513]. [LR 8/17/01, 8/18/01] On Aug. 16, the Peruvian government acknowledged that Sendero appeared to be responsible for the downing of two high-tension electricity towers near Ayacucho, which prompted a blackout in the region. Rospigliosi said those responsible were merely "remnants" of the formerly powerful rebel group, while Defense Minister David Waisman referred to a "resurgence of subversion." [EO 8/17/01 from AP, AFP] President Alejandro Toledo announced on Aug. 23 that his government will put a stop to the rebel activity: "Let no one doubt the decision of this democratic government to enter with force and end the subversion," he said. [LR 8/24/01] On Aug. 25 agents of the National Directorate Against Terrorism (DINCOTE) arrested a suspected Sendero member, Fidel Joaquin Romero Centeno, in the Vinac district of Yauyos province, in Lima department near the border with Junin department. [LR 8/26/01] Meanwhile, DINCOTE reported in early August that Sendero Luminoso was not responsible for a series of recent grenade explosions in Lima. According to the DINCOTE report, the explosive attacks are part of a psychosocial operation by members or collaborators of the notorious rightwing "Colina group"--a death squad established and directed by the National Intelligence Service (SIN)--with the intention of destabilizing the current government by sowing fear of terrorism among the public. [LR 8/6/01] *5. BOLIVIA: FAMILIES MARK COUP ANNIVERSARY Relatives of those killed under the dictatorship of Hugo Banzer Suarez (1971-1978) marched on Aug. 21 in La Paz to mark the 30th anniversary of the coup in which Banzer overthrew left populist dictator Gen. Juan Jose Torres. Banzer regained the presidency through constitutional means in 1997, but was forced to resign on Aug. 6 of this year after being diagnosed with terminal cancer [see Update #602]. While Banzer's illness has recently prompted his political allies and supporters to hail him as a hero, the protesters were unmoved, shouting "No forgetting, no forgiveness, Banzer to the firing squad." The commemorations in La Paz began with a Catholic mass, organized by the Association of Relatives of the Dead and Disappeared during the Dictatorship, in memory of the 98 people killed and dozens disappeared during the coup. According to historian Alfonso Crespo, another 580 people were wounded by bullets during the coup. "What [the Banzer regime] did was try to impose order with a very high social cost," said Mauro Bertero, spokesperson for the government of President Jorge Quiroga, who took over Banzer's post on Aug. 7. "You can't ignore history or block out the sun with one finger, but it's fundamental that we understand the political situation that the country was experiencing at the time," Bertero said. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/22/01 from AFP] Controversy was further fueled by the Aug. 18 release in La Paz of The Elected Dictator, an unauthorized biography of Banzer by Argentine journalist Martin Sivak. The book, which sold 3,000 copies--at $10 each--within an hour of its release at the La Paz VI International Book Fair, contains information reconfirming Banzer's participation in Operation Condor, through which rightwing South American dictatorships coordinated repression against leftists in the 1970s and 1980s. Sivak admits that he is not objective, but insists that his accusations against Banzer are backed up by documents and testimonies. "This book goes against the official propaganda that seeks to transform ex- president Hugo Banzer into a national eminence, and has caused controversy because it reveals his [previously] unknown links with drug trafficking, with Plan Condor, with the annihilation of various leftists," explained Sivak. [La Tercera (Chile) 8/21/01; ENH 8/20/01 from AFP] *6. BOLIVIA: ALTIPLANO CAMPESINOS SIGN TRUCE On Aug. 23 leaders of the Only Union Confederation of Bolivian Campesino Workers (CSUTCB) signed a 70-point agreement with the government of President Jorge Quiroga, extending until December a temporary truce that ended campesino protests organized by CSUTCB executive secretary Felipe Quispe Huanca in the Altiplano region of La Paz department [see Updates 595-599]. The accord was signed at a public ceremony in the central plaza of Pucarani, La Paz department, by CSUTCB leaders and by Minister of Government Leopoldo Fernandez; Agriculture Minister Walter Nunez; Minister of Campesino Affairs Wigberto Rivero; Labor Minister Jorge Pacheco; and Health Minister Enrique Paz. Waldo Albarracin, president of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB), also signed the pact and will seek to ensure that the government fulfils its commitments. The accord commits the government to providing 1,000 tractors and $66 million for agricultural development in La Paz department. Campesinos are to develop a micro-credit institution which will get $11 million in government funding for 2001-2002; and to create an agricultural development program that will get $47 million in funding for infrastructure, technical assistance, irrigation and other needs. The government's Ministry of Energy will carry out 100 rural electrification projects in the region. President Quiroga will establish a commission to look into distributing 3.8 million hectares of land to campesinos. The CSUTCB will present the government with a proposed land law to replace the current National Agrarian Reform Institute (INRA) law; and the teachers' unions will present a proposal for modification of "Education Reform" Law 1.565. The government agrees not to carry out forced eradication of coca crops in the Altiplano region of Los Yungas, and to look into options for legal commercial production of coca leaf. CSUTCB and the unions representing campesino coca growers (cocaleros) will present the government with a proposed law to replace controversial anti-drug Law 1008. The government pledges to investigate the killing of campesino protesters by police and military troops in April and September 2000 and June and July 2001, and provide compensation to the families of the victims; and to suspend investigations into the death of army captain Omar Jesus Tellez Arancibia, who was lynched by residents of the Altiplano community of Achacachi on Apr. 9, 2000, after soldiers shot to death two campesino protesters there [see Updates #533, 534]. [Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 8/24/01; El Diario (La Paz) 8/24/01; El Nuevo Herald 8/25/01 from AP] The pact has built-in deadlines for compliance, and Quispe warned that if the government doesn't fulfill its commitments, the Altiplano campesinos will strike with more force than before. Some CSUTCB leaders criticized Quispe for signing an agreement that only benefits campesinos in the Altiplano, while ignoring the needs of those in the rest of the country. CSUTCB leaders from the departments of Santa Cruz, Oruro, Potosi, Tarija, Chuquisaca, Beni, Pando and Cochabamba have sent a letter to the government, demanding equal attention to their issues. [ED 8/24/01] Meanwhile, some 500 indigenous people from the Amazon department of Beni arrived in the city of Trinidad during the week of Aug. 13 to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the "March for Territory and Dignity," and press demands over land issues. On Aug. 22, leaders of the group began negotiations with INRA. [LT 8/23/01] Also on Aug. 23, Quiroga's administration signed a political pact with the main opposition party, the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MNR) led by ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, guaranteeing congressional support for his economic reactivation plan. Quiroga's popularity is reportedly at 80%, according to independent opinion polls. He is currently seeking international support for a job creation program that will cost $60 million; Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) president Enrique Iglesias is due to arrive in Bolivia during the week of Aug. 27 to negotiate the support. [ENH 8/25/01 from AP] *7. COLOMBIA: INDIGENOUS MARCH IN CAUCA On Aug. 20, some 17,000 indigenous Colombians and their supporters marched in a "Minga for Life and Against Violence" from Toez--site of the "Dignity in Resistance" Congress of the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC)--to the central park in Santander de Quilichao, capital of Cauca department. ["Minga" is a word used to describe collective action.] The Dignity in Resistance Congress was convened by the indigenous authorities of Cauca to address the increasing violence and displacement faced by indigenous communities in the region. Participants included international delegations from Canada, the US, Spain, and other countries. At the park in Santander de Quilichao, the marchers gathered to listen to the final declaration of the CRIC congress, which rejects abuses by all armed groups against indigenous communities, and reiterates the CRIC's commitment--together with other grassroots movements and organizations in Colombia--to autonomy, peace and social justice. The indigenous communities have established an unarmed "civilian guard" of community members to protect them. [Canada Colombia Minga Update 8/20/01] *8. COLOMBIA: PEACE COMMUNITIES FACE THREATS On Aug. 2, some 100-200 rightwing paramilitaries reportedly entered the rural village of Bocas de Curbarado in Choco department, part of the Peace Community of Natividad de Maria. ("Peace Communities" have chosen to reject and nonviolently resist the presence of all armed groups in their communities.) The paramilitaries rounded up the residents, accused them of being guerrilla sympathizers and threatened to kill them. A day later, Aug. 3, police retrieved a mutilated body from the Atrato river, which marks part of the border between Choco and Antioquia departments; the body is believed to be that of local campesino Orfides Flores, who disappeared on Aug. 1 after going to gather food for his family. On July 14, paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) had threatened members of the peace community and of the local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who work with them. Residents of the Peace Community of La Union in Apartado municipality, Antioquia department, who were forcibly displaced by paramilitaries on July 30 [see Update #602], are now planning to return to their homes on Aug. 23. Amnesty International (AI) is urging messages to President Andres Pastrana (fax # +571-286-7434, 284-2186, 337-1351), expressing concern for the safety of residents in Natividad de Maria and other Peace Communities in Choco, and of the families returning to La Union. Messages should urge authorities to take all measures deemed appropriate by the communities themselves to guarantee their safety; and should call for investigations into paramilitary attacks and threats, and particularly into links between the army's XVII Brigade and paramilitary groups active in the region. [AI Urgent Action Appeal Update 8/21/01] *9. COLOMBIA: ARMY ATTACKS AS US PLANS VISIT The US-backed Colombian military launched a major air and land offensive in southeastern Colombia on Aug. 17 against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in an effort to show that US aid and training has boosted its effectiveness against the rebels. On Aug. 22, the army used a US Blackhawk helicopter to retrieve bodies of some of the dozens of rebels reportedly killed in combat, in an apparent effort to prove their claims of heavy rebel casualties. [Miami Herald 8/23/01, 8/24/01 from AP] On Aug. 25, FARC representatives told members of a civilian commission that makes recommendations to government peace negotiators that the offensive is an escalation of the conflict, but denied the military's claim that 100 rebels had been killed. The FARC said five of its fighters had been killed, among them the leader "Urias Cuellar." [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/26/01 from AFP] The army launched a simultaneous offensive in northern Colombia against the country's second-largest leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), which has stepped up its actions since the government broke off peace negotiations on Aug. 6. [ENH 8/24/01 from AFP] The latest offensives come as Colombia prepares for a three-day visit, beginning on Aug. 29, of a high-level US delegation led by Marc Grossman, under-secretary of state for political affairs and the highest level US official to visit Colombia since President George W. Bush took office in January of this year. The delegation will also include senior officials from the Justice Department, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the White House drug czar's office, State Department spokesperson Philip Reeker announced. The delegation is expected to raise concerns with Colombian president Andres Pastrana Arango about the FARC's alleged abuse of its safe haven in southern Colombia, under FARC control since late 1998. Secretary of State Colin Powell also may stop in Colombia either before or after a trip to Peru, Sept. 10-11, said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity. [Miami Herald 8/23/01, 8/24/01 from AP] *10. ARGENTINA: US LEADS WAR GAMES Some 1,500 troops from the US and eight South American countries were scheduled to participate in military exercises in Argentina's northwestern Salta province between Aug. 17 and Sept. 16. The exercises, code-named "Cabanas 2001," are to include 700 soldiers from Argentina; 200 from the US; 45 each from Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay; and 40 each from Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay. Venezuela and Mexico are sending observers. As of Aug. 19 the exercises had apparently not begun. Argentine investigative journalist Stella Calloni reported in the Mexican daily La Jornada that the participating troops started arriving on Aug. 15, even though Argentina's Congress had not yet given its authorization, as required by the Constitution. The operation is part of a series of exercises that began with "Cabanas 2000," held in Cordoba province last September. Experts say the exercises are linked to the US-sponsored Plan Colombia and to US strategies for "low-intensity warfare" in South America. According to the government's June 20 request for congressional authorization, "the exercise will develop the tasks that take place during a UN [United Nations] peacekeeping operation. The purpose is to sharpen the training of the region's armed forces in a battlefield composed of civilians, non- governmental organizations and potential aggressors." Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky connects "Cabanas 2001" to a report by Brig. Gen. Juan Carlos Mugnolo, "Threats to the Argentine Republic." The report, which Verbitsky first reported on in February of this year, discusses a hypothetical support by the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for undefined "violent groups" in Argentina, analyzes environmental and human rights groups, considers possible Argentine military participation in the conflict in Colombia and touches on such subjects as immigration, the Brazilian Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), Paraguay's homeless movement, and money laundering. Salta province shares borders with Paraguay, Bolivia and Chile. Two Argentine piqueteros (protesters) were killed there by federal border police (Gendarmeria Nacional) on June 17 [see Update #595]. [LJ 8/20/01; Verbitsky article from Comunistes de Catalunya, email received 8/21/01] US Marines participated in a joint exercise with Argentine naval forces in the northeastern province of Entre Rios Aug. 9-15. According to military sources, some 70 soldiers each took part from the US and Argentina; local residents say 450 soldiers participated, with helicopters, various military vehicles and three ships. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 8/25/01] *11. ARGENTINA: IMF OFFERS $8 BILLION LOAN On Aug. 21 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that it would extend another $8 billion in loans to Argentina, which was on the verge of default on its $130 billion international debt despite a $39.7 billion package it received last December as "armoring" for its economy. Some experts had been looking for as much as $15 billion [see Update #603] to come from Argentina's often tense two weeks of negotiations with the IMF. [New York Times 8/22/02; Wall Street Journal 8/22/01; Financial Times (London) 8/20/01] Argentina, which is in the third year of a recession, is required to implement new austerity measures to get the loans. Provincial governments are special targets for the new cutbacks. According to an IMF communique issued after the new package was announced, it will be "important" to "introduce reforms in the Argentine legislation on the division of tax revenues with the provinces, which have been a significant source of rigidity and inefficiency in public finances." [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/24/01 from Reuters] In a speech on the night of Aug. 22, Argentine president Fernando de la Rua promised that he would win political support for the cutbacks, and would even call a national referendum on the austerity measures after the October legislative elections. [WSJ 8/24/01] Meanwhile, Buenos Aires province--the largest and richest of the provinces--is so short of cash that on Aug. 21 it started paying its employees partly in scrip, using negotiable state bonds that were quickly dubbed patacones (a slang term for money). [WSJ 8/21/01] Provincial government employees have been protesting both the patacones and a 13% pay cut that is to last at least through September. Primary and secondary teachers started an open-ended strike on Aug. 21, and teachers on all levels held a one-day strike on Aug. 22, which included a march by 40,000 protesters to the presidential mansion in the national capital. Teachers, doctors and court employees were planning a protest in the provincial capital, La Plata, on Aug. 23. [CNN en Espanol 8/23/01 from Reuters] *12. BRAZIL: READY TO BREAK AIDS DRUG PATENT Brazilian Health Minister Jose Serra announced on Aug. 22 that government laboratories would begin manufacturing Nelfinavir, an AIDS drug made by the Swiss giant Roche group and sold under the trade name Viracept. Serra said six months of negotiations with Roche failed to lower the drug's price sufficiently for Brazil to be able to distribute the drug free to all the patients who need it [see Update #576]. According to Roche spokesperson Daniel Piller, the company sells Viracept in Brazil for 50% less than the US wholesale price and provides a pediatric version of the drug for free. But Serra says that the government can make Viracept for 40% less than what Roche charges. Piller declined to discuss whether the company could offer a similar discount and still make a profit. Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington, suggested that Brazil's decision could prompt other countries to do the same. "I think you're going to see more developing countries resisting these attempts to enforce the US patent law all over the world," he said. [St. Louis Post- Dispatch 8/24/01 from AP] The conservative British Financial Times worried about the same point, suggesting that pharmaceutical companies should compromise. There is "an economic incentive" for them "to sell their products at close to the marginal cost" in poor countries, the newspaper wrote, although there are "obstacles." These include the danger that "cheap generic drugs may leak back into rich countries" and that "two-tier pricing may provoke consumer revolts in the West." [FT 8/24/01] *13. MEXICO: VW WORKERS STRIKE AGAIN The 12,500 workers at the Volkswagen de Mexico plant in the central Mexican state of Puebla started an open-ended strike on Aug. 18 to push demands for a 21% wage increase over their current average of $30 a day. On weekdays the giant plant produces 1,530 cars a day, including Jettas, New Beetles, Golf Cabrios and the classic "VW bug"; on Saturday the plant turns out 1,270 vehicles. Many are produced for export, although the "bug" is sold only in Mexico. [New York Times 8/19/01 from AP; CNN en Espanol 8/25/01 from Reuters] The current strike came one year after the workers won a 13% wage increase, along with a 5% productivity bonus and a 3% increase in benefits, as the result of a five-day walkout supported by the independent National Workers Union (UNT) [see Update #557]. The current strike is one of the first big labor struggles under the government of President Vicente Fox Quesada of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), who took office in December after 71 years of rule by the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). On Aug. 24 the Volkswagen workers rejected mediation efforts by the Labor Secretariat as "not serious." On the morning of Aug. 25 they held a march to the local government offices in the state capital, also named Puebla. Jose Luis Rodriguez, general secretary of the Independent Union of Volkswagen Automotive Industry Workers (SITIAVW), said that if the strike is not resolved by Aug. 27, the workers will hold marches in Mexico City and various states, and sit-ins at Labor Secretariat offices with the support of the UNT's 200 member unions. [La Jornada 8/25/01; CNN en Espanol 8/25/01] *14. MEXICO: FALSE ARRESTS IN BANK BOMBINGS? The Mexican government arrested the wrong people for the Aug. 8 explosions of three small bombs at Banco Nacional de Mexico (Banamex) branches in Mexico City, according a communique issued on Aug. 15 by the Popular Revolutionary Democratic Party-Popular Revolutionary Army (PDPR-EPR). Two of the five people arrested Aug. 12-13 [not Aug. 13-14, as we reported in Update #603, following our source] have no connection with rebel activity, the EPR said. The other three, the brothers Alejandro, Hector and Antonio Cerezo Contreras, are the children of EPR members, and the military equipment found at their house is the property of the EPR, according to the communique, which demanded the prisoners' release. No information was given about the whereabouts of the parents, university professor Francisco Cerezo and homemaker Emilia Contreras. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People (FARP), a split-off from the EPR that took responsibility for the bombings, confirmed that the detainees were not involved, as did another EPR split- off, the PDPR-EPR Revolutionary Democratic Tendency (TDR). [PDPR- EPR communiques 8/15/01, 8/20/01; PDPR-EPR-TDR communique 8/16/01; LJ 8/21/01] The Cerezo Contreras brothers have charged that they were tortured during the first 12 hours after they were seized. The government's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) says it will investigate the charges. Asked on Aug. 20 if the brothers had been tortured, CNDH president Jose Luis Soberanes Fernandez answered that it was "very probable." [LJ 8/21/01] The Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees and Victims of Human Rights Violations in Mexico (AFADEM) is asking for faxes and emails to President Vicente Fox Quezada (+55 15 17 94, radio@presidencia.gob.mx) and Governance Secretary Santiago Creel Miranda (+525-703-2171, santiagocreel@compuserve.com, segob@rtn.net.mx)--with copies to AFADEM (+525-526-3191, fedefammex@laneta.apc.org)--to demand that the detainees not be physically or psychologically abused. [AFADEM Alert 8/17/01] *15. MEXICO: "DIRTY WAR" REPORT PLANNED Mexico's semi-official National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) will release "by November at the latest" a report on 482 people who disappeared during the military's "dirty war" against leftist rebels in the 1970s, according to Jose Luis Soberanes, the group's president. Some 80 CNDH members have been working on the report, which Soberanes says covers acts by the military that "were not within the legal channels." Soberanes notes that a number of the disappeared were pregnant women who presumably gave birth to children who must also be counted as disappeared. The promised report, coming at a time of renewed rebel activity, will "put the Army in the eye of the hurricane," Javier Ibarrola, editor of Fuerzas Armadas y Seguridad Nacional magazine, wrote in the Mexico City daily Milenio. In the 1970s the government "ordered the Army to do exactly the same thing as [Mexican president Vicente] Fox is doing now: eliminate the urban guerrillas," Ibarrola said. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 8/21/01 from AFP] Up to 800 people reportedly disappeared during the military's campaign in the 1970s. Many of the disappeared were linked to insurgencies led by Lucio Cabanas and Genaro Vazquez in the western state of Guerrero in the 1970s. Some 56 people--including Cabanas' aunt, Guadalupe Gervacio Barrientos--filed a formal complaint in June 2000 citing 60 disappearances in the region where they live. Interest in the disappearances increased with the arrest of Gen. Arturo Acosta Chaparro and Gen. Humberto Quiros Hermosillo in August for alleged connections to drug trafficking [see Updates #553, 555]; both generals are thought to have had a part in the counterinsurgency, which many Mexicans compare to the Argentine military's "dirty war" during the same period. [La Jornada 5/18/01; ENH 5/19/01 from AP] *16. CUBA: NEW EMBARRASSMENTS FOR MIAMI RIGHT Some 20 leading members of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) resigned on Aug. 7 from the Miami-based organization, which has dominated rightwing Cuban-American politics for two decades. CANF spokesperson Ninoska Perez Castellon and her husband, Roberto Martin Perez, had quit on July 19, charging that current CANF head Jorge Mas Santos has failed to follow the hardline policies of his late father, CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa [see Update #600]. One source of the split appears to have been an audit that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) carried out under the administration of former US president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, to determine whether the foundation, which frequently supports Republican politicians, was violating legal limitations on the use of tax-exempt donations in lobbying efforts. The audit, which was completed in 1999 and covered the CANF's 1992-1995 tax filings, reportedly found no wrongdoing but led the IRS to require a clearer distinction between the foundation and its lobbying arm, which had similar names and the same top officers. As a result, CANF changed its name to the Jorge Mas Canosa Freedom Foundation and the lobbying arm's name changed from the Cuban American Foundation to the Cuban American National Foundation. The Jorge Mas Canosa Freedom Foundation then removed most of its top officers and replaced them with Mas family members. The replaced officers apparently resented losing control over CANF's operating fund; shares in the fund generate some $2.6 million in revenues. They also objected to Mas Santos' invitation to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential candidate, to visit Miami, and his efforts to have Miami host the Latin Grammy awards, which would include participation by Cuban musicians. [Miami Herald 8/26/01] Some 60 Cuban-American organizations announced plans to protest at the Sept. 11 awards ceremony, and on Aug. 20 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced that they were moving the Grammys to Los Angeles because the artists' safety could not be guaranteed in Miami. Local officials had expected the event to generate $30-40 million for southern Florida. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 8/22/01 with info from AFP, AP] END VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED to help research and write the Weekly News Update on the Americas via email (from anywhere). We need people who are regular Update readers to send us news sources and to write articles for the Update. If you're interested, send your inquiry to and we'll send you the details. 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