WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #696, JUNE 1, 2003 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Peru: Protests Defy Emergency State 2. Bolivia: Legislators Hold Hunger Strike 3. Ecuador: Loggers Incite Massacre? 4. Ecuador: Indigenous Ditch Government? 5. Colombia: Residents Protest Blackouts 6. Colombia: Paramilitaries Kill Lawyer 7. Argentina: Kirchner Takes Office 8. Argentina: Castro Still Packs Them In 9. Venezuela: Referendum Accord Signed 10. Venezuela: Deaths in Land Reform Struggle 11. In Other News: Costa Rica, Colombia, 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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The organization's president, Jose Enrique Malaga, warned that if the government doesn't reduce taxes on rice, sugar and yellow corn crops, among other demands, the protests will intensify, causing food shortages in the cities. Malaga insists that reducing taxes from 18% to 3%, as his organization proposes, will ultimately increase state revenue, since it will encourage more farmers to leave the informal sector and pay their taxes. According to Malaga, only 3% of Peru's farmers are currently producing "on the books." The same day, some 300,000 teachers entered the third week of a national strike which they began May 12 to demand a wage increase [see Update #695]. Hundreds of teachers marched in Lima to the Congress building. Court workers were also in the streets; they began an open-ended strike on May 20 to demand better salaries. [La Republica (Lima) 5/27/03; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/27/03 from AFP, DPA; Clarin (Buenos Aires) 5/31/03 from correspondent] The next day, some 30,000 employees of the national health care and social security agency EsSalud went on strike, providing only emergency services at state-run hospitals and clinics. Also on May 27, Education Minister Gerardo Ayzanoa del Carpio announced that the government had declared the teachers' strike illegal, and any teachers who did not return to work would be fired. The Only Union of Peruvian Education Workers (SUTEP) announced that teachers would continue the strike, illegal or not. Ayzanoa insists there is no money in the budget for teacher salary raises; instead the government is offering teachers special "bonuses," assistance in buying a home, and low-interest loans for computer purchases. The government cannot grant the salary increases without violating International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreements on "fiscal discipline," according to the British news service Reuters. The same day, May 27, the wives of police agents marched in Chiclayo, capital of the northern department of Lambayeque, to demand fair wages and benefits for their husbands. [LR 5/28/03; Reuters 5/28/03] Late on May 27, as protests intensified around the country, President Alejandro Toledo declared a month-long state of emergency under which the armed forces are authorized to help police clear roads and reopen schools. The measure suspends civil liberties such as freedom of movement and the right to assembly, and gives police the authority to detain protesters and enter private homes to round up suspected leaders without warrants. "The country cannot be shut down," said Toledo. "Democracy without order and without authority is not democracy." [LR 5/28/03; BBC News 5/28/03; Reuters 5/28/03] The army mobilized 70% of its troops to deal with the strike, but the state of emergency only angered the strikers further and sparked new protests. Along a stretch of the PanAmerican highway through the towns of Barranca, Pativilca and Supe, on the northern border of Lima department, police and army troops tried to break up roadblocks by firing tear gas and weapons. At least 18 people were injured in Barranca, including 16-year old Sandro Huaman Segundo, who was hospitalized in serious condition. In Chiclayo, police fired tear gas and arrested teachers, while in Lima, police used water hoses against striking court workers at the national justice palace. More than 40 people were arrested and 16 members of the security forces were injured in a clash between police and army troops and farmers in Jauja province, Junin department. [LR 5/29/03; New York Times 5/29/03 from Reuters] The same day, May 28, EsSalud workers suspended their strike following intense negotiations with the government, though union leaders warned the strike would be resumed if the government doesn't fulfill its promises. Also on May 28, residents of the Amazonian departments of Loreto and Ucayali began 48-hour civic strikes to protest the state of emergency and press the government on longstanding local demands. The next day, May 29, residents of the rural department of Madre de Dios began a 48- hour civic strike, and in Huaraz, capital of Ancash department, residents began a 24-hour civic strike. [LR 5/29/03] In the southeastern city of Puno on May 28, students protesting the state of emergency seized the National University of the Altiplano (UNA). The next morning, May 29, police and army troops tried to eject the students by confronting more than 2,000 protesters with tear gas and gunfire. Edy Jhony Quilca Cruz, a 22-year old education student, died from a bullet wound in the stomach; some 46 other civilians--among them protesters, passersby and journalists--were hospitalized, 20 of them with bullet wounds. Thirteen members of the security forces were also injured. Angry Puno residents protested the repression with marches and a cacerolazo, in which demonstrators bang on pots and pans. Defense Minister Aurelio Loret de Mola insisted "there were clearly no excesses" on the part of police and army troops, and claimed that members of the Maoist rebel group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) had infiltrated the protests. Also on May 29, striking teachers clashed with navy troops in Chimbote, where a teacher was injured in the head by a tear gas grenade; and with army troops in Huancayo, where 17 people were injured and 40 teachers were arrested. Protesters were injured by tear gas in Trujillo and Arequipa. In Lima, troops used three tanks and full riot gear to surround the Palace of Justice and block court workers from seizing it. Back in Pativilca, eight protesters were wounded by bullets when police attacked farmers blocking a bridge. Two of them--including a 12-year old boy hit by a bullet in the chest--were in critical but stable condition. Meanwhile, schools around the country remained empty despite the government's pleas for teachers and students to return to classes. [LR 5/30/03, 6/1/03; LJ 5/30/03 from AFP, DPA, Prensa Latina, Reuters] On May 30, thousands of Puno residents took part in a funeral march for Quilca Cruz and to demand an end to the state of emergency. Puno officials said police and soldiers were ordered to stay off the streets to avoid clashes. [Miami Herald 5/31/03 from AP] In a May 30 press release, Human Rights Watch urged an investigation into the violence of the previous days: "To prevent further civilian deaths, President Alejandro Toledo should order an immediate inquiry into the reported use of lethal force by the army and police, particularly the incidents in Puno and Barranca," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Americas Division. [HRW 5/30/03] On May 31, the situation in Peru was described as one of tense calm. The General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) has called for a mass national mobilization on June 3 to protest the state of emergency. SUTEP has called an assembly to decide whether to lift the teachers' strike. President Toledo quickly dispatched a special commission to Puno to investigate the repression there. Prime Minister Luis Solari reported that a total of 304 people had been arrested throughout Peru May 28-30. [LR 6/1/03; LJ 6/1/03 from DPA, AFP, Reuters] *2. BOLIVIA: LEGISLATORS HOLD HUNGER STRIKE On May 31, under pressure from a hunger strike by opposition legislators, the Bolivian government called an extraordinary session of Congress for June 3--in effect ending the legislature's recess period a month early--to address social issues including land rights and agricultural subsidies. "The president and cabinet this morning signed a decree calling an emergency session of Congress for Tuesday," presidential spokesperson Mauricio Antezana announced on May 31. [Reuters 5/31/03; La Republica (Lima) 6/1/03 from AFP] Ten congressional deputies began the hunger strike in three Bolivian cities on May 29; the next day there were 45 deputies on hunger strike in six cities. The hunger strikers were from the Movement to Socialism (MAS) led by cocalero leader Evo Morales Ayma, the New Republican Force (NFR) led by Manfred Reyes Villa, the Indigenous Pachacuti Movement (MIP) and even from the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), which is allied with the government of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. [ENH 5/30/03 & 5/31/03, both from unspecified wire services] After the government's May 31 announcement, 29 indigenous deputies said they would continue the strike until the government approves construction of a university in El Alto, adjacent to La Paz. [Reuters 5/31/03] *3. ECUADOR: LOGGERS INCITE MASSACRE? On May 26 members of the indigenous Huaorani community of Tiguino used shotguns provided by small-time loggers to massacre 30 members of the Tagaeri (or Taegueri) tribe in the Ecuadoran Amazon, according to Camilo Huamoni, vice president of the Organization of the Huaorani Nationality of the Ecuadoran Amazon (ONHAE). Huamoni said the loggers provided the Huaorani community with weapons and gifts, including gasoline, after trying unsuccessfully to log in Tagaeri territory. The Huaorani also used wooden lances in the massacre. [Miami Herald 5/30/03; La Hora (Quito) 5/30/03] *4. ECUADOR: INDIGENOUS DITCH GOVERNMENT? After months of speculation, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has formally broken its ties to the government of President Lucio Gutierrez, who took office last Jan. 15. The CONAIE assembly--the group's top decision-making body--met on May 27 in the city of Pujili and decided to ratify its independence and autonomy from the Gutierrez administration. CONAIE supported Gutierrez during his presidential campaign, and its affiliated political organization, Pachacutik, has four members in the cabinet: Foreign Minister Nina Pacari, Agriculture Minister Luis Macas, deputy secretary of social welfare Lourdes Tiban and deputy secretary of government Virgilio Hernandez. But Gutierrez angered indigenous and grassroots supporters in February by decreeing price hikes ranging from 32% to 39% for fuel, electricity and public transport. CONAIE president Leonidas Iza explained that the recent decision means CONAIE is no longer responsible for decisions made by Gutierrez. However, Iza recognized that it is now unclear whether Pachacutik will continue to be the political arm of CONAIE, or whether the Pachacutik cabinet members will have to step down. That decision may be resolved at a meeting between CONAIE and Pachacutik scheduled for June 16, where CONAIE will make clear its demands concerning economic and social policies. If these demands are not met, said Iza, CONAIE may call for mobilizations against the Gutierrez government. [Pagina 12 (Buenos Aires) 5/28/03; La Hora (Quito) 5/28/03] *5. COLOMBIA: RESIDENTS PROTEST BLACKOUTS On May 30, residents of six neighborhoods of the Atlantic port city of Barranquilla blocked the road linking the city to the nearby port of Cartagena to demand an end to local electricity cutoffs. Electricaribe--an affiliate of the Spanish transnational Union Fenosa--has been cutting off power in the neighborhoods three days a week, and residents are fed up. "They started rationing one day a week and now it's up to three," demonstrators complained. Riot police used force to try to break up the protest; a street vendor was hospitalized after being badly beaten by security forces. [Colombia Indymedia 5/30/03] Union Fenosa, which also owns another local electricity company, Electrocosta, has meanwhile asked the regional office of the Social Protection Ministry for authorization to lay off 673 workers in the departments of Magdalena, Cesar, Guajira, Atlantico, Bolivar, Sucre and Cordoba, in the northern Atlantic coast region of Colombia. The Electricity Workers Union of Colombia, Sintraelecol, is protesting the planned layoffs and has accused the Spanish company of engaging in union-busting tactics. [Sintraelecol message on Colombia Indymedia 5/29/03] *6. COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARIES KILL LAWYER The Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective reported on May 30 that the body of attorney Jose Absalon Achury was found May 29 in a rural area of San Juan de Arama municipality, in the central southern Colombian department of Meta. Absalon was abducted and disappeared by paramilitary groups on May 16 from Granada municipality, Meta, after receiving death threats related to his legal work defending political prisoners. [Equipo Nizkor Solidaridad Urgente 5/29/03; Corporacion Colectivo de Abogados "Jose Alvear Restrepo" 5/30/03 via Colombia Indymedia] The Lawyers Collective and other human rights organizations are meanwhile concerned about paramilitary activity in another community in Meta department. The organizations took part in a delegation investigating human rights abuses in Puerto Esperanza, a rural area of El Castillo municipality. More than 30 residents have been murdered and 350 displaced from 12 communities in Puerto Esperanza. The human rights groups now fear the residents may face retaliation because of their visit. [Fensuagro message on Colombia Indymedia 5/29/03] *7. ARGENTINA: KIRCHNER TAKES OFFICE With 12 Latin American heads of state in attendance, former Santa Cruz governor Nestor Kirchner was sworn in as Argentina's president in Buenos Aires on May 25. Kirchner took over the presidency from Eduardo Duhalde, the last of four interim presidents appointed by Congress after the last elected president, Fernando de la Rua, was forced out of office by massive demonstrations in December 2001. Kirchner came in second in the Apr. 27 elections, and won the presidency by default when former president Carlos Saul Menem (1989-1999) withdrew from a scheduled May 18 runoff [see Update #485]. Although both Kirchner and Menem are from the same Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist), Kirchner has worked hard to maintain a center-left image and distance himself from Menem, who was a leading proponent of neoliberal economic policies. During his inauguration Kirchner promised "to make sure the state brings equality where the market excludes and abandons." [Miami Herald 5/26/03 from AP] Kirchner moved quickly after the inauguration to establish himself as an activist president. On May 27 he traveled to the northern province of Entre Rios to preside over the signing of an accord that ended a two-month teachers' strike. On May 28 he announced the reshuffling of nearly 75% of the country's military leadership, starting with the forced retirement of some 50 army generals and navy and air force commanders, including army chief of staff Gen. Ricardo Brinzoni, who has been accused of responsibility for execution of 22 prisoners in 1976 during the military dictatorship [see Update #580]. Kirchner's friend Gen. Roberto Bendini is replacing Brinzoni. On May 29 the new government announced a bonus to take effect June 16 for the 40% of pensioners who receive 200 pesos or less a month--some 1.46 million retirees. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 5/29/03, 5/31/03, 6/1/03; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 5/29/03 from AP, 6/1/03 from EFE] The US government apparently signaled its displeasure with Kirchner's populism by sending a low-ranking official to the inauguration: Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez, a Cuban American. [MH 5/26/03 from Knight Ridder News Service] After a four-year recession Argentina is expected to have a 4% growth rate this year. Former State Department official Bernard Aronson says that "ironically" the economic improvement is "[o]ne of the dangers facing this new government," since it discourages the sort of neoliberal austerity the US is demanding of Argentina. "There's the short-term opportunity for the new government to kick the can down the road, to ignore the structural problems it faces," Aronson says. Argentina has an interim agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that expires at the end of August, leaving it with about $3 billion due to the Fund the first week of September. [MH 5/30/03 from correspondent] *8. ARGENTINA: CASTRO STILL PACKS THEM IN Of the heads of state attending Argentine president Nestor Kirchner's May 25 inauguration, the loudest ovations were for those from the left or center left: Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias. Analysts had wondered what sort of reception Castro would encounter in his first visit to Buenos Aires since 1959, and his first trip abroad since a crackdown on domestic opponents and the execution of three hijackers in April--measures condemned even by many Latin American leftists [see Update #689]. The reception turned out to be overwhelming. Thousands of Argentines tried to attend a speech Castro was scheduled to give at the University of Buenos Aires law school on the evening of May 26. The 3,200-seat hall was unable to accommodate the crowd. Those left outside refused an offer to view the speech on outdoor TV screens, and after a two-hour delay, the Cuban president addressed as many as 15,000 listeners from the law school's steps. "Globalization has received a colossal blow," he told them, alluding to the defeat of US-allied Carlos Menem in his bid for a new term as Argentine president. "You don't know the service you performed for Latin America and the world when you sank the symbol of neoliberal globalization to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean." [Clarin 5/27/03; MH 5/27/03 from correspondent] *9. VENEZUELA: REFERENDUM ACCORD SIGNED Venezuelan vice president Jose Vicente Rangel, Organization of American States (OAS) secretary general Cesar Gaviria and leaders of Venezuela's opposition parties signed an accord on May 29 agreeing that a referendum on the presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias is the solution to the country's political crisis. The accord is the result of more than six months of negotiation, but it essentially just confirms provisions in Article 72 of the 1999 Constitution, which provides for a recall referendum halfway through a president's six-year term if 20% of the voters demand it. In Chavez's case this would come at some point after Aug. 19. "Gaviria realized that, with this incompetent opposition, whose efforts to oust Chavez have repeatedly backfired, there was nothing else to be done," an unnamed diplomatic source told the Miami Herald. [MH 5/30/03 from correspondent] The agreement was announced on May 23; there was concern that the signing might be delayed because of a clash on May 24 that left one Chavez supporter dead [see Update #695]. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government approved safe conduct on May 27 for two dissident military officers who want to leave for the Dominican Republic, where they were granted asylum in April. Army captains Alfredo and Arturo Salazar allegedly took President Chavez into custody during a coup attempt in April 2002. [MH 5/28/03 from unspecified wire services] *10. VENEZUELA: DEATHS IN LAND REFORM STRUGGLE Two Venezuelan campesino leaders were killed on May 15 in Sucre de Barinas municipality in the western state of Barinas in a struggle with landowners and their armed supporters, according to the Ezequiel Zamora Campesino Front coordinator for the state, Jose Tapia, and Ezequiel Zamora National Agrarian Coordinating Committee director Braulio Alvarez. Tapia and Alvarez also reported the death of Jorge Nieves, another local leader they said was killed by hired thugs; they did not give the date of his murder. Alvarez said he himself had received death threats by phone repeatedly during the three weeks before the round of killings. The two leaders tied the murders to efforts by large landowners to stop government plans for a massive handover of land to campesinos in Barinas on July 4 under the 2001 Law of Lands, a controversial agrarian reform law promulgated by President Hugo Chavez. According to Alvarez, the government has now given out more than 600,000 hectares of land nationally and hopes to have the number reach 1.5 million by the end of the year. "This translates into the creation of more than 1.5 million jobs directly," he said, "and more than 2 million indirectly." Jorge Fernandez, general secretary of the Campesino Federation of Zulia State, told foreign correspondents recently that 120 campesinos have been murdered in Venezuela since 1999 for defending their right to land. Fifteen of the deaths were in Zulia, a western state bordering on Colombia. [Indymedia Colombia 5/22/03] *11. IN OTHER NEWS... On May 30, more than 30 Costa Rican grassroots and labor organizations called a general strike to begin June 2 to demand a resolution to the conflict in the Costa Rica Electricity Institute (ICE), where workers have been on strike since May 16 [see Update #694], and a reversal of the government's neoliberal economic policies. The statement calling the strike also expresses opposition to Costa Rica's participation in the talks for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a US-sponsored hemisphere-wide tariff-free zone. [El Nuevo Herald 6/1/03 from AFP]... Nelson Vargas Rueda, a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was extradited to the US on May 28 and appeared in a US court in Miami the next day to face charges in the Mar. 4, 1999 murder of US indigenous rights activists Ingrid Washinawatok, Terence Freitas and Lahe'ena'e Gay. A public defender was named to represent Vargas at a bond hearing on June 3. After that, he likely will be flown to Washington to face trial on a federal murder conspiracy indictment. [AP 5/29/03; Miami Herald 5/30/03 from unspecified wire services]... Two prisoners attempted suicide earlier in May at the US military's detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, but guards intervened and prevented serious injury, a US official acknowledged on May 27. The latest attempts bring the number of detainee suicide attempts to 27, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesperson for the detention camp. [Miami Herald 5/28/03 from unspecified wire services] END ======================================================================= Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139 http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html * wnu@igc.org =======================================================================