WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #732, FEBRUARY 8, 2004 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Haiti: Armed Group Seizes Gonaives 2. Ecuador: Indigenous Leader Attacked 3. Brazil: Pact Over Indigenous Land? 4. Bolivia: Economic Measures Unveiled 5. Colombia: Indigenous Massacre 6. Argentina: US Judge Rules for Creditors 7. Nicaragua: US Firms Sue Banana Workers ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It has been published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York since 1990. If this issue was forwarded to you, please write to wnu@igc.org for a free one-month subscription. The Update is produced by an all- volunteer team and is funded solely through subscription contributions. For a one-year subscription (52 issues) via email, we ask for a suggested donation of $25. Make checks or money orders payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 (for tax deductible donations or to send money from overseas, contact us for details.) Your support is appreciated. A print edition of the Update is also available via first class mail (a contribution of at least $30 is suggested to cover printing and postage within the US). Back issues and source materials are available on request. Update subscribers also receive, as a supplement, our own weekly Immigration News Briefs and other services focused on Central America (Centr-Am News) and Colombia (Colombia Week). In addition, discounted combined subscription rates are available for John Ross' "Blind Man's Buff (formerly "Mexico Barbaro") and the weekly Nicaragua News Service. Contact us for info. 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 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 wnu@igc.org. *1. HAITI: ARMED GROUP SEIZES GONAIVES As of Feb. 7 armed groups opposed to left-populist Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide were reportedly still in control of two cities and several smaller towns in western Haiti. The affected areas included two major cities on the western coast: Gonaives, the country's fourth largest city; and St.-Marc. The opposition's three-month old campaign for Aristide to resign escalated dramatically on Feb. 5 when a local armed group in Gonaives took over and burned several police stations; started fires in the home of mayor Stephen Taupa Moise and in the offices of the central department of Artibonite; released about 100 prisoners; and blocked roads to the city, which has a population of about 200,000. Some 10 people died in the action, according to the government. The Miami Herald reported that "thousands of demonstrators chanting `Aristide must go!' said they would rebuff any attempt to dislodge" the rebels. Press reports have described the armed group as the "Gonaives Resistance Front," the "Anti-Aristide Resistance Front" and the "Artibonite Revolutionary Resistance Front." It is apparently the latest form of the "Cannibal Army" organized by Amiot ("The Cuban") Metayer, a lapsed Aristide supporter who was murdered by unknown persons last fall. The group's current leaders include Amiot Metayer's brother Butter (or Buter) Metayer; spokesperson and self-proclaimed Gonaives mayor Wynter Etienne (who carries a US flag at demonstrations, according to the Spanish wire service EFE); and Jean Pierre, better known as Jean Tatoune, a longtime Aristide opponent and also at various times an ally of Amiot Metayer. Jean Tatoune was convicted in connection with a massacre of Aristide supporters in the Raboteau neighborhood of Gonaives in 1994, when the country was ruled by the military following a 1991 coup that overthrew Aristide during his first term as president [see Updates #653, 671, 713, 726]. The rebels vowed to spread their rebellion, and several violent incidents in other locations followed the attack in Gonaives. Two people died in St.-Marc, a port city of 100,000 south of Gonaives, when a group called the Assembly of St.-Marc Militants drove the police out on Feb. 7. Hundreds of residents were seen looting TV sets, mattresses and sacks of flour from shipping containers on Feb. 8. Armed men were also occupying the police station in the town of Anse Rouge on Feb. 7, a judge, Walter Pierre, told the private station Radio Ginen. On Feb. 8 armed men reportedly burned the police station and a school in Grand Goave, southwest of Port-au-Prince, and kidnapped two journalists, Marie Andre Metellus from the state television and Frantz Moise from the private station Telemax. About 150 police agents attempted to regain control of Gonaives on Feb. 7 but were repelled by the rebels after several hours of gunfire. The rebels claimed that 14 police agents were killed, while the government reported that one, Swat Team specialist Douken Gustinvil, had died. According to the Miami Herald, thousands of Gonaives residents set up burning barricades to stop police from entering the city. Associated Press reported that crowds mutilated the bodies of three agents and lynched a fourth. [Haiti Support Group News Briefs 2/5/04, 2/8/04 from AP; Agence Haitienne de Presse (AHP) 2/6/04, 2/7/04, 2/8/04; AP via ABC News 2/7/04, 2/8/04; Miami Herald 2/7/04, 2/8/04 from correspondent; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 2/7/04, 2/8/04 from EFE] The attacks came as Aristide and his supporters were preparing to celebrate the third anniversary of the start of his second term on Feb. 7, 2001. Thousands of people--hundreds of thousands, according to pro-government sources--rallied in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Cite Soleil district, where Aristide denounced the new violence. "Yes to the political opposition," he said. "No to the terrorist opposition." [NH 2/8/04 from EFE; AHP 2/7/04] The US embassy in Port-au-Prince issued a statement saying "[t]he US categorically rejects any type of violence used as a means to achieve political ends." [La Jornada (Mexico) 2/8/04 from Reuters, AFP, DPA] The main center-right opposition groups, which have good relations with the US, denied any contact with the rebels in Gonaives. [MH 2/7/04] But a new leader in the opposition, former senator and prominent Aristide backer Dany Toussaint [see Update #724], had warned a Miami radio audience on Jan. 13 that "in the coming days you can expect to hear that the National Palace was assaulted by 150,000 to 200,000 people in the course of a demonstration. And on that day, you won't even [find] Aristide's remains." [Haiti Progres (NY) 1/21/04] On Feb. 5, the same day that the attack started in Gonaives, opposition leaders told a mission from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) that they would not negotiate with Aristide to resolve the crisis. "We are willing to negotiate through which door he leaves the palace," said Evans Paul, leader of the Democratic Convergence, "through the front door or the back door." [MH 2/6/04 from correspondents] *2. ECUADOR: INDIGENOUS LEADER ATTACKED At 10:15pm on Feb. 1, two assailants attacked Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) leader Leonidas Iza and his family as they arrived at the CONAIE offices in Quito. Iza, his wife Josefina Anguisaca and Gilberto Talahua, coordinator of the indigenous Pachakutik party, had departed the Quito airport in a taxi after returning from the 3rd Hemispheric Encounter of Struggle against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), held in Havana, Cuba. They were met at the airport and accompanied in the taxi by Iza and Anguisaca's son Xavier (or Javier) Leonidas Iza Anguisaca, and by Iza's nephew, Daniel Camilo Tixe. The assailants followed the taxi in a Suzuki vehicle; after the taxi dropped the family at the CONAIE offices and departed with Talahua, the assailants got out, grabbed one of the family's suitcases, then went after Leonidas Iza, shouting "We're going to kill you," and pointing a gun at his head. His son and nephew pushed Iza away from the gun and managed to shut the door on the assailants, with the help of Rodrigo Iza, Leonidas Iza's brother, who was inside. Aguisaca remained outside; at one point the assailants hit her in the face with a pistol, bruising her. The assailants fired at least 20 shots into the building. Xavier Iza was hit with five bullets and remains hospitalized with severe damage to his liver, kidneys and pancreas. His spleen was removed after six hours of surgery. Rodrigo Iza and Daniel Tixe suffered bullet wounds to the legs and feet, but were out of danger. Iza said he had received death threats; he and leaders of other indigenous groups immediately described the attack as politically motivated and blamed the government of President Lucio Gutierrez for fostering a climate of repression against opposition activists. Pachakutik deputy Ricardo Ulcuango said his party will call for investigations into paramilitary groups which Gutierrez' brother-in-law, Napoleon Villa, is allegedly forming to defend the ruling Patriotic Society party, and will look into private security firms owned by Gutierrez' cousin, Hernan Borbua. CONAIE and other groups also pointed to an alleged "blacklist" of targeted activists and opposition leaders, published by Alejandro Najera of Gutierrez' Patriotic Society party. Grassroots organizations noted that the attack on Iza came just two days after the Jan. 30 assassination of Petroecuador employee Patricio Campana, who was investigating the theft of gasoline from pipelines. [La Hora (Quito) 2/3/04; El Telegrafo (Guayaquil) 2/3/04; La Jornada (Mexico) 2/4/04 from AFP; CONAIE 2/2/04; Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" 2/2/04; Asamblea Permanente de Derechos Humanos (APDH) 2/2/04 via Equipo Nizkor; Indymedia Argentina 2/4/04, posted on Colombia Indymedia] On Feb. 2, the governing council of CONAIE declared a state of "national mobilization" in response to the attack against Iza. [CONAIE 2/2/04] The next day, Feb. 3, CONAIE announced plans for a Feb. 16 march against the government to protest the attack. The march was called by the indigenous communities of Chimborazo, where Iza is from, but it is expected to gain widespread support around the country and is to include highway blockades, according to CONAIE spokesperson Lourdes Tiban. [LJ 2/4/04 from AFP] On Feb. 6, CONAIE put out a communique clarifying the demands of the national mobilization, including an end to negotiations over the FTAA, the suspension of foreign debt payments, rejection of the US-sponsored "Plan Colombia," and the immediate departure of military and police forces from the Sarayaku indigenous territory in the Ecuadoran Amazon, where residents are resisting oil drilling projects on their land. [CONAIE 2/6/04] Amnesty International (AI) urges supporters of human rights to contact Interior Minister Raul Baca Carbo (fax +593-2-258-0067) and Attorney General Mariana Yepez de Velasco (fax +593-2-255- 8561) to demand a full and independent investigation into the attack against Iza and punishment for those responsible. [AI Index UA 36/04, 2/3/04] *3. BRAZIL: PACT OVER INDIGENOUS LAND? On Jan. 31, Some 3,000 Guarani indigenous people of the Nandeva subgroup agreed to leave 11 of the 14 ranches they had been occupying since Dec. 22 in the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Under an agreement brokered by the government's National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI), the Guarani will maintain a presence on the three largest ranches while the government completes steps to add a 7,800-hectare area to their existing 1,600-hectare Aldea Puerto Lindo reservation [see Update #728]. The Guarani began leaving the occupied farms late on Feb. 2. An indigenous leader called Avatucamby told the daily Folha de Sao Paulo that the Guarani will maintain control over entry into the farms, and will allow only four workers onto each farm to perform basic maintenance. Landholder Pedro Fernandes Neto demanded the full evacuation of his Sao Jorge farm. He said farmers and their supporters would retake the land by force at a Feb. 7 demonstration. Anthropologists agree the land belonged to the Guarani before the government illegally sold it in 1928 to a farmer producing mate, an herb used as a beverage. The current farmers say they bought or inherited the land long after its appropriation. Under the Brazilian constitution, the Guarani have a right to the land, and the ranchers should be paid compensation by the state, according to Rubem Almeida, one of two anthropologists who wrote the report which will serve as the basis for FUNAI's demarcation of the territory. [Inter Press Service 2/3/04; BBC News 2/3/04] *4. BOLIVIA: ECONOMIC MEASURES UNVEILED In a prerecorded television address on Feb. 1, Bolivian president Carlos Mesa unveiled new economic austerity measures, prompting grassroots, labor and indigenous groups to threaten mass mobilizations. In an apparent effort to ward off protests, Mesa did not immediately impose fuel tax hikes or halt subsidies on cooking gas for the poor. Instead, he announced plans to free government-controlled prices over time, allowing for a gradual increase of up to 6% depending on price factors. The new measures also include a 5% across-the-board cut in government spending-- likely to be controversial--and less unpopular measures such as salary cuts of 10% for himself and 5% for members of Congress. Mesa plans to raise $95 million with an 18% tax on oil companies, and another $100 million if Congress approves his plan to tax all financial transactions. The measures are contained in 23 decrees and three reforms needing congressional authorization--including a new hydrocarbons proposal which Mesa said he would send to Congress on Feb. 3. Mesa promised to reserve government purchases of up to $1.1 million for Bolivian companies "using it as an instrument for growth." That measure was seen as an attempt to deflect attention from an unpopular plan to export Bolivia's natural gas. Roberto de la Cruz, representative of the Regional Workers Federation (COR) of El Alto, called Mesa's plan a "trap," while leftist cocalero leader and legislative deputy Evo Morales Ayma called it "demagogy." Both Morales and De la Cruz said their own proposals include deeper salary cuts for top-level officials. The Bolivian Workers Central (COB) is planning an open-ended general strike against the measures for an unspecified future date. [Miami Herald 2/2/04 from Knight Ridder News Service; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 2/3/04] *5. COLOMBIA: INDIGENOUS MASSACRE On Jan. 14, unidentified armed assailants massacred 25 indigenous people in the village of El Palmarito in the eastern Colombian department of Vichada, and mutilated many of the victims. Luis Evelis Andrade, president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), reported the massacre, which some witnesses apparently said was sparked by a tribal dispute. [Reuters 1/19/04] On Feb. 7, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) reported that army troops had shot to death Olmedo Ul Secue, an indigenous resident of the village of Los Chorros and a member of the Huellas Caloto reservation, on Dec. 31 in the southern department of Cauca. According to ACIN, Ul Secue was shot when he and Edinson Conda were riding a motorcycle along a road lined by army troops. The soldiers issued no command to stop, but fired at the two men as they rode away, hitting Ul Secue in the back. Conda was wounded but got away. [ACIN 2/7/04 via Colombia Indymedia] *6. ARGENTINA: US JUDGE RULES FOR CREDITORS Stocks on the Buenos Aires exchange fell 3.52% on Feb. 6 on news that a US judge had placed restrictions on the sale of four storehouses owned by Argentina's military in the US state of Maryland. The judge was ruling in favor of creditors seeking to regain investments they lost when Argentina defaulted on its debt in January 2002. The Argentine government is trying to get creditors to accept payment of 25 cents to the dollar for some $88 billion in bonds. This was the first time a US judge restricted Argentine property in relation to the default. Argentine cabinet head Alberto Fernandez told reporters that the judge's decision would not change the government's offer to creditors. Fernandez said that the Maryland case involved "vulture funds," speculators from a firm based in the Cayman Islands, a haven for companies seeking to avoid taxes and scrutiny. [Reuters 2/6/04; La Jornada (Mexico) 2/7/04 from correspondent] *7. NICARAGUA: US FIRMS SUE BANANA WORKERS On Jan. 21 the US-based Shell Oil, Shell Chemical and Dow Chemical Companies joined a suit Dole Food Company, Inc. had brought against a group of Nicaraguan banana workers in a California court on Dec. 23. The farmworkers sought compensation from the companies for damages they suffered --including cancer, infertility and birth defects in their children--when they were exposed to the pesticide Nemagon (DBCP) in the 1970s. In December 2002 a Managua court ordered the companies to pay some 500 former employees a total of $489 million [see Update #698]. In the countersuit, brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act of 1970, the companies charge that the farmworkers conspired with lawyers and doctors to make a fraudulent claim; the companies are seeking $17 billion in compensation. [La Prensa (Managua) 1/30/04] The farmworkers have responded by organizing a 170-km march from Chinandega to Managua to demand the support of the Nicaraguan government in their case. More than 2,000 people, including workers and their families, started the march on Jan. 31; medical workers say many of the marchers are suffering from malnutrition. They expect to reach the capital by Feb. 10 or Feb. 11. [LP 2/6/04] The national Nicaragua Network in Washington, DC, is asking for faxes to Dow CEO William S. Stavropoulos (989-636-5832), Dole CEO David H. Murdock (818-874-4997) and Shell Oil's Raymond T. Collins (713-241-0315) urging the companies to accept their responsibilities and pay compensation to the workers. [Urgent action 2/6/04] Correction: Update #730 reported incorrectly that Nicaragua's debt to the World Bank represents about 85% of the country's total external debt, which is estimated at $6.345 billion. The 85% figure actually refers to Nicaragua's combined debt to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the majority is owed to the IMF. The World Bank announced on Jan. 22 that it would forgive Nicaragua's debt, and the IMF followed on Jan. 23 with an announcement that it would forgive $4.5 billion-- about 80%--of what Nicaragua owes it. [La Prensa (Panama City) 1/24/04 from Reuters] 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 =======================================================================