WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #734, FEBRUARY 22, 2004 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Argentina: Unemployed Block Roads 2. Haiti: Rebels Seize Cap-Haitien 3. Haiti: Organizing in Border Maquilas 4. Ecuador: Indigenous Mobilize 5. Ecuador: Prisoners Revolt 6. Mexico: Dirty War Suspect Arrested 7. Nicaragua: Banana Workers Start Fast 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. ARGENTINA: UNEMPLOYED BLOCK ROADS On the morning of Feb. 19, Argentine radical unemployed organizations of piqueteros (picketers) blocked main access roads into Buenos Aires and highways around the country in 107 coordinated protests against government unemployment policies. The day of protest was called by the National Piquetero Bloc and the Independent Movement of Retirees and Unemployed People. The groups are demanding that the government of President Nestor Kirchner revoke its recent decision to strip 250,000 people of their unemployment benefits. The government responded that it will consider negotiations over the issue, "but not under pressure." The piquetero groups are also demanding job creation programs, protesting negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), calling for non-payment of the foreign debt and rejecting a proposed new labor law, among other demands. More than 3,000 people participated in the largest roadblock, which shut down traffic on the Pueyrredon bridge leading into the capital. In addition, protesters blocked ticket sales at the Constitucion and Once train stations in Buenos Aires, allowing passengers to travel for free. There were no incidents; police managed to avoid confrontations while keeping detour routes open. Around 3pm, piqueteros joined with lesbians, gays, transsexuals and sex workers for a rally in front of the Buenos Aires provincial legislature against proposed changes to the Code of Urban Cohabitation. The marchers then joined more piqueteros at the national Congress, where they rejected the proposed labor law and presented the Senate with their own counterproposal. [El Mostrador (Chile) 2/20/04 from BBCMundo.com; La Republica (Uruguay) 2/20/04 from correspondent; Clarin (Buenos Aires) 2/20/04; Article by Claudia Korol, Adital correspondent in Argentina, 2/21/04 via Colombia Indymedia] *2. HAITI: REBELS SEIZE CAP-HAITIEN About 200 armed rebel groups seized Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haitien, on Feb. 22. The rebels said they met little resistance except at the airport, where they said eight people were killed in fighting with militants loyal to left-populist president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A manager with Tropical Airways said rebels there had also commandeered a plane. "We came in today and we took Cap-Haitien; tomorrow we take Port-au-Prince," one of the rebels, Lucien Estime, boasted. "Our mission is to liberate Haiti." They came up from the south, quickly overwhelming Aristide loyalists who had erected flaming barricades on the city outskirts. Looting followed the rebel takeover. People carried away weapons, typewriters, mattresses and even doors from police stations. Cap-Haitien mayor Wilmar Innocent had said earlier that 180 police agents were protecting the city, but they fled when the rebels attacked. Rebel commander Jean-Baptiste Joseph, formerly leader of an association of soldiers from Haiti's disbanded army, declared: "It's the army that's in charge here. It's the army that will free Haiti." [Haiti Support Group News Briefs 2/22/04 from Reuters; Washington Post website 2/22/04 from Reuters] Initial press accounts were not clear about which rebel groups were involved. A group called the Kosovo Army had been active in the nearby town of Trou-du-Nord at least since December, and they seized control there on Feb. 13, possibly setting the stage for the assault on Cap-Haitien. [Hoy (Dominican Republic) 2/27/04; Agence Haitienne de Press (AHP) 12/18/03] The insurrection began on Feb. 5 with the takeover of the northwestern city of Gonaives by a mix of former Aristide supporters with former soldiers and death squad members who overthrew an earlier Aristide administration in 1991 and murdered thousands of his supporters. After Gonaives the rebels took several smaller towns in the west, while the government remained in control of most of the country [see Updates #732, 733]. But the rebellion gathered new force on Feb. 16 when a group of 50 armed men attacked the police station in the Central Plateau city of Hinche, killing the police chief and two others. They were reportedly under the command of Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a leader of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) death squad in the early 1990s. After the assault on Hinche, police agents fled from a number of other towns. [El Nacional (Dominican Republic) 2/18/04, 2/19/04] As the rebellion spread, the political opposition refused to negotiate with Aristide and insisted that he must step down; at the same time opposition leaders denied any connection to the armed rebels. But Haitian sources said that former Cap-Haitien police chief Guy Philippe and other rebels in the Central Plateau region had the support of opposition leader Dany Toussaint, once Aristide's security chief and later a senator in Aristide's Lavalas Family (FL) party. Toussaint split with Aristide in December [see Update #724]. [EN 2/18/04] Another former Aristide ally, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, leader of the large Papaye Peasant Movement (MPP), told the New York Times he had "completely different methods" from the rebels. However, on Feb. 20 rebel forces "escorted" a rally by Jean-Baptiste's supporters. [NYT 2/21/04] [Aristide supporters attacked MPP demonstrations in November 2000 and March 2001--see Updates #562, 563, 582.] On Feb. 14 the Haitian government asked the US Justice Department to investigate a prominent opposition leader, businessperson Andre ("Andy") Apaid, Jr. According to Miami-based lawyer Ira Kurzban, an attorney for Aristide's government, Apaid "is an American citizen and he has never renounced his American citizenship." This would make him subject to the 1937 Neutrality Act, which bars US citizens from supporting the violent overthrow of a democratically elected foreign government. Apaid called the government's move a "diversion." "I am a Haiti native--my parents were born in Haiti," he said. [AFP via Yahoo 2/16/04] Both sides claim support from a majority of Haitians, but there seem to have been no opinion polls in Haiti. On Feb. 19 the Miami-based firm Bendixen & Associates released a poll of 600 Haitians living in the US. Some 52% felt Aristide should serve out his term, which ends in 2006, while 35% favored his resignation and 13% offered no opinion. Older people were more likely to want Aristide to stay: about 64% of respondents over 50 opposed his resignation, while 46% of those between 18 and 29 wanted him to leave. According to the polling firm's Sergio Bendixen, a small percentage supported the armed rebellion. But Aristide's personal popularity has fallen, Bendixen said, and many who wanted him to stay on were most concerned about the precedent the removal of a democratically elected president would set. [Boston Globe 2/19/04] On Feb. 21 about 100 people gathered in Miami's Bayfront Park for an anti-Aristide demonstration sponsored by a group calling itself the "American Foundation for Liberty and Democracy." The crowd called for the removal of Aristide, Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias. A popular sign read "Axis of Evil" and showed Castro, Chavez, Aristide and deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, whose face was crossed out. [Miami Herald 2/22/04] *3. HAITI: ORGANIZING IN BORDER MAQUILAS On Jan. 15 the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), committed $20 million to help Dominican textile giant Grupo M finance an industrial park in a new "free trade zone" in the northeastern Haitian town of Ouanaminthe, near the Dominican border. Haitian president Jean- Bertrand Aristide and Dominican president Hipolito Mejia inaugurated the first of several free trade zones in the region in April 2002, predicting the creation of thousands of jobs in maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export) [see Update #640, where Ouanaminthe was misspelled]. The IFC's loan decision came after it had contracted ALGI, a US- based labor abuse monitoring organization, to investigate allegations about the abuse of workers' rights at a Grupo M plant in the Dominican Republic. ALGI described its findings as "simultaneously troubling and reassuring." It found that Grupo M was guilty of targeting some employees for dismissal because they were members of a union organizing committee; discouraging employees from joining the committee; and preferentially treating "the aggressors who beat up two members of the organizing committee." But ALGI concluded there were not "systemic" problems at Grupo M and that "recent developments suggest a much more constructive and respectful relationship." ALGI is certified by the Fair Labor Association, which US unions and labor rights groups have criticized as too friendly to industry. [Bretton Woods Project News 2/3/04] On Feb. 10 workers in the free trade zone filed papers with the Haitian Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor for the registration of a new union, to be called the Ouanaminthe Codevi Workers Union (SOKOWA). "Codevi" is the acronym for Compagnie de Developpement Industriel SA ("Industrial Development Company"), a firm run by Grupo M whose main contract in the free trade zone is reportedly to assemble jeans for the US firm Levi Strauss. [Haiti Support Group News Briefs 2/10/04 from Batay Ouvriye; No Sweat 2/12/04 from Batay Ouvriye] *4. ECUADOR: INDIGENOUS MOBILIZE On Feb. 16, indigenous and grassroots groups in Ecuador began a mobilization to protest the government's economic policies. The protesters' long list of demands includes the resignation of President Lucio Gutierrez Borbua, an end to the US government's regional militaristic "Plan Colombia," rejection of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and any bilateral free trade agreements with the US, rejection of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-sponsored economic measures, withdrawal of a proposed "biodiversity" law which would restrict the rights of indigenous communities, and the withdrawal of security forces from the Sarayaku indigenous community [see Update #733]. The protests were called by Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and other Ecuadoran indigenous, grassroots and labor organizations. [CONAIE 2/16/04 & 2/17/04 via Colombia Indymedia; La Jornada (Mexico) 2/18/04 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 2/19/04 from AFP] The protests were largest in Ecuador's Andean region, especially in the province of Cotopaxi, where a regional general strike shut down schools and protesters blocked major highways starting on Feb. 16. Cotopaxi residents were pressing a series of local issues--such as the paving of roads and other public works--in addition to the broader mobilization demands; they had begun the protests the previous week with a march in the provincial capital, Latacunga, on Feb. 10. On Feb. 16 in Latacunga, demonstrators blocked a main access road and occupied the offices of the Cotopaxi Provincial Council. On Feb. 17, protesters in Cotopaxi seized 10 buses and took two soldiers hostage; 17 demonstrators were wounded and nearly a dozen were arrested. [CONAIE 2/16/04 & 2/17/04 via Colombia Indymedia; LJ 2/18/04 from AFP, DPA, Reuters; ENH 2/19/04 from AFP; La Hora (Quito) 2/17/04] On Feb. 17 in the southern province of Azuay, soldiers used gunfire, tear gas and firebombs to try to break up a protest in Shina, near Nabon, where more than 2,000 members of the Union of Indigenous Communities of Azuay (UCIA) were blocking the main highway. Four protesters were wounded by bullets and 19 were arrested; the protesters seized two soldiers as hostages. Negotiations between the military and representatives of 22 local indigenous communities brought an accord later the same day, under which the army agreed to free the 19 detainees and cover all medical costs of those wounded. The indigenous communities released the two hostage soldiers and suspended their protests. The army also pledged to reforest the areas burned by their firebombs, and to return vehicles, cell phones and other properties confiscated during the conflict. One of the wounded protesters, 65-year old Maria Moraliza Lalvay Alta, died later on Feb. 17 while being operated on at a Cuenca hospital; she had been hit by a bullet in the chest. [LH 2/18/04 from AFP; CONAIE 2/17/04; Agencia de Noticias Plurinacional del Ecuador (ANPE) 2/17/04 via Colombia Indymedia] On Feb. 17, CONAIE leader Leonidas Iza announced that the national mobilization was being suspended, and would be resumed at a later date if the government ignored the demands of indigenous and grassroots sectors. [ENH 2/19/04 from AFP; LH 2/18/04 from AFP] The protests in Cotopaxi, meanwhile, continued through Feb. 18. On the morning of Feb. 19, after 11 hours of dialogue, leaders of the Cotopaxi provincial strike reached an agreement with the government. The government promised to spend $100 million in the province on education, social projects and public works, including sewer construction and highway repairs. At noon, the Provincial Assembly of Cotopaxi agreed to suspend the strike on the condition that the Cotopaxi Electrical Company be excluded from a government bidding process by Feb. 26. If this condition is not fulfilled, the strike will resume on Feb. 27, the organizers say. [El Telegrafo (Guayaquil) 2/20/04] *5. ECUADOR: PRISONERS REVOLT Prisoners at the Garcia Moreno jail in Quito ended a four-day protest on Feb. 18 and began releasing more than 300 visitors who had remained in the prison since Feb. 15. Prisoners said the visitors stayed voluntarily, in solidarity with the protest; the government said the prisoners welded the doors shut and held the visitors hostage. The standoff ended after prisoners negotiated an agreement with Interior Ministry officials to address demands concerning a new sentence reduction law and the problem of overcrowding. The Garcia Moreno prison was designed to hold 400 prisoners but now holds about 1,100, and the facility has no running water. A leader of the prisoners, Miguel Usarraga, expressed optimism about the agreement, under which negotiations will be established involving representatives of rehabilitation agencies, the government and the prisoners. Protests at the prisons, and the seizure of facilities by the prisoners, have become a nearly daily occurrence in Ecuador. On Jan. 15, after a series of prison protests, the Ecuadoran government declared a state of emergency in the prison system and released some 1,500 prisoners who had been held for more than a year without trial. [Miami Herald 2/19/04 from AP; La Hora 2/17/04, 2/19/04] On Feb. 19, a gun battle left one prisoner dead and four wounded in the maximum security cellblock F of the Garcia Moreno prison. The violence erupted during a protest over corruption at the facility. [El Telegrafo 2/20/04] *6. MEXICO: DIRTY WAR SUSPECT ARRESTED Miguel Nazar Haro, former head of Mexico's Federal Security Directorate (DFS), was arrested in Mexico City on Feb. 18 in connection with the 1975 disappearance of leftist activist Jesus Piedra Ibarra. Nazar Haro's arrest was the first major success for special federal prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo Prieto, who has been conducting a two-year investigation into some 275 disappearances during the government's "dirty war" against suspected rebels in the 1970s and 1980s. His effort to arrest former Guerrero police chief Isidro Galeana Abarca ended in failure when Galeana apparently died at home of a heart attack on Jan. 2 [see Updates #723, 728]. Piedra, whose mother is well-known human rights activist Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, was thought to be a leader of the Sept. 23 League rebel group. Witnesses told Carrillo that Nazar Haro and his predecessor at the since-dissolved DFS, Luis de la Barreda, ordered police commander Juventino Romero to arrest Piedra on the outskirts of the northern city of Monterrey; Piedra was never seen again. Judges finally issued warrants for the three men in December 2003. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 2/20/04 from AP] Many Mexicans have complained that the investigation is not reaching up to the "big ones" at the time of the dirty war, such as former presidents Luis Echeverria Alvarez (1970-1976) and Jose Lopez Portillo (1976-1982). Lopez Portillo died in Mexico City on Feb. 17 at the age of 83, apparently of pneumonia. [New York Times 2/18/04] *7. NICARAGUA: BANANA WORKERS START FAST On Feb. 17, 130 former banana workers began a hunger strike in an encampment in front of Nicaragua's National Assembly in Managua to press their demand for President Enrique Bolanos to meet with them. Some 5,000 workers began the sit-in on Feb. 10 after several thousand of them made a 140-kilometer march to the capital to demand that the government do more to support their claim against US corporations for health problems they suffer as a result of the use of the pesticide Nemagon (DBCP) in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s [see Updates #732, 734]. Another 100 workers joined the hunger strike on Feb. 18. Strike leader Victorino Espinales said workers plan to join the strike gradually until a total of 1,000 are participating. [La Prensa (Managua) 2/17/04, 2/18/04, 2/19/04] 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 =======================================================================