WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #741, APRIL 10, 2004 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Brazil: Landless Resume Occupations 2. Brazil: US Backed 1964 Coup 3. Haiti: Brazil to Lead Occupation 4. Haiti: Impunity for Death Squads? 5. El Salvador: One Killed, 15 Hurt in Iraq 6. Bolivia: Cocaleros Protest Police Base 7. Ecuador: Prisoners Seize Hostages 8. Colombia: Unionist Freed 9. Honduras: Torture Suspect Back in US 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. BRAZIL: LANDLESS RESUME OCCUPATIONS Landless rural workers in Brazil began a new round of land occupations on Mar. 21, ending a nearly eight-month virtual truce. On Mar. 27, the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) stepped up the campaign with 22 land occupations in five states: 14 in Pernambuco, three in Sao Paulo, two in Minas Gerais, two in Rio de Janeiro and one in Parana. In Araruama, on the southern coast of Rio de Janeiro, landless activists occupied an estate whose owners faced court sanction for holding workers as slaves. By Apr. 2, the MST reported 29 occupations under way in 10 states. On Apr. 5, thousands of MST members occupied a Veracel Celulose tree farm in Porto Seguro, in the northeastern state of Bahia, where they cut down four hectares of eucalyptus trees and planted crops in their place. The occupation was controversial because the land was in production; MST national coordinator Gilmar Mauro said the occupation was symbolic because Veracel is a multinational corporation made up of Brazilian and European capital. The company grows eucalyptus trees in the southern area of Bahia state for cellulose production. By Apr. 6, more than 7,400 families were holding some 40 estates, with occupations spreading to Espiritu Santo, Paraiba, Mato Grosso do Sul, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul, Ceara, Alagoas and Piaui. Thousands of landless also blocked highways on Apr. 6 in Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Sul. [Servicio Informativo "Alai- amlatina" 4/5/04; La Republica (Lima) 4/7/04 from AFP, 3/31/04 from unspecified wire services; El Nuevo Herald 4/7/04 from AFP; Miami Herald 4/9/04 from unspecified wire services; Reuters 4/7/04; Agencia Estado 4/3/04, 4/6/04] On Apr. 8, the MST announced that occupations had also taken place over the weekend of Apr. 3 in Sergipe state, with 1,216 families seizing land on seven estates in five municipalities. [Agencia Estado 4/8/04] On Apr. 8 nearly 1,400 landless families occupied four properties in the metropolitan region of Recife, capital of Pernambuco state, bringing the total number of occupations in Pernambuco to 25 in less than two weeks, involving more than 7,400 families and 52,000 hectares of land. [Agencia JB 4/8/04] Also on Apr. 8, MST members seized the Primavera estate in Mirandopolis, in the Aracatuba region of Sao Paulo state, and plowed up 145 hectares of sugar cane planted there. The landless activists say the cane shouldn't have been planted because the estate was designated as unproductive and was in the process of being expropriated by the federal courts. They also accused the estate owners of having set fire to a 2,000-square meter area of protected forest reserve. [Agencia Estado 4/8/04] Following intense negotiations with the government on Apr. 7 and 8, the landless workers began to dismantle their occupation of the Veracel Celulose estate. But on Apr. 9, MST members simultaneously invaded two estates owned by Industrias Reunidas Matarazzo in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area. Nearly 400 families entered the Mian estate in Pirapora do Bom Jesus, in Grande Sao Paulo municipality, while another 150 families invaded the Iris estate in the Santa Ella neighborhood of Aracariguama. Both areas were planted with eucalyptus trees. [Agencia Estado 4/9/04] The MST hopes its mobilization will pressure leftist president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva "to accelerate agrarian reform and fulfill his promise of [providing land to] 115,000 families this year," said Mauro, the MST coordinator, who took part in a protest with some 2,000 landless workers in Presidente Prutente, Sao Paulo state. "We are fighting against the large landed estates and against the absurd social inequality of Brazil," explained Joao Pedro Stedile, a member of the MST's national directorate. "In terms of the government, we trust and pressure [it] to fulfill its promise to provide land to 400,000 landless people during this [presidential] term." The MST is concerned that during Lula's first 15 months in office, his government provided land to only 25,000 families, and only 4,000 have received land in the first three months of 2004. Under the National Agrarian Reform Plan (PNRA) approved by Lula's administration and agreed to by the MST, the government is supposed to assign land to 47,000 families in the first six months of 2004. The government expressed annoyance at the MST's mobilizations. "We will have agrarian reform, but based on the rule of law," warned Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues in an Apr. 6 statement, calling the new wave of land occupations "complicated and worrisome." "There is no reason justifying the increase of conflicts or tensions in the countryside," said Rodrigues. The MST said mobilizations will continue through April, with large actions planned on Apr. 17 to mark the eighth anniversary of the massacre of 19 landless rural workers in Eldorado do Carajas, Para state. Apr. 17 is now commemorated around the world as the International Day of Struggle for Land. The MST is also preparing mobilizations to celebrate May 1, International Workers Day. [Alai-amlatina 4/5/04; LR 4/7/04 from AFP, 3/31/04; ENH 4/7/04 from AFP; MH 4/9/04] *2. BRAZIL: US BACKED 1964 COUP On Apr. 1 the DC-based research institute National Security Archive released several newly declassified US government documents and an audiotape showing in detail the US involvement in the military coup that overthrew Brazilian president Joao Goulart 40 years earlier and led to 21 years of military rule. Briefed by phone at his Texas ranch on Mar. 31, 1964, then-US president Lyndon Johnson is heard on audiotape telling Undersecretary of State George Ball: "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do... We just can't take this one"--apparently a reference to Goulart, a left populist. "I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little." A secret Mar. 31 cable from then-secretary of state Dean Rusk to US ambassador to Brazil Lincoln Gordon lists help the US was planning to supply the coup plotters: sending US naval tankers from Aruba to Santos; assembling 110 tons of ammunition and other equipment for the anti-Goulart forces; and dispatching a naval task force to be positioned off the coast. The coup moved faster than expected; Goulart was deposed on Apr. 1, and the US support was not needed. [Inter Press Service 4/1/04; Miami Herald 4/3/04 from AP] *3. HAITI: BRAZIL TO LEAD OCCUPATION On Apr. 8 Brazilian defense minister Jose Viegas told journalists that Brazil was prepared to take command of foreign forces in Haiti for six months starting in July, when the current US-led occupation is scheduled to be replaced by a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Brazil plans to send a total of 1,470 army, navy and air force troops to Haiti for six months, Viegas said at a press conference in Brasilia, after discussing the issue with leftist Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. [HSG News Briefs 4/9/04 from AP] *4. HAITI: IMPUNITY FOR DEATH SQUADS? On Apr. 6, former Haitian interior minister Jocelerme Privert surrendered to police agents in Port-au-Prince, becoming the first minister in the government of left-populist president Jean- Bertrand Aristide to be arrested since Aristide was deposed on Feb. 29. Interim justice minister Bernard Gousse said a judge in the western port city of St.-Marc had issued a warrant for Privert charging him with conspiring to kill Aristide opponents there in mid-February, when the government was battling a rebellion by US-linked paramilitary groups. The new government arrested a number of former officials connected to Aristide's Lavalas Family (FL) party during the weekend of Mar. 13 [see Update #738]. At around the same time, the US had Oriel Jean, Aristide's former chief of security, extradited from Canada on a drug-trafficking charge. He is now being held in Miami. On Apr. 5, the day before Privert's arrest, US secretary of state Colin Powell confirmed that US law enforcement officials are investigating Aristide himself to see if he received money from drug traffickers in connection with the movement of cocaine through Haiti. "There are inquiries being made by our judicial authorities in the United States to see if there's any wrongdoing on his part," Powell said during a five-hour visit to Haiti. "I can't comment further." But Powell rejected a request by the 15- member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for an investigation of Aristide's ouster under pressure from the US [see Updates #736, 739]. "I don't think any purpose would be served by such an inquiry," Powell said. "The facts are very well known." [Miami Herald 3/23/04, 4/6/04 4/7/04 from correspondents] Human rights groups have expressed concern over what Joanne Mariner, deputy director of Americas Division for Human Rights Watch (HRW), called "[t]he contrast between the [interim] Haitian government's eagerness to prosecute former Aristide officials and its indifference to the abusive record of certain rebel leaders." After a 15-day fact-finding mission, Amnesty International (AI) complained about the government's failure to arrest two of the main rebel leaders, Louis-Jodel Chamblain and Jean-Pierre Baptiste ("Jean Tatoune"). Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia for the 1993 assassination of pro-Aristide business leader Antoine Izmery and for a massacre in Gonaives' Raboteau neighborhood in April 1994 in which an estimated 20 people died. Baptiste was convicted for the Raboteau massacre in 2000 and was sentenced to forced labor for life. During the week of Mar. 29, justice minister Gousse said he was studying the possibility of pardoning Baptiste. On Apr. 5, a spokesperson for the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) said the organization was "scandalized" by the comment. [Haiti Support Group News Briefs 4/5/04 from HRW, 4/7/04 from AI; MH 4/8/04 from correspondent; Agence Haitienne de Presse (AHP) 4/5/04] On the evening of Mar. 30 heavily armed individuals assaulted Judge Napela Saintil in his home; he said they would have killed him if a police patrol hadn't come to his aid. Saintil, who was taken to a hospital in Port-au-Prince, had presided over the Raboteau massacre trial. He said he had received death threats from people reproaching him for having found Chamblain guilty. Judge Jean Senat Fleury said that he too feared for his life; he had participated in the investigation that led to the trial. [AHP 4/1/04] The interim government and the US-led military occupation which began as Aristide was deposed deny that they have targeted Aristide supporters. On Apr. 3 US and French forces aided Haitian police in the arrest of Jean Robert in Ouanaminthe, near the Dominican border. According to Haitian National Police spokesperson Max Isaac, Robert was a convicted car smuggler who may be wanted by Dominican authorities in relation to the murder of two Dominican soldiers at the border in February [see Update #733]. This was the first arrest of a rebel leader under the interim government. On Apr. 7 French troops and Haiti police agents detained Wilford ("Ti-Will") Ferdinand in Gonaives, where he had been a leader of an uprising in early February. They released him after four hours. [MH 4/10/04 from AP] On Mar. 29 the New York-based Haiti Commission of Inquiry told a packed press conference in Santo Domingo that the US armed and trained the rebels in the period leading up to Aristide's ouster. According to the commission, formed by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark in 1991 after an earlier coup against Aristide, "200 US Special Forces soldiers came to the Dominican Republic as part of `Operation Jaded Task,' with special authorization from [Dominican] president Hipolito Mejia. We have received many reports that this operation was used to train Haitian rebels." [HSG News Briefs 3/30/04 from International Action Center] *5. EL SALVADOR: ONE KILLED, 15 HURT IN IRAQ On Apr. 4, 19-year old Salvadoran soldier Natividad Mendez Ramos was killed and 12 other Salvadoran soldiers were wounded when Iraqis attacked the Cuzcatlan Battalion camp at the Spanish base of Al Andalus in Najaf, Iraq. Mendez' body was returned to El Salvador on Apr. 9 and was to be buried in his hometown of Guaymango on Apr. 10. The wounded soldiers are said to be recovering. Mendez was a member of the Paratrooper Battalion of the Armed Forces of El Salvador; he and the wounded soldiers were among 380 Salvadoran troops sent to Iraq in February to replace the first Salvadoran contingent of 360 troops. The Salvadorans, along with soldiers from Honduras and Dominican Republic, serve in the "Plus Ultra Brigade" in Iraq under Spanish command. Nicaragua no longer has troops in Iraq, having failed to replace its first returning contingent because of economic problems [see Update #730]. The attack that killed Mendez reportedly left another 20 people dead and more than 200 wounded, including the 12 Salvadoran soldiers; it was not clear whether the other casualties were also soldiers from the occupying forces. Salvadoran president Francisco Flores said in an Apr. 4 statement that the attack on the Cuzcatlan Battalion was carried out by "a heavily armed mob" of Iraqis protesting the detention there of Shi`a cleric Mustafa al-Yaqoubi, an aide to Shi`a leader Muqtada al-Sadr. (Al-Yaqoubi was arrested and taken to the base on Apr. 3; he was handed over to Iraqi police on Apr. 5.) Flores said the Plus Ultra Brigade "responded in legitimate self-defense." Defense Minister Gen. Juan Antonio Martinez Varela said the Cuzcatlan Battalion "was unjustly attacked by illegal armed groups" using missile launchers, rifles, mortars and machine guns, among other weapons. Four days earlier, on Apr. 1, three Salvadoran soldiers were wounded as they patrolled Najaf. The Salvadoran contingent in Iraq is due to return home in July or August. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 4/5/04 from ACAN-EFE; El Diario/La Prensa (NY) 4/11/04 from AFP; CNN 4/7/04; La Republica (Lima) 4/5/04 from AFP] The leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) responded to the latest attacks by calling for the immediate return of the Salvadoran troops. "We regret that people were killed and wounded, product of an irresponsible decision by President Flores," said FMLN deputy and spokesperson Hugo Martinez. Martinez said the FMLN will seek consensus with other opposition parties to pass a measure in the Legislative Assembly which would bring the troops home. [LN 4/5/04 from ACAN-EFE] Flores compared the US-led war in Iraq to the Salvadoran government's 1980-1992 US-backed war against the FMLN, then a guerrilla movement: "Now the world is aware that here in El Salvador we fought a war against terrorism which we won thanks to the support of the international community," Flores said. [Univision (Miami) 4/5/04] On Apr. 9, US president George W. Bush spoke with Flores by telephone in an apparent attempt to ensure El Salvador's continued participation in the US occupation of Iraq. Calling from his Texas ranch, Bush also expressed his condolences for the death of Mendez. Bush also spoke with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski--17 Italians and one Polish soldier have so far died in the Iraq occupation. [Reuters 4/9/04; AP 4/9/04] *6. BOLIVIA: COCALEROS PROTEST POLICE BASE On Apr. 5, hundreds of Bolivian campesino coca growers from the Los Yungas region of La Paz department began blocking the region's main highway to protest the construction of an anti-drug police base at La Rinconada, near Unduavi. Anti-drug police clashed with the protesters on the first day of the blockade, but the road remained closed until Apr. 8, after 6pm, when the government finally signed an agreement promising to indefinitely suspend construction of the base. Local residents feared the base would be used to impose forced eradication on Los Yungas, where most of the coca is grown legally for domestic consumption. The four-day blockade left thousands of travelers and cargo trucks stranded. The government first tried to halt the protests by suspending construction for 30 days and arguing it would not use the base for forced eradication, but in the end it had to back down. [Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 4/6/04 from La Prensa; La Razon (La Paz) 4/8/04; Hoy (NY) 4/8/04 from AP] Presidency Minister Jose Galindo told the Bolivian news agency ANF that the government is under pressure from the US over drug control policy; he warned that any rupture in the country's "precarious equilibrium" following the ouster of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada in mass protests last October [see Updates #711-716] could bring violence. "We have pressure from the other side, obviously; they tell us, `You are incompetent and you can't control drug trafficking, if you can't put a base [there] to control the quantity of drugs or the coca leaf that goes out,'" explained Galindo. [La Razon 4/8/04] *7. ECUADOR: PRISONERS SEIZE HOSTAGES Following visiting hours at two Ecuadoran prisons on Apr. 4, prisoners began a protest to demand sentence reductions, legal reforms and an end to overcrowding. At the "No. 2" men's prison in Quito, some 200 visiting family members remained at the jail; it was not clear whether they were held there against their will or chose to stay and support the protest. At the Ex-Garcia Moreno prison in Quito, male prisoners threatened to blow up two cylinders of gas if the government refused to support their demands. At the "No. 3" men's prison in Quito, prisoners took five guards and an administrative employee hostage. At the Women's Prison in Quito, prisoners held 180 visitors at the facility, then on Apr. 5 took hostage three journalists and three television camera operators who arrived to cover the story. On Apr. 7 they released 42 of the hostages. Mercedes Torres, a leader of the protest at the Women's Prison in Quito, said the prisoners are protesting the slow administration of justice and overcrowded prisons, and demanding that Congress reform the sentencing code to reduce prison terms. Prisoners are also demanding compliance with a clause of the Constitution which establishes the immediate release of any detainee who has served a year in jail without being sentenced. There are 12,600 people held in Ecuador's 33 jails--more than double the total capacity of 6,000 beds. Prisoner protests have been frequent this year in Ecuador [see Update #734]; the latest also came two weeks into an open-ended national strike by prison guards and administrative employees demanding better pay and improved facilities. On Apr. 6, the prison protests continued to spread: at the women's prison in Guayaquil, prisoners seized a guard and two police agents hostage, tied them to tanks of cooking gas and threatened to blow them up. By Apr. 7, most of Ecuador's prisons appeared to be controlled by the prisoners. [El Telegrafo (Guayaquil) 4/6/04; El Nuevo Herald 4/7/04 from AFP, 4/8/04 from AP, 4/9/04 from AP; BBC News 4/8/04; La Hora (Quito) 4/8/04] Early on Apr. 8, a prisoner was killed and several injured in fights at the "No. 3" men's prison in Quito. Later in the day, most of the country's prisoners suspended their protests as part of an Easter week truce after the government signed a preliminary accord promising to meet with them the following week to address their demands. Visitors were finally able to leave the "No. 2" prison. But as of Apr. 9, prisoners at the Women's Prison in Quito continued to hold the journalists and at least 130 visitors there. The women say they won't give up until they see concrete measures, not just promises: "We are prepared to die," said Torres, the protest leader. Their refusal to release the reporters from television channels 4 and 8 prompted those stations to halt coverage of the crisis. [ENH 4/8/04 from AP, 4/10/04 from AP; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 4/10/04 from AFP] *8. COLOMBIA: UNIONIST FREED On Mar. 30 a court in Bogota, Colombia, cleared union leader Hernando Hernandez Pardo of rebellion charges and ordered him released. Hernandez is a former president and current vice president of the United Union of Workers (USO), which represents workers at the state-run oil company Ecopetrol; he had been held under house arrest at USO headquarters in Barrancabermeja, Santander department, since January 2003, accused of belonging to the leftist rebel group National Liberation Army (ELN) [see Update #684]. The court called for an investigation into allegations that witnesses were pressured to testify against Hernandez. [Colombia Week 4/5/04 from Cambio, El Tiempo, El Espectador, Hernandez statement] On Apr. 5, it was announced that the European Union (EU) had added the ELN to its list of terrorist groups. The move allows the EU to freeze any assets of the group or its members located in EU member nations. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) are both already on the EU's terrorist list. [El Tiempo (Bogota) 4/5/04; El Nuevo Herald 4/7/04 from AP] Meanwhile, on Apr. 4 an explosion destroyed a section of the Cano Limon oil pipeline in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca, inside an area controlled by the Colombian army and by the private security forces of the US oil company Occidental (Oxy), which operates the pipeline. Gen. Luis Fabio Garcia, commander of the Colombian Army's 2nd Division, said the explosives appeared to have been placed by leftist rebels who infiltrated a company contracted by Ecopetrol and Oxy for seismic exploration. The explosives used in the attack were the same type used by the contractor. One of the company's 80 workers was arrested and found to be the brother of a rebel captured the previous week, said Garcia. [ET 4/6/04, some from AFP] *9. HONDURAS: TORTURE SUSPECT BACK IN US On Apr. 5, immigration agents backed by Palm Beach County Sheriff's officers arrested Honduran former military officer Juan Angel Hernandez Lara at his home on the 300 block of Arcadia Drive in Wellington, in Florida's Palm Beach County. Hernandez Lara is accused of torture and other human rights violations for his role in the Battalion 3-16 death squad; the unit was trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and is believed responsible for the disappearance of at least 184 opposition activists in Honduras in the 1980s. It was the second time Hernandez managed to return to the US after being deported. Nina Pruneda, a spokesperson for the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said investigators are trying to determine how Lara returned to the US. He was first deported to Honduras in January 2001, but quickly returned; he was then rearrested on Mar. 28, 2001, and deported later that year [see Update #589]. [Miami Herald 4/6/04; Tiempo (Honduras) 4/7/04 from AFP] 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 =======================================================================