WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #744, MAY 2, 2004 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Honduras: Rights Activist Murdered 2. Honduras: Indigenous Seek Asylum 3. Honduras: Thousands Mark Workers' Day 4. Mexico: Unions Divided on May Day 5. Cuba: May Day Rally Protests US 6. Colombia: Thousands March on May Day 7. Latin America: Workers Celebrate May Day 8. Peru: Indigenous Lynch Corrupt Mayor 9. Guatemala: State Apologizes for Murder 10. Haiti: UN Approves Occupation Force 11. Haiti: Labor Organizers Beaten 12. In Other News: Puerto Rico, Negroponte 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. 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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. HONDURAS: RIGHTS ACTIVIST MURDERED On Apr. 26, two or three unidentified assailants shot to death human rights activist Marvis Getulio Perez at a bus station in the heavily populated neighborhood of Brisas del Valle in the town of Cofradia, in the Honduran Atlantic coast department of Cortes. Perez was hit by six bullets. The shooters fled on foot. Perez was waiting for a bus to the city of San Pedro Sula, from which he was to travel to La Lima for a meeting of the National Confederation of Neighborhood Associations (Patronatos), of which he was secretary. [AP 4/27/04; Tiempo (Honduras) 4/28/04] Perez worked as a dental technician for the Human Rights Committee in Cofradia and was active in supporting the distribution of land to the poor; he was also seeking to run on the ruling National Party ticket in the November 2005 elections for the post of legislative deputy to represent Cortes department. More than 20 activists have been murdered in the past four years in Honduras; not one of the killings has been solved. [AP 4/27/04] On Apr. 27, angry residents of the 46 communities which belong to the local confederation of patronatos carried Perez's coffin into the middle of a major highway in Cofradia and blocked traffic, demanding that the government solve the murder and arrest those responsible. The residents said Perez was killed as he was fighting to prevent the installation of water meters in Brisas del Valle; he had also sued to block unfair service rates and had helped poor people recover lands claimed by the heirs of alleged owners. On Apr. 27, police arrested two youths carrying an AK-47 rifle, allegedly in connection with the killing. [Tiempo 4/28/04] *2. HONDURAS: INDIGENOUS SEEK ASYLUM Five Honduran Lenca indigenous women from Lempira department entered the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa on Apr. 29 to seek asylum, arguing that they are being persecuted by the Honduran government. Another 20 Lenca community members remained outside the Brazilian embassy, carrying signs against the Honduran government in solidarity with the five women. Some eight hours later, the Brazilian embassy rejected political asylum for the women; diplomatic personnel and Honduran police then forcibly removed them from the embassy. One of the women, Maria Martha Bejarano Reyes, said police were "brutal" in their handling of the protesters. [Tiempo 4/30/04; AP 4/29/04] Bejarano explained that the protest was in response to incidents in which soldiers attacked the community of Montana Verde, Gracias municipality, Lempira department, and tortured four local leaders. "The large landowners of the area last year accused two of our leaders [brothers Marcelino and Leonardo Miranda] of a series of crimes they did not commit, and the judges sentenced them to 29 years in prison," said Bejarano. [See Updates #678, 704, 727--note that the Miranda brothers were initially sentenced to 25 years but have since had another four years added to their sentences.] [AP 4/29/04; Rights Action 3/30/04] Since 1994, more than 100 indigenous Hondurans have unsuccessfully sought asylum in the embassies of Costa Rica, Venezuela, France and Mexico, in an effort to draw attention to the injustices faced by their communities. [AP 4/29/04] *3. HONDURAS: THOUSANDS MARK WORKERS' DAY At least 40,000 unionists, campesinos, students, teachers and doctors marched on May 1 in six Honduran cities to mark International Workers' Day. Marchers carried signs with slogans protesting the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). In the town of El Progreso, marchers blocked two bridges, backing up traffic for kilometers. In Tegucigalpa, they rallied in front of the presidential palace, which was surrounded by riot police with rubber clubs and tear gas masks. The marches were sponsored jointly by the General Workers Confederation (CGT), the Federation of Unions of Free Workers of Honduras and the leftist Unitary Workers Federation of Honduras (CUTH). Marching together for the first time, the unions were also commemorating the 50th anniversary of a 1954 strike by banana workers on the Atlantic coast against the US companies Chiquita Brands and Standard Fruit. That strike marked the emergence of the Honduran labor movement. [AP 5/1/04] Some 5,500 public school teachers in the Honduran department of Colon have been on an open-ended strike since Apr. 19. The strikers have seized the Colon education department to demand that its directors resign. They warn that if police eject them from the building, they will block highways and bridges with the support of grassroots social organizations. [Tiempo 4/28/04] *4. MEXICO: UNIONS DIVIDED ON MAY DAY Tens of thousands of workers from Mexico's independent unions overflowed the capital's gigantic main plaza, the Zocalo, on May 1 in a protest against the neoliberal economic policies of President Vicente Fox Quesada and as a show of support for the National Social Security Workers Union (SNTSS), which has broken off talks with management. The march, largely organized by the National Workers Union (UNT), an independent labor confederation, included a huge effigy of Fox as a serpent and calls for the resignation of Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) head Santiago Levy. The independent union march followed a smaller, shorter rally in the plaza by the once-powerful Congress of Labor (CT), which is affiliated with the former ruling party, the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Organizers put attendance for the CT rally at 140,000, but the left-leaning daily La Jornada estimated 20,000, noting that the demonstrators failed to fill the Zocalo. The oilworkers union, the largest in the CT, stayed away, as did the Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Campesinos (CROC), which held a separate rally at the Angel of Independence monument. Speakers at both the CT and the CROC rallies criticized the social security workers' demands. [LJ 5/1/04] *5. CUBA: MAY DAY RALLY PROTESTS US Hundreds of thousands of Cubans rallied in Havana to commemorate May 1, International Workers' Day. The government, which sponsored the demonstration, put attendance at 1 million. Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz gave a two-hour speech, denouncing the US occupation of Iraq and the detention of "enemy combatants" at the US naval base in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. He warned that the US government had plans to "affect the economy and destabilize the country," an allusion to a 500-page report the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba is to present to US president George W. Bush on May 3. The commission, headed by US secretary of state Colin Powell, is expected to recommend limiting Cuban-Americans' visits to the island and significantly cutting back their cash remittances, among other measures. [Miami Herald 5/1/04 from AP, 5/2/04 from correspondent; CNN en Espanol 5/1/04 from Reuters] On Apr. 29 the Republican and Democratic leaders of the US Senate's Finance Committee sent Treasury Secretary John Snow a request for details on the Treasury Department's tracking of terrorist-related money flows. A November report to Congress from the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) showed that it had nearly two dozen agents working on violations of the US embargo against Cuba, while just two agents investigated Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden's finances, and two more investigated former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's assets. Since 1994, OFAC handled 10,683 cases on the Cuban embargo and collected more than $8 million in fines, while it ran 93 enforcement investigations it said were related to terrorism and collected $9,425 in fines. [MH 4/30/04] *6. COLOMBIA: THOUSANDS MARCH ON MAY DAY Some 70,000 workers, students and others marched in the Colombian capital, Bogota, on May 1 to celebrate International Workers' Day. At the close of the march, riot police attacked the crowd with tear gas at the Plaza Bolivar. [Report from Dick Emanuelsson 5/1/04 via Colombia Indymedia]... Police also attacked a huge May Day march in Cali, capital of Valle del Cauca department. [Report from Ateneo Anarquista de Colombia 5/1/04 via Colombia Indymedia] Thousands of residents, including members of 90 labor unions, marched on May 1 in the Caribbean coast city of Cartagena, Bolivar department, to protest the government's plan to hand the state-run oil company Ecopetrol over to multinational corporations, and to demand jobs, education and healthcare. [El Universal (Cartagena) 5/2/04]... More than 15,000 people marched on May Day in the oil port city of Barrancabermeja, Santander department, headquarters of a strike which Ecopetrol workers began on Apr. 22 [see Update #743]. [Vanguardia Liberal (Bucaramanga) 5/2/04] Hundreds of workers marched in Ibague, capital of Tolima department, together with members of indigenous communities and social organizations, human rights activists, university students and others to mark May Day and protest Uribe's policies. [El Nuevo Dia (Ibague) 5/2/04] *7. LATIN AMERICA: WORKERS CELEBRATE MAY DAY At least 50,000 people marched in Caracas, Venezuela, in a May Day march in support of left-populist president Hugo Chavez Frias; another 20,000 took part in a separate march convened by the opposition Venezuelan Workers Confederation (CTV). Both marches met at the city center, where soldiers were deployed to prevent confrontations. CTV secretary general Manuel Cova noted Venezuela's high unemployment rate and criticzed Chavez' Apr. 30 announcement of a minimum wage increase as "insufficient." The pro-Chavez marchers, led by workers at the state-run oil company PDVSA, urged Venezuela to halt oil exports to the US, its main purchaser. [La Jornada (Mexico) 5/2/04 from DPA, Reuters] Chavez announced that the minimum wage would increase by 20% as of May 1, and would go up by another 10% on Aug. 1. [CNN en Espanol 5/1/04 from Reuters] In Buenos Aires, Argentina, organized unemployed people known as piqueteros held separate marches which converged in front of the main government building. But the country's attention was focused on the province of San Luis, where police repression of a labor demonstration left 20 protesters injured on the night of Apr. 30 and into the early morning of May 1. Thousands of workers had walked off their jobs Apr. 30 in the provincial capital, San Luis, in solidarity with a teachers' strike against the government's attempts to "revise" educational labor statutes. The protesters were also demanding the resignation of governor Alberto Rodriguez Saa and protesting the arrests of 60 strike leaders from the teachers' union. Calm returned to San Luis on May 2 after authorities released the 60 arrested activists. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) website 5/2/04; Miami Herald 5/2/04 from unspecified wire services; LJ 5/2/04 from DPA, Reuters] Brazil's two main union federations held separate demonstrations in Sao Paulo, the country's principal industrial center. The larger march, organized by Union Force, had some 800,000 participants. A rally organized by the Only Confederation of Workers (CUT), affiliated with the ruling Workers Party (PT), drew at least 100,000 people. [LJ 5/2/04 from DPA, Reuters; Agencia Estado 5/1/04] In Bolivia, the unions used a May Day mobilization to announce an open-ended national general strike beginning May 3, which is to be accompanied by roadblocks on highways and in cities. In Ecuador, about 8,000 workers reportedly gathered in Quito to demand the resignation of President Lucio Gutierrez, who they accused of "having betrayed the Ecuadoran people." Marches were also held in other cities. [LJ 5/2/04 from DPA, Reuters] In Peru, thousands campesino coca growers (cocaleros) from the Huallaga Valley who began arriving in the capital on Apr. 28 marched on May 1 in the center of Lima to demand an end to coca leaf eradication programs. More marches are planned for the coming days. [LJ 5/2/04 from DPA, Reuters; ENH 4/29/04 from AP] In Chile, the Unitary Workers Federation (CUT) led a march by some 10,000 people down the Alameda in Santiago. Leaders announced a national strike for July 29 to demand "dignity" for workers. [LJ 5/2/04 from correspondent] In San Jose, Costa Rica, dozens of teachers, campesinos, state workers and students marched on May 1 to protest a "free trade" agreement with the US [see Update #731] and other government policies. After the march reached the Legislative Assembly, a group of youths with their faces covered apparently began throwing rocks, injuring police who were guarding the building. [AP 5/1/04] *8. PERU: INDIGENOUS LYNCH CORRUPT MAYOR On Apr. 26, a crowd of some 10,000 indigenous Aymara residents of the southern Peruvian town of Ilave and the surrounding rural areas of El Collao province, Puno department, lynched Ilave mayor Fernando Cirilo Robles Callomamani. The mob dragged Robles through the streets, beat him with whips and chains, subjected him to a "people's trial" for corruption and forced him to apologize for his deeds. Robles was badly hurt and died at the scene. The controversy first erupted in Ilave, a town of 16,000 inhabitants, on Apr. 2 when Robles fled amid accusations of corruption. Critics said he took state money to complete a much- needed local highway and instead of arranging the repairs, pocketed the money. On Apr. 3, some 25,000 residents of the surrounding rural areas arrived in Ilave and shut down transport along the Puno-Desaguadero highway in a general strike to demand Robles' resignation [see Update #742]. Negotiations over the following weeks between government representatives and local residents failed to reach a solution. As of Apr. 22, 15,000 residents were continuing the strike while town council members who opposed Robles sought to remove him from office at a meeting. On Apr. 24, 10,000 people rallied in Ilave's town square to demand Robles be stripped of his power. The strike was continuing on Apr. 26 when Robles slipped back into Ilave and tried to prevent his ouster by holding a secret meeting at his home with three loyal town council members. Residents were furious when they found him there, and broke through the fence of the house to bring him out. They beat Robles, dragged him through the streets and forced him up to the roof of the three-story municipal building to apologize to the town via microphone. After a two word apology, Robles lost consciousness, collapsed and died, according to the Lima daily La Republica (it was not clear whether he also fell from the roof). Protesters then dumped Robles' body under a bridge. The mob also beat and kicked council members loyal to Robles and two journalists, including the local correspondent for La Republica. Police tried to regain control of the town later that night but were driven back by the protesters, who seized a police vehicle. On Apr. 28, Luis Thais Diaz, president of the government's National Council of Decentralization (CND), backed a people's assembly at which lead council member Alberto Sandoval Loza was designated as Ilave's mayor and the nine council members were ratified in their posts. Six people who were injured in the attack on Robles--including three council members--have accused Sandoval of leading or participating in the violence. [LR 4/27/04, 4/28/04, 4/29/04, 4/30/04, 5/1/04, 5/2/04; BBC 4/28/04] Unrest over local corruption has spread to other towns in Puno department. On Apr. 11, residents of Ayaviri, Melgar province, seized the municipal building to demand the resignation of mayor Ricardo Chavez Calderon, accused of mismanagement. On Apr. 20, residents of Paucarcolla also seized their municipal building, demanding the resignation of mayor Cosme Damian Beltran Pinedo for failing to hand over funds for an electrification project. [LR 4/28/04] On Apr. 18, some 200 Aymara residents of Tilali, in Moho province near the Bolivian border, took over the municipal building to demand the removal of mayor Melesio Larico Larico, accused of embezzlement and artificially inflating the costs of public works projects. On Apr. 28 Tilali residents took five town council members hostage and threatened to use violence if the government doesn't address their demands. [LR 4/30/04] The conflict ended on May 2 after an agreement was reached to suspend Larico from office. [CNN en Espanol 5/2/04 from AP] *9. GUATEMALA: STATE APOLOGIZES FOR MURDER On Apr. 22 Guatemalan president Oscar Berger apologized to the family of anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang, murdered by military officers in September 1990 as she was trying to investigate killings of indigenous people by the military. The apology was mandated by the Inter-American Human Rights Court in a decision officially announced on Jan. 12 [see Update #730]. The government also gave official recognition for the first time to the efforts of police investigator Jose Miguel Merida Escobar to solve the Mack murder; Merida Escobar was shot dead by unknown assailants in August 1990 just 100 meters from the National Police headquarters. The only high-ranking officer convicted in Mack's murder, Col. Valencia Osorio, remains a fugitive from justice. [Guatemala Hoy 4/20/04, 4/23/04] *10. HAITI: UN APPROVES OCCUPATION FORCE On Apr. 30 the United Nations (UN) Security Council voted unanimously to authorize a "peacekeeping mission" in Haiti made up of 6,700 soldiers and 1,622 civilians, including police agents and human rights experts. The force is to replace 3,600 US-led troops from the US, Canada, Chile and France who began deploying in Haiti as President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was removed from office on Feb. 29. The UN peacekeepers take over on June 1 for an initial period of six months. The force will be led by Brazil [see Update #741]. The UN has reportedly had trouble finding enough troops to staff the mission. [Haiti Support Group News Briefs 4/30/04 from AP; New York Times 4/30/04, 5/1/04] There continue to be reports of violence by rightwing armed groups, composed largely of former soldiers and US-linked paramilitaries. In the northwestern city of Gonaives, where the armed rebellion against Aristide and his Lavalas Family (FL) party began in February, former rebels and other anti-Aristide groups demonstrated on Apr. 25 to demand the dissolution of the National Police and the reconstitution of the army, which Aristide disbanded in 1995. A commando of about 20 ex-rebels attacked the main police station, disarming police agents, freeing prisoners and stealing vehicles parked in the courtyard. [Agence Haitienne de Presse 4/26/04] Residents of St.-Michel de l'Attalaye, a rural area south of the northern city of Cap-Haitien, say that people armed with machetes and accompanied by about 10 former soldiers killed at least four people on Apr. 29, wounded several others and set some 20 houses on fire. The victims reportedly opposed efforts by the former soldiers to replace members of the Administrative Council of the Communal Sections (CASEC), a regional council, with their own supporters. [AHP 4/29/04] Meanwhile, the interim government of US-backed interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was trying to put together a nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) by May 1 to organize elections in 2005 to pick a new president and Parliament. Aristide's left-populist FL, which retains significant support, appeared ready to boycott the new CEP. FL representatives said Latortue's administration had failed to halt a "witch hunt" against its members. "How can they expect us to participate when our members cannot gather, when they are persecuting us and killing us?" party spokesperson Gilvert Angervil asked Reuters news service. Aristide's government was unable to organize legislative elections in 2003 because of a similar boycott by the opposition parties which now dominate the interim government [see Update #726]. [HGS News Briefs 4/26/04 from Reuters; AHP 4/30/04; Haiti Progres (NY) 4/28/04] *11. HAITI: LABOR ORGANIZERS BEATEN On Apr. 21 management goons assaulted three members of the Haitian labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle) as they were leafleting outside the Haitian International Manufacturing, SA, plant in Port-au-Prince's industrial sector. The attack, led by a supervisor identified only as Chavannes, beat the organizers and stole a bag and some money. The company assembles garments for Crystal Brands (Izod Sportswear, Lacoste), Fun-Tees, Hilton Corporate Casuals and a number of US universities. Batay Ouvriye, which has also been organizing in the new "free trade zones" on the Dominican border [see Update #743], is asking for letters of protest to company president Albert Handal (fax +509-246-1066, email haitian_int@hotmail.com). [Campaign for Labor Rights Labor Alerts 4/30/04] *12. IN OTHER NEWS... Just after midnight on May 1, residents of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques set off fireworks to mark the first anniversary of the US Navy's withdrawal, after 60 years during which the Navy used much of the island for military training and as a proving ground for bombs and shells. [El Nuevo Dia (San Juan) 5/1/04]... The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony on Apr. 27 from John Negroponte about his nomination to be US ambassador to Iraq [see Update #743]. Negroponte is currently ambassador to the United Nations; he was ambassador to Honduras 1981-85, a time of major human rights violations by a secret military unit, Battalion 316. Both Republican and Democratic senators praised Negroponte's record, but a protester, Andres Thomas Conteris, Nonviolence International (NI) program director for Latin America and the Caribbean, interrupted. "Senators, please ask the ambassador about Battalion 316," Conteris called out from the audience. "Ask him about a death squad in Honduras that he supported." Guards removed Conteris from the hearing. [NI media alert 4/27/04; New York Times 04/28/04] [Conteris was on hunger strike for more than two months in 2000 to protest the US military's bombing on Vieques--see Updates #554, 556, 558] 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 =======================================================================