WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #826, NOVEMBER 27, 2005 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Brazil: Dam-Affected Families Protest 2. Chile: 2 New Arrests for Pinochet 3. Haiti: Latest Vote Postponement 4. Venezuela: Oil Deal for US Poor 5. Guatemala: US Nabs Top Drug Cops 6. Guatemala: Police Archives Uncovered 7. Nicaragua: US Judge Drops Nemagon Case 8. Cuba: US Arrests Rightwing Activists 9. Mexico: US to Rule on Consular Case 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. 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. 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.) *1. BRAZIL: DAM-AFFECTED FAMILIES PROTEST On Nov. 22, more than 800 families from communities affected by dam construction in the Uruguay River basin staged a protest at an intersection on the border between Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul states in southern Brazil. The protesters are campesinos affected by the Foz do Chapeco, Monjolinho, Itapiranga and Campos Novos dam projects; the mobilization was organized by the Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB), working jointly with the Movement of Small Farmers (MPA) and the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST). The protesters want a meeting with Brazil's Minister of Mines and Energy; they are demanding that the government provide compensation for their lost homes and agricultural land, and provide new land, housing, credits and reduced energy bills. They are also demanding protection for the environment and an end to privatization. According to MAB coordinator Jose Mauro Bremm, more than 3,500 families from 15 different municipalities will be displaced by the construction of the Foz do Chapeco dam. The families are living in uncertainty, since the project could begin at any moment and neither the government nor the Foz do Chapeco Energy Consortium have offered any kind of guarantees for their safe relocation or compensation. Members of the dam-affected communities have been camped out in Alpestre, Rio Grande do Sul, for the past six months; they began a second encampment in Nonoai, also in Rio Grande do Sul, in October. They say they will not allow the dam to be built. [Adital (Brazil) 11/23/05] *2. CHILE: 2 NEW ARRESTS FOR PINOCHET On Nov. 23 Chilean judge Carlos Cerda ordered former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990) to stand trial for tax fraud, falsification of documents and false declarations in connection with an estimated $27 million he allegedly kept under fake names in secret bank accounts in the US and other countries [see Update #811]. Judge Cerda ordered Pinochet placed under house arrest in his residence in La Dehesa, a suburb east of Santiago; but Cerda granted Pinochet the option of conditional release with a bail of 12 million pesos (about $22,600). The arrest follows an Oct. 19 Supreme Court ruling that Pinochet could stand trial on these and other charges. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 11/24/05 from AFP] One day later, on Nov. 24, Judge Victor Montiglio ordered Pinochet to stand trial in a separate case; Montiglio also placed Pinochet under house arrest but did not set bail. These charges were in connection with the disappearance of six government opponents arrested by security services in late 1974; they were among the 119 leftist activists who disappeared in what was known as Operation Colombo [see Update #816]. This is the third time Pinochet has been arrested in human rights cases, but the courts blocked the first two cases because of Pinochet's poor health. [New York Times 11/25/05] [Pinochet was arrested in January 2001 in connection with the murder of 75 leftists in the so-called "Caravan of Death," but the case was halted in July of that year; he was arrested in December 2004 for the disappearance of 10 leftists in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay under Operation Condor, but that case was halted in September of this year--see Updates #575, 598, 777, 816] Pinochet turned 90 on Nov. 25. Apparently the family dropped plans for a festive celebration with 60 guests. Friends and relatives who visited Pinochet reported that he said he just wanted to die. [Hoy (NY) 11/27/05 from AFP] *3. HAITI: LATEST VOTE POSTPONEMENT On Nov. 25 the president of Haiti's nine-member Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), Max Mathurin, announced a new set of dates for national and local elections, the fourth postponement so far this year. The elections for the president, the 30 senators and the 99 legislative deputies are to take place on Jan. 8, he said. The runoffs for the presidential and legislative races will be held on Feb. 15, and the municipal and local races are set for Mar. 5, according to Mathurin. These dates replace a postponement announced just the week before, on Nov. 16; on that schedule the first round was to take place on Dec. 27. [See Update #825.] CEP general secretary Rosemond Pradel told the Associated Press wire service that it would be unrealistic to hold elections on Dec. 27, since the council had not finished printing ballots, distributing the more than 2.5 million voter identification cards and training poll workers. It was not clear when the new president and Parliament would take office. Under the Constitution of 1987, the president is supposed to be inaugurated on Feb. 7, the anniversary of the 1986 departure of dictator Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier. [Agence Haitienne de Presse 11/25/05; Miami Herald 11/26/05 from AP] Correction: In Update #825 we said, following our source, that 27 senators and 83 legislative deputies would be elected. A new department, Nippes, has been created, adding three senators; the number of deputies has been increased to 99 because of increases in the population. [Note from Charles Arthur, Haiti Support Group, 11/24/05] *4. VENEZUELA: OIL DEAL FOR US POOR The Houston-based oil company CITGO, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil monopoly Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), is set to supply 9 million gallons of discounted home heating oil to 45,000 low-income families in Massachusetts in December, and another 3 million gallons to local charities. The deal--arranged by Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), the Boston-based nonprofit energy corporation Citizens Energy and left-populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias--provides the oil at a 40% discount. CITGO and Citizens Energy, which is headed by former US representative Joseph Kennedy II, were scheduled to sign a contract on Nov. 22. Chavez has frequently criticized the US government for not helping poor people in the US. In August, he offered discounted home-heating oil to poor US communities after meeting in Caracas with US African American leader Jesse Jackson. Home heating oil prices are expected to increase by 30-50% percent this winter because of rising oil prices, according to Larry Chretien, executive director of Mass Energy Consumer Alliance, a nonprofit which will distribute one fourth of the oil. He said the Venezuelan aid would present "a friendly challenge" to US oil companies to use their recent windfall profits to help poor families survive the winter. On Nov. 18 a US State Department official declined to comment on the deal. [Boston Globe 11/20/05] A similar arrangement will bring 8 million gallons of heating oil to thousands of low-income residents of New York City's South Bronx at a 40% discount starting in late November or early December, according to Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY), who arranged the deal with Chavez. There were technical difficulties with implementing the program in New York, where most low-income residents rent their apartments and don't pay directly for fuel costs. Serrano said the program would "start off with three nonprofit affordable housing community corporations" and will initially aid residents of about 200 apartments. The residents will receive vouchers for rent reductions and improvements in their buildings. [New York Times 11/26/05] *5. GUATEMALA: US NABS TOP DRUG COPS US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents arrested Guatemala's top anti-drug police official along with two other officers in Virginia on Nov. 15 as they arrived in the US for what they expected to be DEA training to fight drug traffickers. The three were Adan Castillo, head of the Analysis and Anti- Narcotic Information Service (SAIA); SAIA deputy head Jorge Aguilar Garcia; and Rubilio Orlando Palacios, SAIA head for the Caribbean port of Santo Tomas de Castilla. On Nov. 16 a federal grand jury in Washington, DC issued an indictment against the three Guatemalans for three counts of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine inside the US. They pleaded innocent and were held without bail. Guatemalan interior minister Carlos Vielman said Guatemala and the US had collaborated on the investigation for five months at "the highest level." [Washington Post 11/16/05 from AP; El Diario-La Prensa 11/17/05 from AFP] *6. GUATEMALA: POLICE ARCHIVES UNCOVERED On Nov. The New York Times reported on Nov. 21 that during the summer the Guatemalan human rights ombudsperson's office discovered the complete files of the disbanded National Police in a munitions depot near the center of Guatemala City. Kate Doyle, director of the Guatemala Project at the DC-based nonprofit National Security Archive, said this was the largest discovery of secret government documents in Latin America. The files, going back more than 100 years, include references to the 1990 assassination of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack, the 1980 assassination of Belgian priest Walter Voordeckers and the 1982 disappearance of Serge Berten, another Belgian citizen, according to Gustavo Meono, the head investigator for the ombudsperson's office. Long known to be involved in human rights abuses during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, the National Police was disbanded in 1996 as part of the peace process that ended the fighting. At the time, then-president Alvaro Arzu's government told a peace commission that the files no longer existed. Human rights investigators say that the Arzu government and all governments since must have known that the files hadn't been destroyed. [NYT 11/21/05] *7. NICARAGUA: US JUDGE DROPS NEMAGON CASE In a decision dated Nov. 10, US judge Nora Manella of the Central District Court in California ruled that a decision from Nicaraguan courts had no bearing on a suit 466 Nicaraguan former banana workers brought in US federal courts against the US-based Shell Oil Company for compensation for damages they said they suffered as a result of prolonged and unprotected exposure to the pesticide Nemagon (dibromo chloropropane, DBCP). According to Manella, Nicaraguan courts have no jurisdiction over Shell Oil and Nicaragua does not have an impartial justice system. In December 2002 a Nicaraguan court ordered Shell Oil, Dow Chemical, Standard Fruit/Dole Food Company to pay the former banana workers a total of $489.4 million; the decision was based on Nicaragua's Special Law 364. The former banana workers brought the suit against Shell in US courts in November 2003; they sued the other companies at about the same time. The companies brought a countersuit in December 2002 and January 2003 [see Updates #672, 732]. Humberto Hurtado, an attorney for Dole, said he expects a favorable ruling for the other companies because of Manella's decision in the Shell case. The decision also means that it is "impossible" for similar suits by farm workers in Colombia and Ecuador to proceed, according to Hurtado. [La Prensa (Managua) 11/25/05] *8. CUBA: US ARRESTS RIGHTWING ACTIVISTS On Nov. 18, federal agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) executed a search warrant at the office of rightwing Cuban militant and wealthy developer Santiago Alvarez in Hialeah, southern Florida. Alvarez and his lawyer appeared at his Hialeah office as the search was going on, but left soon after. Around noon that day, federal agents received a report from an informant--a close associate of Alvarez--that Alvarez had appeared at an apartment complex he owns in Lauderhill. Alvarez ordered the informant to transport a large cooler from the Lauderhill site to a colleague, Osvaldo Mitat, at a location in Miami-Dade county, according to an affidavit. The informant told federal agents, who followed him to the location, arrested Mitat and recovered the cooler, which was full of weapons. Around 1am on Nov. 19, federal agents arrested Alvarez at his Belle Meade home. Later that day agents returned to the Lauderhill complex and found more than a thousand rounds of ammunition, more explosives and automatic weapons in a vault in the building management office. Matthew Dates, spokesperson for the US attorney's office in Miami, said on Nov. 20 that Alvarez is charged with possession of automatic weapons, including some with the serial numbers obliterated; a silencer not properly registered; and a false passport. [Miami Herald 11/21/05, 11/22/05] The investigation is being conducted by the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ICE and ATF. [MH 11/23/05] Alvarez has been a prominent longtime opponent of Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz and is a key supporter of fellow anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles. Posada has been in US immigration detention since he was arrested in Miami on May 17 of this year [see Updates #792, 794, 798, 799, 800, 802, 814, 816, 819]. Alvarez said he helped shelter Posada in Miami during the two months or so after he sneaked into the US and before his arrest. In August 2004, Alvarez paid for an executive jet to fly Posada from Panama to Honduras after the Panamanian president pardoned Posada and three other rightwing Cubans who were serving sentences in connection with an alleged plot to kill Castro in Panama in 2000 [see Update #761]. It was not clear whether the charges against Alvarez were directly related to Posada, who is wanted by both the Cuban and Venezuelan governments for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion jetliner near Barbados that killed 73 people. Cuba also accuses Posada of organizing a string of bomb attacks on hotels and restaurants in Havana in 1997 and 1998, one of which killed an Italian national who lived in Canada. The Cuban government accuses Alvarez of financing a botched terrorist mission to Cuba in 2001. The alleged plot failed after Cuban authorities arrested three Miami-Dade County men who were trying to land on the island with four AK-47 assault rifles, one M-3 rifle with a silencer and three Makarov pistols. In response to accusations that the latest arrests were prompted by pressure from Castro, a federal law-enforcement source said it was a pure coincidence that Alvarez was arrested the day after a Cuba-based group ran a full-page ad in the New York Times denouncing Posada. [MH 11/21/05] The Nov. 18 ad, in the paper's A section, was presented as an open letter to the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, from the Cuba-based Committee of Families of the Victims of the Cuban Airliner Bombing in Barbados. "October 6, 1976, was our September 11," said the letter, referring to the bombing of the Cuban jetliner. "Help us keep a terrorist like Luis Posada Carriles, admitted murderer, from gaining protection and impunity in the country where so many people still cry for the victims of the terrorist act that brought down the twin towers on September 11." [MH 11/18/05] On Nov. 21, US Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton refused to release Alvarez and Mitat because their possession of automatic weapons, grenades and rounds of ammunition amounted to a crime of violence and posed a danger to the community. Lawyers for Alvarez and Mitat say their clients are innocent. Their arraignment is set for Dec. 6. [MH 11/22/05] Mitat is a US citizen; Alvarez is a legal permanent resident who has applied for US citizenship. [MH 11/23/05] *9. MEXICO: US TO RULE ON CONSULAR CASE On Nov. 7 the US Supreme Court agreed to decide whether noncitizens can challenge a conviction if they were not informed of their right to contact their consulates after their arrests; the right is established by the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, to which the US is a signatory. The Supreme Court will hear the cases of two imprisoned foreigners: the Mexican Moises Sanchez Llamas, convicted in Oregon of attempted murder in the shooting of a police officer, and Honduran Mario Bustillo, convicted in a gang-related murder in Springfield, Virginia. This is the latest development in a longstanding dispute between the international community and the US government, which acknowledges that it should abide by the treaty but denies that defendants can use US courts to enforce the right. In a case brought by Mexico, the International Court of Justice in the Hague (the "World Court") ruled on Mar. 31, 2004, that the US had denied the rights of 51 Mexicans on death row under the Vienna Convention, and it ordered US courts to review the cases. The US government responded by withdrawing the US from the World Court's jurisdiction in Vienna Convention cases but advised US courts to review the cases anyway [see Updates 655, 676, 740]. [New York Times 11/8/05] END 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 can opt to receive a separate service, the weekly Centr-Am News. 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