WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #835, JANUARY 29, 2006 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Bolivia: New President, New Cabinet 2. Bolivia: Bechtel Drops Water Suit 3. Argentina/Uruguay: Pulp Mill Protests 4. Colombia: US Complicit in Drug Trade 5. Colombia: Paramilitaries, Army Killing 6. Venezuela: Gag Order on Bomb Probe 7. Venezuela: Chavez Hosts Social Forum 8. Chile: Pinochet Daughter Caught 9. Argentina: Mothers End Weekly March 10. Paraguay: March Against US Troops 11. Haiti: Jailed Priest Freed 12. In Other News: El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala 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. BOLIVIA: NEW PRESIDENT, NEW CABINET On Jan. 22 in La Paz, Evo Morales Ayma of the Movement to Socialism (MAS) was inaugurated as president of Bolivia for a five-year term, replacing Eduardo Rodriguez, who took over the presidency last June 9. Alvaro Garcia Linera, the new vice president and president of the Congress, swore Morales into office, bestowing him with the presidential sash and the "Medal of the Liberator" honoring 19th century South American hero Simon Bolivar. Morales, an Aymara indigenous person born in the highlands of Bolivia, later moved with his family to the Cochabamba tropics, where he became a leader of predominantly Quechua campesino coca growers. He is the first indigenous president of Bolivia, a majority indigenous country. His sister Esther is the new first lady. In the streets of La Paz, tens of thousands of people celebrated the inauguration. On Jan. 21, a day before his official inauguration, some 30,000 Bolivian indigenous people accompanied Morales at the ruins of Tiwanacu, 70 kilometers from La Paz, in a purification and recognition ceremony celebrating and ratifying his overwhelming victory in the Dec. 18 elections. The Tiwanacu site is sacred to the 2,700-year-old Tiwanakota culture, a predecessor to the Aymara and Inca cultures. "If I can't advance, push me, sisters and brothers," Morales told indigenous leaders and representatives gathered at the event. [Servicio Informativo "Alai-amlatina" 1/21/06; New York Times 1/23/06; La Jornada (Mexico) 1/23/06 from correspondent; Clarin (Buenos Aires) 1/22/06; Resumen Latinoamericano 1/22/06] "All the natural resources must pass into the hands of the Bolivian people, whether these be water, coca or gas," said Morales in his inauguration speech, though he emphasized that this recovery of resources will be "responsible," and that negotiations will be held with foreign oil companies. Morales also spoke of the need for land redistribution, and called on Bolivian landholders to dialogue with the government about restoring unproductive land to state control. It's not possible that "to raise a cow, 40 or 50 hectares are needed," said Morales. "It's not possible that we have to be a cow in order to have 40 or 50 hectares." Morales closed his inauguration speech by explaining his style of governance with a reference to the well-known spokesperson of Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN): "As Subcommander Marcos says, command obeying the people." [LJ 1/23/06 from correspondent] On Jan. 23, Morales swore in his new cabinet before a crowd of supporters; the 16 new ministers were told to take the oath corresponding "to their religious thought, or their cultural and ideological thought." Morales told them: "We have deposited our trust in you, first, fundamentally to eradicate corruption; second, it is the request of the Bolivian people to change the neoliberal (economic) model...." The same day, Morales went to the city of Sucre, the historic capital, for the swearing in of the first elected prefects (departmental governors) in Bolivia's history. [LJ 1/24/06 from correspondent] The new cabinet includes David Choquehuanca, an Aymara social activist, as foreign relations minister; Juan Ramon Quintana, a sociologist and former military officer, as presidency minister; Alicia Munoz Ala, an anthropologist and ex-senator, as minister of government (interior), in charge of police and internal security; Walker San Miguel, president of the Lawyers Association of La Paz and a close ally of La Paz mayor Juan del Granado, as defense minister; social researcher Carlos Villegas as minister of sustainable development; Andres Soliz Rada, a journalist and longtime critic of privatization policies, as minister of hydrocarbons. Felix Patzi Paco, an Aymara intellectual and sociologist, as minister of education and culture; Nila Heredia, a medical doctor and former member of Bolivia's National Liberation Army in the 1970s, as minister of health and sports; Alex Galvez, factory worker and leader of the Workers Federation of La Paz, as minister of labor; Hugo Salvatierra, a Santa Cruz lawyer linked to the social movements of eastern Bolivia, as minister of campesino, indigenous and agricultural affairs; Walter Villarroel, a small-scale businessperson from the mining sector, as minister of mining and metallurgy; Casimira Rodriguez, former executive secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Workers, as minister of justice; and Abel Mamani, president of the Federation of Neighborhood Committees (FEJUVE) of the city of El Alto, as minister of water, a newly created post. Mamani led massive mobilizations last year demanding an end to the transnational Suez company's control-- through its subsidiary, Aguas del Illimani--over water services in El Alto [see Updates #781, 789]. [LJ 1/24/06 from correspondent] Not everyone was happy with the new cabinet. Some critics have accused Santa Cruz businessperson Salvador Ric Riera, the new minister of services and public works, of involvement in money laundering. And miners declared their sector in a state of emergency as they consider how to force the removal of Villarroel, the new minister of mining. Also on Jan. 23, Morales joined Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias in inaugurating the new offices in Bolivia of the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA. Chavez says PDVSA will help the new Bolivian government in the process of nationalizing its hydrocarbons resources. [LJ 1/24/06 from correspondent] On Jan. 25, Morales named MAS member and geological engineer Jorge Alvarado to head the state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB). Alvarado is charged with speeding up YPFB's control over production and marketing of crude oil, natural gas and petroleum derivatives. Also on Jan. 25, Morales designated Sacha Llorenti, president of the Permanent Assembly for Human Rights of Bolivia (APDHB), as the country's new ambassador to the US. The Senate, controlled by the MAS, is expected to confirm the nomination. Morales gave Llorenti the mission of arranging the extradition "as quickly as possible" of ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who is living in the US but is wanted in Bolivia on charges of genocide. [LJ 1/26/06 from Reuters, AFP, DPA] In appointing the new military high command on Jan. 24, Morales skipped over several high-ranking generals who are being investigated for having handed over 28 surface-to-air missiles to the US government for destruction last October without following required consultations or procedures. Army general Marco Antonio Vasquez, one of those passed up for the high command, disrupted the swearing-in ceremony of the new military leaders by shouting angrily against the new government. The new commander of the armed forces is Gen. Wilfredo Vargas; protocol requires that some 20 generals who were ahead of Vargas in seniority must now retire. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 1/25/06 from AP; LJ 1/26/06 from Reuters, AFP, DPA] *2. BOLIVIA: BECHTEL DROPS WATER SUIT The US transnational engineering company Bechtel has dropped its demand that the Bolivian government provide compensation of $25 million for the cancellation of a contract to run water services in Cochabamba, the country's third-biggest city. Bechtel had sought compensation in the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes after massive grassroots protests forced Aguas del Tunari, a consortium led by Bechtel, out of Cochabamba in April 2000. In a joint statement issued on Jan. 19, the Bolivian government and Bechtel noted that "the concession was terminated only because of the civil unrest and the state of emergency in Cochabamba and not because of any act done or not done by the international shareholders of Aguas del Tunari." The agreement also frees the company from any potential liability. "This is a good settlement," said Jonathan Marshall, a Bechtel spokesman in San Francisco. "Our goal was not to punish the government or people of Bolivia but to get an acknowledgment that we hadn't done anything to break our contract." London's Financial Times suggests that Bechtel's capitulation on the claim may deter foreign investors in Bolivia's gas sector-- including British Gas, Total and Repsol--from following through with threatened international legal action over a hydrocarbons law passed last year that imposed new taxes on existing contracts. [FT 1/19/06 from correspondent] *3. ARGENTINA/URUGUAY: PULP MILL PROTESTS Protests are continuing in Uruguay and Argentina over the construction of two paper pulp mills on the Uruguay river in Fray Bentos, in the Uruguayan department of Rio Negro [see Updates #818, 831]. Critics say the mills will contaminate the river and the surrounding ecosystem. The protests have intensified in recent weeks as Botnia, a Finnish company, begins construction of its mill. On Jan. 19, a group of 10 Greenpeace activists from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Mexico and Italy stopped a Botnia truck as it entered a customs weighing station on the border between the Argentine city of Colon and the Uruguayan city of Paysandu. The truck was carrying metal structures to Fray Bentos for construction of the Botnia plant. Several activists lay down under the truck's wheels, while others chained and padlocked themselves to the vehicle; Greenpeace representatives then symbolically handed over the padlock keys to the foreign ministers of Uruguay and Argentina, urging them to work out a solution to the pulp mill conflict. Earlier protests had stopped Botnia trucks from making the border crossing from the Argentine town of Gualeguaychu, in Entre Rios province, into Fray Bentos; the company switched to the Colon-Paysandu crossing in an effort to evade the protesters. On Jan. 17, activists protested on a Botnia shipping dock in Fray Bentos; they were detained for several hours. [Agencia Periodistica Federal (Argentina) 1/19/06] A Jan. 17 email alert from Greenpeace Argentina reports that a number of activists from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Finland, Germany, Italy and Mexico have been arrested for blocking construction of the Botnia plant. Greenpeace Argentina is urging supporters to write to the Argentine and Uruguayan governments to demand they stop the pulp mills and adopt a non- polluting production plan for the region's paper industry. To send a fax or for more information, see http://www.greenpeace.org.ar. [Greenpeace Argentina 1/17/06] More protests were held in Fray Bentos on Jan. 27. [Adital (Brazil) 1/27/06] In Buenos Aires on Jan. 28, activists marched to the Uruguayan embassy; similar protests were held the same day at the Uruguayan consulates in the Argentine cities of Cordoba and Santa Fe. [Cronica 1/29/06 from Telam] Members of the Citizen Environmental Assembly of Gualeguaychu blockaded Argentine national route 136 on Jan. 27; they lifted the blockade the next day, saying they would meet with Entre Rios provincial governor Jorge Busti on Jan. 30 to discuss alternative pressure tactics. [Cronica 1/28/06 from Telam] A protest caravan organized by the Environmental Assembly drew some 1,000 vehicles in Gualeguaychu on Jan. 29. [APF 1/29/06] *4. COLOMBIA: US COMPLICIT IN DRUG TRADE In a Dec. 19, 2004 memo recently obtained by the US-based alternative internet publication Narco News Bulletin, Thomas M. Kent, an attorney in the wiretap unit of the Justice Department's Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Section (NDDS), charged that a number of agents at the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)'s Bogota, Colombia office are on drug traffickers' payrolls, have been complicit in the murders of informants who knew too much, and have been directly involved in helping the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) launder drug money. Kent said the corrupt agents are protected in an ongoing cover-up by "watchdog" agencies within the Justice Department. Other sources, including former US officials familiar with the DEA's Bogota operations, corroborated Kent's accusations in conversations with Narco News. [Narco News Bulletin 1/9/06] *5. COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARIES, ARMY KILLING Rightwing Colombian paramilitary groups, while allegedly disarming, have continued to carry out murders throughout the country. In the first three weeks of 2006, ten people were murdered in Barrancabermeja, in the northeastern department of Santander, while another 50 people were forced to flee the city because of death threats. Four local journalists have been threatened; one of them, Diro Cesar Gonzalez of the weekly La Tarde, survived an assassination attempt on Jan. 17. The Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (CREDHOS) says the crisis is already worse than last year, despite numerous complaints filed with the authorities. [Portada (Bucaramanga) 1/23/06 via Servicio Prensa Rural] In the Catatumbo region of neighboring Norte de Santander, witnesses say paramilitaries murdered about five people between Dec. 30 and Jan. 12 at a roadblock in La Cadena, Convencion municipality, just a few blocks from military and police posts. [Adital 1/23/06] On Jan. 12, Colombian army troops went to the home of Edilberto Vasquez Cardona, an activist with the Arenas Altas humanitarian zone, part of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado in Antioquia department. The soldiers dragged Vasquez from his bed, took him about 20 minutes away and shot him to death. Vasquez was the first leader of the Arenas Altas humanitarian zone; the leader who replaced him, Arlen Salas David, was killed by the army last Nov. 17 [see Update #825]. [Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado 1/12/06] *6. VENEZUELA: GAG ORDER ON BOMB PROBE According to a statement issued on Jan. 23 by the Venezuelan attorney general's office, Judge Florencio Silano has banned local media from reporting on an investigation into the Nov. 18, 2004 car bomb assassination of state prosecutor Danilo Anderson. The judge also barred any "reference to the private life" of a key witness, Colombian national Giovanny Vasquez de Armas. The court's gag order came in response to a request made the previous week by Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez, who accused Venezuelan newspapers and broadcasters of promoting a campaign to discredit prosecutors in the case. Rodriguez said prosecutors would also investigate a group of local media outlets for allegedly "obstructing justice" by publishing or broadcasting details of the case. Three men have been found guilty of homicide for the car bombing that killed Anderson, but prosecutors believe others planned the assassination. [Miami Herald 1/25/06 from AP] Rodriguez said Colombian paramilitaries have offered a $5 million reward "for the head" of Vasquez, the witness. In a Jan. 26 interview, Vasquez said US officials and Colombian and Venezuelan military personnel, as well as people from the national, international and US banking sectors, were present at meetings where Anderson's assassination was planned. [La Jornada 1/27/06 from DPA, AFP, Reuters] The Cuban government newspaper Granma accused the US government of having released Venezuelan former police agents Johan Pena and Pedro Lander, suspects in the Anderson killing who fled to Miami. The US government is also protecting a third suspect, Jose Guevara, says Granma, and is covering up the complicity of Hector Pesquera, former chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Miami, and a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent in the plot. Vasquez, the Colombian witness, said Pesquera took part in a meeting in Panama at which the Anderson assassination was planned. Granma points to close links between rightwing Cuban- Americans and many of the suspects in the Anderson murder. [Prensa Latina 1/11/06] *7. VENEZUELA: CHAVEZ HOSTS SOCIAL FORUM A march by tens of thousands of activists through Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 24 opened the Second Social Forum of the Americas, which is also the Western Hemisphere section of the Sixth World Social Forum (WSF), an annual meeting of political and social organizations and individuals opposed to neoliberal economic policies. Opposition to the continued US occupation of Iraq was a major theme of both the march and the forum. A press conference on the opening day featured two parents of US soldiers killed in Iraq--Cindy Sheehan and Fernando Suarez del Solar-- along with Pablo Paredes, a US Navy petty officer of Ecuadoran and Puerto Rican ancestry who refused orders to deploy to Iraq. Organizers decided to decentralize the WSF this year, with forums held in Venezuela; in Bamako, Mali; and in Karachi, Pakistan. Some 70,000 to 120,000 people participated in the Caracas forum, where 2,000 different activities were scheduled from Jan. 24 to Jan. 29. In contrast to previous years, no visiting heads of state participated, although Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva originally planned to attend. [Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales 1/23/06; Servicio Informativo "Alai- amlatina" 1/25/06; Adital 1/25/06; Financial Times (UK) 1/27/06 from correspondent] Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias addressed the WSF on Jan. 27, calling for the annual event to be centralized into an anti- imperialist socialist movement. The WSF shouldn't be "folklorized," Chavez said, complaining that he thought it was strange to have a conference that didn't arrive at agreements. Some representatives of grassroots organizations objected to any efforts to change the WSF's openness and "horizontality." Many participants also objected to Chavez's spirited defense of Lula, whose policies are viewed as neoliberal by many Latin American activists. [La Jornada (Mexico) 9/29/06 from correspondent] *8. CHILE: PINOCHET DAUGHTER CAUGHT Ines Lucia Pinochet Hiriart, the oldest daughter of former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, arrived in Santiago on a flight from Washington by way of Buenos Aires on Jan. 28, after a failed attempt to win political asylum in the US. She was met at the airport by Judge Carlos Cerda, who has been investigating the Pinochet family for tax evasion and passport falsification. She was taken in a police car to the Escuela de Gendarmeria (prison guard agency), where she was expected to remain at least until Jan. 30. At that point Judge Cerda is to decide whether to release her on bail. Lucia Pinochet fled Chile for Argentina on Jan. 22. The next day, on Jan. 23, Cerda issued a formal indictment for tax evasion, totaling about $2.05 million, against Gen. Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart; four of their children, including Lucia Pinochet; a daughter-in-law, Soledad Olave; Gen. Pinochet's former secretary, Monica Ananias; and his executor, Oscar Aitken. The judge released Pinochet's wife on bail, along with Ananias, Aitken and one of Pinochet's sons, Marco Antonio Pinochet. On Jan. 25 Lucia Pinochet unexpectedly arrived at Dulles International Airport near Washington. US customs officials detained her based on a warrant Cerda had issued on Jan. 24. Pinochet said she wanted to apply for political asylum, and she was taken to an immigration detention center. US officials announced on Jan. 27 that she had dropped her asylum request; she was then flown to Buenos Aires. On the flight back to Chile, Pinochet complained to reporters that US immigration officials had treated her "badly enough," making her wear a prison uniform and taking her to court in handcuffs. [La Jornada (Mexico) 1/29/06 from correspondent; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 1/29/06 from EFE; Adital 1/24/06; Associated Press 1/26/06; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 1/28/06 from EFE] *9. ARGENTINA: MOTHERS END WEEKLY MARCH On Jan. 26 Argentina's Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Association held the last of 1,500 weekly protest marches near the presidential palace in downtown Buenos Aires. The marches began in 1977 when a small group of women whose children had been disappeared by the 1976-1983 military dictatorship decided to hold protests every Thursday afternoon. The Mothers "no longer have an enemy" in the presidential palace," the association's president, Hebe de Bonafini, said at the final demonstration, referring to efforts by left-populist president Nestor Kirchner to bring human rights abusers to justice. "It's not that we of the Mothers have changed," she said. "It's that there's a new political moment in the country and in Latin America." [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 1/27/06 from AP, 1/28/06 from correspondent] *10. PARAGUAY: MARCH AGAINST US TROOPS On Jan. 17, members of Paraguayan social and political organizations marched in Asuncion and burned US flags to protest the presence of US soldiers in their country, and to condemn the Paraguayan legislature's decision last year to let the troops in and grant them immunity from prosecution [see Updates #801, 809, 812, 816]. The protests are being held on the 17th day of each month, with a larger national mobilization planned for this coming May, since a new contingent of US troops is expected to arrive in June. The protests are also being coordinated with activists in other countries. [Jaku'eke (Paraguay) 1/18/06; ABC Color (Paraguay) 1/18/06] *11. HAITI: JAILED PRIEST FREED Haitian Roman Catholic priest Gerard Jean-Juste arrived in Miami on Jan. 29 after Haiti's interim government granted him a temporary release from prison in order to undergo treatment for leukemia and pneumonia. Jean-Juste, a prominent supporter of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has been held in prison on various charges since July 2005 despite international pressure for his release [see Update #834]. "After his treatment, he has to return to face justice," Michel Brunache, chief of staff for interim president Boniface Alexandre, told the Associated Press wire service. [Newsday (NY) website 1/29/06 from AP] *12. IN OTHER NEWS... Schafik Jorge Handal, a longtime leader of El Salvador's leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), died of a heart attack on Jan. 23. Handal, who was 75, collapsed in Comalapa International Airport in El Salvador as he was returning from the Jan. 21 inauguration of Bolivian president Evo Morales. [New York Times 1/25/06 from AP; Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador 1/25/06]... Lumber industry executive Manuel Zelaya Rosales of the rightwing Liberal Party was inaugurated on Jan. 27 as president of Honduras for a four-year term. Zelaya, who was elected on Nov. 27, pledged to reduce poverty and halt illegal logging, and said his government will grant no new mining concessions. [La Jornada 1/28/06 from AFP, DPA, Reuters]... Eight members of Guatemala's notorious "Kaibiles" special forces unit were killed and five were wounded on Jan. 23 in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a confrontation with members of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The soldiers were part of a United Nations military mission. According to some sources, the Guatemalans died while trying to capture Gen. Vincent Otti of the LRA, although this would violate the mission's role as a peacekeeping force. [La Semana en Guatemala 1/16/06-1/23/06; Guatemala Hoy 1/26/06] END Your support is appreciated. 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