[NYTr] Weekly News Update #748, 5/30/04

[nytr at tania.blythe-systems.com]

         WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
              ISSUE #748, MAY 30, 2004
  NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
         339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 
             (212) 674-9499 <wnu at igc.org>

1. El Salvador: Unionists Freed
2. Nicaragua: Students Protest Budget Cuts
3. Chile: Pinochet Stripped of Immunity
4. Colombia: Oil Strike Ends
5. Colombia: Cali Workers Seize Offices
6. Colombia: Communities Fight Tolls
7. Colombia: Police Attack Marchers
8. Colombia: Congress Reviews US Troop Cap
9. Haiti: US to Deport More Torturers
10. Haiti: Floods Kill Thousands
11. Mexico: Few Results at Summit
12. Trade: CAFTA Signed but Not Sealed

ISSN#: 1084-922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news
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*1. EL SALVADOR: UNIONISTS FREED

Late on May 26, leaders Ricardo Monge and Javier Ayala of the
union representing workers at the Salvadoran Social Security
Institute (ISSS) were released from jail, nearly a month after
they were arrested. The two were detained with dozens of other
demonstrators in Apr. 28 protests demanding the reinstatement of
fired ISSS workers and an end to the privatization of health care
in El Salvador. On May 4 a court had dismissed charges against
all those arrested, but Monge and Ayala were not freed until the
Second Criminal Court dismissed an appeal filed by the attorney
general which had blocked their release. The court ruled on May
26 that the appeal was filed too late to be valid. Monge and
Ayala had been accused of responsibility for terrorism and public
disorder, among other charges. News agency ACAN-EFE reported that
the two leaders were cleared of all charges, although the
Salvadoran daily La Prensa Grafica said Monge still faces trial
for public disorder. 
 
Monge is the secretary general and Ayala is the secretary of
organization of the Union of ISSS Workers (STISSS); the two had
been on hunger strike since May 18 [see Update #747], joined by
STISSS activists Amalia Pineda, Armida Franco and Roxana Guerra,
who observed the fast while tied to giant crosses outside the
court building. According to the US-based Committee in Solidarity
with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a group of five
activists began a solidarity fast outside the Salvadoran
consulate in New York on May 25, and continued it until Monge and
Ayala were released. STISSS spokesperson Marta Marin told ACAN-
EFE that unionist Kevin Baiza remains in jail, and that the union
will continue to organize protests demanding his release. [CISPES
El Salvador Updates 5/27/04; LPG 5/27/04; La Nacion (Costa Rica)
5/27/04 from ACAN-EFE]
 
*2. NICARAGUA: STUDENTS PROTEST BUDGET CUTS

On May 27 some 15,000 students from Nicaragua's public
universities marched peacefully through the streets of Managua to
the National Assembly to demand that the universities receive the
6% of the national budget guaranteed to them by the country's
1987 constitution and upheld in a recent ruling by the Supreme
Court of Justice (CSJ). The students blasted a counter-proposal
from President Enrique Bolanos which would assign 1.4 billion
cordobas (about $89 million) to the universities for 2004 and
2005. [El Nuevo Diario (Managua) 5/28/04; La Prensa (Managua)
5/27/04]
 
This year's protests over the university budget stepped up on May
17 in the cities of Managua, Leon, Jinotepe, Matagalpa, Esteli,
Rivas and Chontales. Dozens of people were wounded in Managua and
Jinotepe on May 17, many of them hit by rubber and metal bullets
fired by police; others were hurt by homemade mortars fired by
students. In Jinotepe, police agent Roger Rodriguez Gutierrez
died after a homemade mortar severed an artery in his thigh.
Vilma Nunez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights
(CENIDH), blamed the violence on Bolanos, who she said was
spending public money attending a royal wedding in Madrid while
the crisis worsened. [Nicaragua News Service 5/17/04-5/23/04; LP
5/18/04]
 
*3. CHILE: PINOCHET STRIPPED OF IMMUNITY

On May 28, the Santiago Appeals Court ruled 14-9 in favor of
stripping ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) of the
immunity from prosecution he holds as Chile's former "president."
Pinochet's lawyers are expected to appeal the decision to the
Supreme Court, which in July 2002 ruled that Pinochet suffered
from dementia and was mentally unfit to stand trial. The appeals
court's surprise reversal came after lawyers gave the judges a
videotaped copy of a television interview aired last November on
Miami's Spanish-language Channel 22, in which Pinochet spoke
defiantly and at length about events that happened during the
dictatorship. "If he can answer a journalist's questions for
almost an hour, coherently and reasoning in a logical manner,
remembering events that happened more than 30 years ago, then he
certainly can respond to questions from a judge," argued
prosecution attorneys Francisco Bravo and Sergio Concha.
 
If the appeals court's ruling is upheld, Pinochet will have to
face prosecution for the disappearance of nine leftist activists
under Operation Condor, a network of state-sanctioned repression
coordinated among South American military regimes in the 1970s
and 1980s. [Pinochet Watch (by Institute for Policy Studies) #55,
5/28/04; New York Times 5/29/04; La Tercera (Chile) 5/28/04 via
Equipo Nizkor; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/29/04 from correspondent]
Activists Juan Hernandez, Luis Munoz, Manuel Tamayo, Edgardo
Enriquez, Alexis Jacard, Jacobo Stoulman, Matilde Pessa, Julio
Valladares and Jorge Fuentes Alarcon were abducted by Pinochet's
regime between 1975 and 1977. The trial began last Dec. 22, when
Judge Juan Guzman Tapia formally charged three former military
officers, all members of Pinochet's notorious National
Intelligence Department (DINA), with responsibility for the
disappearances. Those charged were retired general and DINA chief
Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, retired brigadier and DINA second-in-
command Pedro Espinoza, and retired brigadier Christoph Willikie,
a DINA foreign operations agent. [El Mostrador (Chile) 5/14/04
from Agencia La Plaza Digital] Contreras previously served seven
years in prison for the 1976 car-bomb murder in Washington of
former Chilean foreign minister Orlando Letelier and his US aide,
Ronni Moffitt.
 
On May 17, Santiago judge Alejandro Solis sentenced Contreras to
15 years in jail for the 1974 abduction and disappearance of
young journalist Diana Frida Aron. Solis also sentenced retired
colonel Miguel Krassnoff to 15 years, and handed down sentences
of 10 years each to Pedro Espinoza, retired colonel Marcelo Moren
Brito and civilian agent Osvaldo Romo Mena. Aron, a member of the
Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), was arrested on Nov. 18, 1974,
and taken to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious torture center, then to
a DINA clinic. Her body was never found. [BBC News 5/19/04; EM
5/17/04]
 
On May 27, Judge Carmen Garay began the trial of Chilean former
military officers Ariosto Lapostol and Fernando Polanco for the
Dec. 8, 1973 murder of Mexican citizen Maria del Rosario Avalos
and her Argentine husband Bernardo Lejderman. The couple was
killed in Vicuna, in the northern Chilean region of Coquimbo,
where Lapostol commanded a local regiment and Polanco headed an
intelligence unit. Former officers Hector Valla and Luis
Fernandez have already been tried for the murder. The case has
been pursued for years by the couple's son, Ernesto Lejderman
Avalos, who was two years old and in his mother's arms when she
was killed. He was handed over to a religious congregation and
later raised by his paternal grandparents in Argentina. [LJ
5/28/04 from DPA, 5/30/04 from correspondent]
 
A group of eight Chilean political prisoners were in the 47th day
of a hunger strike on May 27, demanding passage of a law that
would allow their release [see Updates #742, 747]. The hunger
strikers have lost about 18 kilos each and their health is
failing, according to the Social Aid Foundation of Christian
Churches (FASIC). The sentence reduction measure is being held up
in the Senate by the far rightwing Independent Democratic Union
(UDI), which wants its provisions extended to military officers
who committed abuses during Pinochet's rule. [EFE 5/28/04 via
Equipo Nizkor] On May 25, members of the leftwing Manuel
Rodriguez Patriotic Movement occupied the embassies of Mexico, El
Salvador and Australia in Santiago to press the hunger strikers'
demands. [EM 5/26/04 from ALPD]
 
*4. COLOMBIA: OIL STRIKE ENDS

On May 26 the United Union of Workers (USO) signed an agreement
with the Colombian government, ending a 35-day strike by
employees of the state-run oil company Ecopetrol. The strike
began on Apr. 22 [see Update #743]. According to the USO, the
accord meets a major demand of the strike: that Ecopetrol not be
privatized and that it be preserved as a fiscally autonomous
state-run company. The USO acknowledged that the victory is only
partial, and that further struggle will take place as Congress
discusses a new hydrocarbons law. The pact also won the creation
of an ad hoc arbitration board to consider--on a case-by-case
basis--the rehiring of 248 workers who were illegally dismissed
for participating in the strike. 
 
The accord was signed by Energy and Mines Minister Luis Ernesto
Mejia, Social Protection Ministry deputy chief of labor relations
Luz Stella Arango, Ecopetrol chiefs Isaac Yanovich, Hector
Manosalva and Lucy Garcia, and USO representatives Gabriel Alvis,
Hernando Hernandez and Roberto Schmalbach. Participating as
witnesses were church spokespeople, representatives of the
Unitary Workers Federation (CUT) and municipal council members
from Barrancabermeja, a major oil port city in Santander
department where the USO has its main base of operations. [USO
Message 5/27/04 via Colombia Indymedia]
 
On May 27, some 14,500 banana workers in the northern Colombian
region of Uraba began an open-ended strike on 327 banana farms
after talks over a new contract broke down. Members of the
National Union of Agricultural Industry (Sintrainagro) had voted
to approve the strike on May 13. The union's key demands are an
end to the system of subcontracting, and the rejection of bans on
hiring women of childbearing age and workers over 40 years old.
[Sintrainagro Message 5/27/04 via Colombia Indymedia]
 
*5. COLOMBIA: CALI WORKERS SEIZE OFFICES

On May 26 in Cali, capital of Colombia's Valle del Cauca
department, some 1,600 workers from the city services company
Empresas Municipales de Cali (Emcali) and community supporters
seized the company's offices, located in the Municipal
Administrative Center (CAM) tower. The workers pledged to remain
there in "permanent assembly" until the national government
reviewed what they say is an illegal pact signed between Emcali
and its creditors. The Union of Emcali Workers (Sintraemcali) is
also protesting cutbacks in subsidies and increases in service
rates.
 
Some 100 workers who remained at the site left on May 29 after
reaching a seven-point agreement with city and departmental
officials. The accord was signed by Valle del Cauca governor
Angelino Garzon, Cali mayor Apolinar Salcedo Caicedo and
Sintraemcali president Luis Hernandez Monroy. Garzon and Salcedo
committed themselves to setting up a meeting between Sintraemcali
and President Alvaro Uribe Velez to discuss the national
government's restructuring plan for Emcali. The accord also
proposes a popular referendum on the future of Emcali as a city
agency, and discourages reprisals against workers who took part
in the protest. [El Pais (Cali) 5/26/04 & 5/29/04 via Colombia
Indymedia; Sintraemcali Urgent Action 5/26/04]
 
On Jan. 29, 2002, some 600 Emcali workers ended a five-week
occupation of the 16-story CAM tower after winning an agreement
to avoid the company's privatization [see Update #627].
 
*6. COLOMBIA: COMMUNITIES FIGHT TOLLS

Residents of the adjoining municipalities of Copacabana, Barbosa
and Girardota in the Valle del Aburra region of Colombia's
Antioquia department began an open-ended civic strike on May 18
to protest the imposition of new tolls as part of an expansion
plan for a highway passing through the region. The strike was
suspended late on May 28 after the senators who represent
Antioquia in the national legislature agreed to review a proposal
to cancel the tolls and to talk with the president about setting
up a dialogue on the issue. Police clashed with protesters during
the first week of the strike, leaving 55 civilians and 13 police
agents injured. The agreement came a day after the women of
Copacabana staged a massive "cacerolazo," a noisy protest in
which they banged on kitchen utensils. [El Colombiano (Medellin)
5/29/04; La Jornada 3/24/04 from DPA, AFP]
 
*7. COLOMBIA: POLICE ATTACK MARCHERS

On May 18, police attacked a group of more than 20,000 marchers
from throughout Colombia who had gathered in the historic
Caribbean port city of Cartagena to protest "free trade" talks,
taking place at a local convention center among representatives
of the governments of the US, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. A day
earlier, Cartagena mayor Alberto Barbosa had issued an order
expanding a restricted "security zone" around the convention
center and barring the peaceful march from entering the "Old
City," the historic district where the talks were taking place. 
 
Riot police units backed by armored vehicles and a helicopter
lobbed tear gas at protesters on the Chambacu bridge, a historic
site where African-descended Colombians once battled for freedom
from slavery. Police used their clubs to beat a number of
marchers, including Senator Piedad Cordoba and several members of
the House of Representatives. Police also arrested 19 people,
including Victor Alonso Aristizabal, a dairy farmer and member of
the Association of Milk Producers of Santuario (Asprolesa) from
Antioquia department. As of May 28, Aristizabal remained
detained, although he was not charged with any crime. The
National Association for the Salvation of Agriculture is
demanding his release. [Messages from Apolinar Diaz-Callejas
5/25/04, H. Durango 5/26/04 on Colombia Indymedia; Colombia Week
#51, 5/24/04; Salvacion Agropecuaria 5/28/04 via Colombia
Indymedia; El Nuevo Dia (Ibague, Tolima) 5/19/04 via Colombia
Indymedia]
 
Representatives of the four countries plan to hold another six
rounds of talks in the hopes of reaching a trade agreement by
February 2005. The next rounds of talks are scheduled for June
14-18 in Atlanta, Georgia, and July 26-30 in Lima, Peru. [CW
5/24/04]
 
*8. COLOMBIA: CONGRESS REVIEWS US TROOP CAP

On May 20, the US House of Representatives approved an amendment
introduced by Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS) to the defense
authorization bill which raises the cap on US military personnel
operating in Colombia to 500, and maintains a 400-person cap on
US contractors operating there. A law passed in 2000 had set both
caps at 400. The administration of President George W. Bush is
seeking to raise the caps to 800 for military personnel and 600
for contractors, while Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) had proposed
eliminating the caps. The administration's proposal was approved
by the Senate Armed Service Committee and reached the floor of
the Senate on May 21; a vote is expected the week of June 1 after
legislators return from the Memorial Day break. [Colombia Week
#51, 5/24/04; Latin America Working Group message, undated]
 
The Latin America Working Group (LAWG) urges activists to call
their senators on June 1 and 2 to encourage them to speak out
against US military involvement in Colombia when the defense
authorization bill goes to the Senate floor. Calls should also be
directed to members of the Armed Services Committees of both the
House and the Senate who will be on the conference committee
reconciling the two versions of the bill, to urge them to keep
the lower caps in place. More information is at http://lawg.org.
[LAWG, undated]
 
*9. HAITI: US TO DEPORT MORE TORTURERS

US immigration officials have arrested three Haitians accused of
attacking supporters of Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide
after he was overthrown in September 1991. US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Jones Charles on May 13
and Vital Cesear on May 18. The two men, who had been living in
Orlando, Florida, were being held in the Orange County Jail in
Orlando pending removal from the US. 
 
Cesear was a member of the Front for the Advancement and Progress
of Haiti (FRAPH), a rightwing death squad, who "participated in
and witnessed the killing of Aristide supporters by members of
his group," according to ICE spokesperson Nina Pruneda. Pruneda
said Charles was a police agent who helped in the arrest of
Aristide supporters at demonstrations. On May 24 in Key West,
Florida, ICE agents arrested Michael Fortuna, a Haitian accused
of torture who had been sought by immigration authorities since
September 2002. A US immigration judge determined in April 1999
that Fortuna was a human rights abuser linked to the FRAPH, under
the command of Emmanuel Constant. 
 
The arrests are part of the US Department of Homeland Security's
campaign to round up and deport foreign human rights violators
living in the US. The criminal investigators of ICE's Human
Rights Violators Unit and the attorneys of its counterpart Human
Rights Law Division are presently pursuing more than 200 cases,
according to an ICE news release. Several Haitian torture
suspects previously deported through the program were released
from the National Penitentiary when Aristide was overthrown a
second time on Feb. 29 of this year [see Update #736]. [Miami
Herald 5/19/04, 5/27/04; ICE News Release 5/26/04]
 
*10. HAITI: FLOODS KILL THOUSANDS

As many as 2,500 people were killed in southeastern Haiti and
adjacent areas of the Dominican Republic when exceptionally heavy
spring rains caused rivers to flood starting on the night of May
24-25. The worst damage was in the rural town of Mapou, where
some 1,000 bodies have been found. More than 100 people were
drowned in Fond Verrettes, and more than 300 people died in the
nearby Dominican town of Jamani. The survivors have lost their
homes, crops and livestock, and the floods have cut off most
overland transportation, adding to the difficulties for relief
efforts. On May 29 a senior United Nations (UN) official said the
number of people affected could reach 75,000. [Haiti Support
Network News Briefs 5/29/04 from AP, 5/26/04 from Reuters]
 
The main relief efforts have come from the International Red
Cross and the World Food Program (WFP), with some logistical
support from the US-led international force that has occupied
Haiti since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from
power on Feb. 29. The US military said it was unable to fly its
helicopters to the affected areas until May 27 because of bad
weather, and even on May 27 some flights were cancelled. [Miami
Herald 5/28/04, 5/30/04] The UN is providing $380,000 for relief,
while the Organization of American States (OAS) is offering
$25,000. The US said it was supplying $50,000--about $0.66 for
each flood survivor. [New York Times 5/30/04]
 
An unnamed US official dismissed the US-backed interim government
that replaced Aristide as a "ghost government" that has provided
"zero support." [MH 5/30/04] A May 28 press release from students
at the State University of Haiti's Faculty of the Humanities in
Port-au-Prince blamed "poverty, social inequality and the
existence of a racketeer government that sells political posts"
for the devastation, which resulted from deforestation and shoddy
construction. "Natural disasters are one thing, but the
management of risks and disasters is a matter for the
authorities, who run the state badly and who let the forests be
destroyed and let construction take place anywhere and in any
manner," the students said. [Agence Haitienne de Presse (AHP)
5/28/04]
 
Forty-two Brazilian soldiers flew into Haiti on May 29, the first
part of an 850-member Brazilian military force that will lead the
international occupation as the US pulls out some 1,500 marines
and 400 soldiers by the end of June [see Update #744]. The new
UN-led occupation force of 6,700 soldiers and 1,622 police agents
officially takes over on June 1, but many of the troops are not
yet in place. The majority of the Brazilian group is due to
arrive by ship in June. Chile has committed 650 soldiers, and
Argentina is sending up to 600. Another 10 countries are sending
troops, and 22 countries are sending police agents. [MH website
5/29/04 from AP; CNN en Espanol 5/28/04 from Reuters] 
 
*11. MEXICO: FEW RESULTS AT SUMMIT

Top officials of 58 countries met in Guadalajara, Mexico May 28-
29 for the Third Summit of Latin America, the Caribbean and the
European Union (EU). The participants issued a final declaration
expressing "abhorrence at recent evidence of the mistreatment of
prisoners in Iraqi prisons" and urging the ratification of the
Kyoto Protocol on climate change and the International Criminal
Court; the US currently controls Iraqi prisons and is the most
important holdout against the two international agreements. But
summit participants were unable to agree on crucial trade issues,
especially on the question of EU subsidies to European farmers.
[El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 5/30/04 from correspondent; Miami Herald
website 5/29/04 from AP]
 
As many as 5,000 protesters marched to the Cabanas Cultural
Institute, the site of the summit, on the evening of May 28. The
march was made up of an anarchist bloc and a larger bloc
including unions, the leftist Workers Party (PT) and campesinos
from the town of San Salvador Atenco outside Mexico City. When
the march reached the convention center, the anarchist bloc
knocked down police barriers in an attempt to enter the summit.
Police agents used tear gas to disperse the crowd. A total of 100
protesters were arrested, including 11 foreigners. Human rights
groups said 11 protesters were injured, while the authorities
reported that about 20 police agents were hurt. [CMI
Guadalajara/La Haine 5/28/04 via Indymedia Colombia; ENH 5/30/04
from EFE]
 
Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque told a May 28 press
conference at the summit that he and Mexican foreign affairs
secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez had met the day before and agreed
to return their respective ambassadors to their posts. The two
countries withdrew their ambassadors in early May during a brief
diplomatic dispute over Cuba's alleged interference in Mexican
politics [see Update #745]. [MH 5/28/04 from AP]
 
*12. TRADE: CAFTA SIGNED BUT NOT SEALED

Trade representatives of five Central American countries and the
US signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in a
ceremony at the Organization of American States (OAS)
headquarters in Washington, DC on May 28. Signing the pact were
Alberto Trejos for Costa Rica, Miguel Lacayo for El Salvador,
Marcio Cuevas for Guatemala, Norman Garcia for Honduras, Mario
Arana for Nicaragua and Robert Zoellick for the US. About 100
activists from environmental, labor rights and Latin America
solidarity groups protested outside.
 
A second signing ceremony is expected for June, when the
Dominican Republic is expected to join CAFTA, which will then
cover an area with about $30 billion in annual trade with the US.
But the treaty requires the approval of each country's
legislature, and it faces serious opposition in the US Congress.
On May 27 three members of the House of Representative Ways and
Means Committee's Subcommittee on Trade--Xavier Becerra (D-CA),
Sandy Levin (D-MI) and Charles Rangel (D-NY)--said CAFTA was "on
a midnight train to nowhere." On May 28 Sen. John Kerry (D-MA),
who is expected to be the Democratic Party's candidate against
President George W. Bush in November, announced that he would
oppose CAFTA in its present form. [CNN en Espanol 5/28/04 from
AP, quotes retranslated from Spanish; Central America solidarity
and social justice organizations press release 5/27/04]
 
END

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