ECUADOR: PROTESTS PARALYZE COUNTRY

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

OIL STRIKE IN AMAZON

The Ecuadoran government decreed a state of emergency in the Amazon provinces of Napo, Orellana and Sucumbios on March 8, two days into a strike that shut down oil production in the region. The 4,000 striking workers were employed by subcontractors to provide maintenance, security, transport, clean-up and construction for the state oil company Petroecuador. The workers are owed three months worth of salaries by the subcontractors, who have themselves not been paid by Petroecuador since last September. On March 7, the workers shut down six major oil facilities in the region; the same day, army soldiers used tear gas bombs to eject the strikers from several oil company sites. The workers released three of the sites on March 11 and ended the strike on March 12 after the government promised to arrange payment of the debts and to release three arrested strike leaders. The state of emergency was to be lifted gradually beginning on March 13. (Agencia Pulsar, March 8; AP, March 8, 12; El Comercio, Quito, March 11)

Workers and other social sectors blocked roads on March 8 in several areas of Ecuador to protest the government’s negotiations with the US over the Andean Free Trade Treaty, press for a wage increase and demand that the government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy). Mesias Tatamuez, leader of the Unitary Workers Front (FUT), called the strike “a warning message,” and said that if the government doesn’t attend to the protesters’ demands, more extreme actions will be taken. (Agencia Pulsar, March 8)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 12

INDIGENOUS PROTEST TRADE PACT

Early on March 13, indigenous Ecuadorans began a national mobilization against the Andean Free Trade Treaty (known in Spanish as the TLC), which the Ecuadoran government has said it intends to sign with the US, Colombia and Peru. The mobilization is also demanding that the government cancel its contract with Oxy, that Ecuador not participate in the US-led “Plan Colombia,” and that a National Constituent Assembly be called to write a new constitution. The mobilization was organized by the indigenous organizations Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and the Confederation of the Peoples of Kichua Nationality of Ecuador (Ecuarunari). In a joint March 13 communique announcing the start of the mobilization, the two groups called the TLC “a mortal weapon for the economy of millions of indigenous people, campesinos and small businesspeople.”

“Now 50 of every 100 indigenous children suffer from chronic malnutrition–that is, hunger–and with the TLC, which will affect the production of foods from our fields, there will be millions of children and adolescents who together with their parents will suffer hunger and will have to migrate to the big cities or to other countries,” said the communique.

March 13 began with actions in at least 14 of Ecuador’s 22 provinces and in the capital, Quito. In Carchi, some 1,500 people shut down traffic on the road leading from Tulcan to Quito. Protesters also blocked roads in Imbabura, Pichincha, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Canar, Loja and Zamora. In Canar, access roads to nearly every town were blocked, and 3,000 indigenous Kanari people blocked traffic in the village of Suscal along a road to the coast. Ten busloads of protesters left from Imbabura to join protests in Quito. In Latacunga, Cotopaxi, some 2,000 people took part in a protest march. In Bolivar, protesters marched and seized the governor’s offices. In Azuay, thousands marched in the city of Cuenca, and a roadway was blocked in Giron. Police repression against protesters was reported in Ayora, Pichincha. In Esmeraldas, some 200 people marched in the provincial capital. From the eastern provinces of Pastaza and Morona Santiago, some 500 people reached Banos de Ambato on a march toward Quito. In Quito, some 100 members of Campesino Social Security seized the cathedral. (CONAIE/Ecuarunari Communique, March 13)

On March 14, the second day of the mobilization, protesters who arrived that day from Imbabura joined local Quito residents in marching past the US embassy to the cathedral. Police attacked the marchers in the area around the provincial council, and at the theater plaza. Protesters continued to block roads in Carchi, Imbabura, Pichincha, Tungurahua, Bolivar and Chimborazo. Some 10,000 people marched in Latacunga, capital of Cotopaxi province; hundreds of people also marched in Salcedo, another city in Cotopaxi, before blocking a nearby highway. In Suscal, Canar, police unleashed repression on protesters–mainly women and children–and arrested several protest leaders. Despite the attacks, protesters in Suscal continued to block the road leading to Guayaquil. The march from the Amazon region continued, with 600 people reaching the city of Ambato from Zalazaza. (CONAIE/Ecuarunari Communique, March 14)

In a March 15 communique signed by CONAIE president Luis Macas, CONAIE condemned the repression faced by protesters. “At a time when the Ecuadoran government and army are incapable of defending the country from incursions by the Colombian armed forces, and they have rather turned into security guards for the oil corporations, they have sharpened their weapons against their own people, causing numerous wounded, disappeared and persecutions against peaceful, democratic and united mobilizations,” said CONAIE.

CONAIE reported that in a meeting that morning with Governance under-secretary Felipe Vega, its leaders had protested the violation of human rights and questioned the government’s lack of transparency and democracy in the TLC negotiations, and delays in the cancellation of the Oxy contract. CONAIE leaders told Vega that the mobilization would continue until the TLC negotiations are suspended, the government publishes everything it has negotiated up to now, the Oxy contract is cancelled as requested by the state prosecutor’s office, and a Constituent Assembly is convened. (CONAIE communique, March 15)

By March 15, the protests were starting to affect the economy, disrupting deliveries of corn, potatoes and milk in the central provinces where traffic was blocked, and preventing flower exporters from transporting their shipments. (Al Jazeera, March 16) In a televised speech on March 15, Ecuadoran president Alfredo Palacio criticized the protests and called on Ecuadorans to “close ranks to protect democracy.” Earlier in the day, Interior Minister Alfredo Castillo resigned after publicly stating that the protesters “are right” to demand that the TLC negotiations be “much clearer.” (El Barlovento, Mexico, March 15)

On March 17, Oxy proposed an accord with the Ecuadoran government in which the company would provide oil assistance and funds for social projects, would give up legal claims and would renegotiate its contracts in exchange for the cancellation of legal proceedings threatening its current contract. It was not clear whether the government had responded to the offer. (Reuters, March 17) Ecuarunari president Humberto Cholango responded by warning Ecuadorans that Oxy was attempting to evade the legal proceedings with the offer of $293 million in funding for public works. (Ecuarunari/CONAIE communique, March 18)

On March 18, the indigenous mobilization continued into a sixth day, with roads blocked in at least seven provinces, mainly in the central Andean region, the north and the Amazon. In Riobamba, capital of Chimborazo, wire services reported that some 4,000 people demonstrated before holding an assembly to plan subsequent actions. (CONAIE and Ecuarunari reported that 10,000 people from the surrounding areas attempted to enter Riobamba, and 5,000 eventually made it past police to the city’s central square.) In other provinces, indigenous organizations also called assemblies to plan actions for the coming week, as the Ecuadoran government prepares to hold its final round of TLC negotiations in Washington on March 23. (ANSA, March 18; Cadena Global/DPA, March 18; Ecuarunari/CONAIE communique, March 18) The provinces of Tungurahua, Cotopaxi and Pastaza reportedly ended their strikes between March 16 and 17 after the government assigned more funds for public works they were demanding. (Cadena Global/DPA, March 18)

In a March 18 communique, Ecuarunari and CONAIE reported that their respective presidents, Cholango and Macas, along with provincial protest leaders, had been threatened with arrest if they did not end the mobilization. They also reported more repression: the march from the Amazon provinces to Quito was detained for more than three hours in the area of Chasqui, though marchers finally broke through police lines to continue their trek; protester Alberto Cabascango lost his left eye in the area of Cajas, between Imbabura and Pichincha provinces; and protesters Rosa Cristina Ulcuango from Cayambe and Olga Alimana from Chimborazo were hospitalized after being injured by police and army troops.

The worst repression continued to be in the community of Suscal, in Canar province, where on March 18 army and police forces attacked a march of some 500 people along the road leading to the coast, beating, dragging and kicking the participants, including many women, children and elderly people. Many people were injured, including two pregnant women who had to be taken to the health center in Suscal for emergency treatment. The military and police patrols then continued their assault on the community by violently invading homes, destroying doors and windows, firing tear gas bombs, threatening people at gunpoint and carrying out mass arrests. (Ecuarunari/CONAIE communique, March 18)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 19

PROTESTS SUSPENDED—FOR NOW

On March 21, thousands of indigenous people from around the country arrived in Quito and blocked main highways with their protests. Police used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators; some protesters threw rocks at police. About 30 people were seriously injured and 100 were arrested. Another 300 people, including a number of minors, suffered asphyxia from police tear gas. (El Barlovento, March 21) CONAIE leader Luis Macas and the alternative news source Altercom reported that police were boarding buses headed for Quito and detaining anyone who looked indigenous or looked like a protester. (Adital, March 21; EB, March 21)

Late on March 21, Ppresident Palacio responded to the protests by decreeing a state of emergency in the provinces of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, Canar and Imbabura and in the districts of Tabacundo and Cayambe in Pichincha province. Under the state of emergency, constitutional rights are suspended. (EB, March 22) Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed on March 22 to clear blocked highways. (AP, March 22)

On Mar. 23, the uprising began to lose some strength in the Andean region, but more than 3,000 indigenous people from around the country marched in Quito, with the support of students and other sectors. Police used tear gas to disperse university and high school students marching through the center of Quito, and clashes between demonstrators and police left dozens of people injured. In the northern city of Otavalo, indigenous people defied the state of emergency and blocked several roads. (La Jornada, Mexico, March 24; Adital, March 23)

CONAIE suggested a dialogue with the government, mediated by the Catholic Church, but the government refused. “The ball is in CONAIE’s court,” said Minister of Government (Interior) Felipe Vega. “They should stop this action now, and five minutes later they will converse with President Alfredo Palacio.” Palacio had said hours earlier that he would dialogue with the indigenous groups if they ended the mobilization.

Later on March 23, CONAIE announced that the mobilization would be temporarily suspended. CONAIE was to meet March 31 in the Andean city of Riobamba to “redefine actions” in the continuing struggle against the TLC, and for the cancellation of the government’s contract with Oxy.

“We’re going to withdraw, but the uprising will resume after the assembly in Riobamba, if by then the government doesn’t commit to at least convene a people’s referendum to decide about the TLC,” said CONAIE vice president Santiago de la Cruz. The government will maintain the state of emergency until the country is “totally pacified,” said Communication Secretary Enrique Proano. (LJ, March 24) Proano said some protests were continuing in Otavalo on the night of March 23. By March 24, indigenous protesters had dismantled most of the road blockades.

The Ecuadoran and US governments began their 14th round of TLC negotiations in Washington on March 23. (AFP , March 24)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 26

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http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #119
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1670

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COLOMBIA: MILITARY TERROR IN CAUCA, ARAUCA, LA GUAJIRA

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

CAUCA: ARMY KILLS CIVILIANS

On Jan. 8, Colombian army troops from the No. 26 Cacique Piguanza Infantry Battalion, headed by Lt. Hoyos, shot to death 17-year-old Hortensia Neyid Tunja Cuchumbe and Manuel Antonio Tao Pillimue and wounded William Jose Cunacue Medina in Inza municipality, in the southern department of Cauca. On the night of Jan. 7 Tunja left her home in the community of San Antonio, accompanied by Cunacue, to attend a party in the nearby community of Belen. At 4 AM Tunja’s mother was informed by neighbors that her daughter was wounded on the road about 100 meters from Belen. When the mother arrived, she found her daughter dead, lying face down on the side of the road with bullet holes in her body. Uniformed and hooded soldiers threatened Tunja’s mother and told her that her daughter was a leftist rebel who had been killed along with a rebel “commander.” The soldiers then forced the mother to leave her daughter’s body at the site and go to Belen; they claimed they were waiting for officials from the attorney general’s office to come to the site to officially record the deaths.

The soldiers then blocked anyone from leaving Belen and attacked and beat a number of people at the party there; several people were injured, including one who was hit in the head with a rifle butt. When family members of Tunja and Tao tried to return to the site where their bodies lay, the soldiers fired their rifles in the air to force them to retreat. Around 6 AM, Tunja’s mother managed to return to the site and found the soldiers still there but her daughter’s body gone. She was told that the corpses had been taken to the town of La Plata in Huila department, where the attorney general’s office would file the report on them. Under Colombian law, only the attorney general’s office is allowed to move cadavers from the location where they are found; the army’s removal of the bodies from the site was in blatant violation of the law.

As Tunja’s mother and other family members headed toward La Plata, they found Tunja’s and Tao’s bodies covered up and dumped on the side of the highway about 30 minutes from Belen in the village of Puerto Valencia. Army troops at the site forced the family members to leave the area after telling them that the bodies would be left there for the attorney general’s office to deal with. The army then took the bodies to the military base in La Plata, where they were handed over to the families around 4 PM on Jan. 8. The family members took the bodies to the local hospital. There soldiers again intimidated the family members.

Tunja was a domestic worker who had been employed in Bogota since April 2005; she had been on vacation visiting her family in San Antonio since Dec. 27. Tao Pillimue was a young campesino who lived in the community of San Isidro in Inza municipality; he had left his home on Jan. 7 to go to the party in Belen. Tunja and Tao were members of the Campesino Association of Inza -Tierradentro (ACIT). William Jose Cunacue Medina suffered several bullet wounds and was taken to the hospital in La Plata, where army troops detained him and accused him of “rebellion.” Community members insist that none of the three youths were members of any armed organization; they say the army falsified evidence, planting weapons on the corpses and claiming the victims were guerrillas. (ACIT Communique, Jan. 11)

LA GUAJIRA: WIWA INDIGENOUS LEADERS MURDERED

On Jan. 3, Colombian army troops from the Rondon de Buenavista Group came to the indigenous Wiwa community of Seminke, in the area of San Juan del Cesar and Riohacha municipalities in the northeastern department of La Guajira. They took away community members Celso Carrillo Perea and Ricardo Arias Solis; the next day shots and explosions were heard at a distance from where the two were seized. The decomposed bodies of the two men were found in Riohacha on Jan. 5. In a joint communique, the Yugumaiun Bunkuanarrua Tayrona Wiwa Organization (OWYBT) of San Juan del Cesar, the Kogui-Malayo-Arhuaco Reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Prensa Indigena correspondent Guillermo Riguera indicated that Carrillo and Arias had no links to armed groups and were just campesinos engaged in agriculture to support their families. Their families were linked to an International Red Cross project in the community.

Last Dec. 9, troops from the Rondon de Buenavista Group arrived in the Wiwa community of Ulago and took resident Laudelino Mejia Montano from his home; the next day shots, explosions and a helicopter were heard nearby, and Mejia was subsequently found murdered.

The Wiwa communities are concerned because a number of residents and community leaders have been accused of being rebels or rebel sympathizers; those who are detained often turn up dead, presented as rebels killed in combat.

On Jan. 9 two individuals on a motorcycle assassinated Fernando Montano Armenta, a resident of the Wiwa indigenous community of La Pena de los Indios. He was murdered in San Juan del Cesar municipality. The community does not know which armed group is responsible for his murder. (Prensa Indigena, Jan. 3; Adital, Feb. 3)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 5

ARAUCA: COMMUNITY LEADER MURDERED

On Feb. 4, community leader Alirio Sepulveda Jaimes was shot to death in Saravena municipality in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca, just a block and a half from an outpost of the National Police. The Departmental Association of Campesinos (ADUC) reports that Sepulveda was murdered by hired killer Edgar Guiza Gamboa, who permanently accompanies the National Army’s “Gabriel Reveis Pizarro de Saravena” Mechanized Cavalry Group No. 18, commanded by Lt. Col. Carlos Vicente Prada Garces. (ADUC, Feb. 10 via Colombia Indymedia) Prada Garces, whose first name was given in some sources as Jose Vicente, is likely the same person listed in the US Army School of the Americas (SOA) graduate list as Carlos Vicente Prado Garces; as a cadet he took SOA’s C-3 Arms Orientation Course for Cadets in January 1984, when the school was still in Panama. (SOA Graduates List)

Sepulveda’s body was picked up by several individuals on motorcycles whom witnesses recognized as members of the National Army’s S2 military intelligence unit, dressed in civilian clothing. After the killing, witnesses say Guiza went to a local shopping center where he drank alcoholic beverages and threatened passersby with the same gun he had used to shoot Sepulveda. According to ADUC, Guiza claims to be the commander of the Saravena paramilitaries.

Sepulveda was detained on Nov. 12, 2002 with 42 other Arauca community leaders, based on allegations by former rebels who were allowed to demobilize if they accused others. Sepulveda was freed for lack of evidence, but he continued to suffer constant threats and harassment; the army claimed he was a member of the National Liberation Army (ELN). (ADUC, Feb. 2 via Colombia Indymedia)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 20

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http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #118
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1536

“Colombia’s army chief sacked in brutal hazing ritual” WW4 REPORT, Feb. 27
/node/1652

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ARGENTINA: ECO-PROTESTERS BLOCK URUGUAY BORDER

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

ENTRE RIOS: PAPER MILL PROTESTS CONTINUE

On Dec. 30, hundreds of protesters blocked traffic along three bridges which span the Uruguay River, linking Argentina’s Entre Rios province with Uruguay, to protest the Uruguayan government’s decision to allow the construction of paper mills along the river. Residents say the mills will pollute the river and cause serious harm to the environment.

The largest protests were led by residents and local officials of Gualeguaychu, Argentina; protesters there blocked the General San Martin bridge leading to the Uruguayan city of Fray Bentos, in Rio Negro department, where the paper mills are being built by the Finnish company Botnia and the Spanish company Ence. Another group of protesters blocked traffic for several hours across the Gen. Jose Artigas bridge linking the Argentine city of Colon with the city of Paysandu in Uruguay’s Paysandu department. Eventually the demonstrators opened one lane of traffic and allowed cars and trucks to pass, but the protest caused serious delays for travelers. The third protest was held on the bridge linking Concordia in Argentina to the city of Salto in Salto department, Uruguay. There residents distributed informational flyers to travelers. The protests were timed to cause maximum impact at a time when Argentine holiday vacationers traditionally flock to Uruguay’s beaches.

Gualeguaychu mayor Daniel Irigoyen supports the protest; a spokesperson for his office, Hernan Rossi, told AFP that if Uruguayan authorities don’t cancel construction of the paper mills, residents will carry out “programmed and surprise blockades” along the bridges throughout the summer vacation period. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Dec. 31 from AFP; AP, Dec. 30; Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 30) Entre Rios governor Jorge Busti also supports the protests. The Argentine national government said on Dec. 29 that it would send 200 gendarmes (federal border police agents) to the region to control traffic during the protests.

On Dec. 29 the Uruguayan government announced that the construction of the paper mills was “irreversible,” while unofficial sources reported that the Argentine government was urging Uruguay to move the paper mills elsewhere, a proposition expected to cost between $10 million and $14 million. On Dec. 27, Argentine deputy foreign minister Ricardo Garcia Moritan said his government is urging Uruguay to halt construction of the paper mills until an impartial environmental impact study is carried out. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 30)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 1

CHACO: VIOLENT SQUATTER EVICTION

On Jan. 5, some 400 agents of the provincial police of Chaco province, Argentina, used violence to carry out an eviction order against 200 families who had taken over public housing units earlier that day in Puerto Vilelas, 21 kilometers south of Resistencia, the provincial capital. The families, including many children, took over the recently built houses after having lost their homes in a storm on Dec. 16, and having unsuccessfully sought help from the government. In scenes recorded by news cameras and viewed around the country, police agents from Infantry and Cavalry units and the Special Operations Command–protected by helmets, shields and bullet-proof vests–fired rubber pellets at residents and used whips, clubs and kicks against those who fell to the ground or who were handcuffed. A number of people were treated for injuries. German Pomar, a photographer for the daily newspaper Norte was hit with 12 rubber pellets in his leg. (Prensa Latina, Jan. 5)

POLICE SENTENCED IN PIQUETERO KILLINGS

On Jan. 9, the Oral Tribunal No. 7 of Lomas de Zamora sentenced former police inspector Alfredo Fanchiotti and former sergeant Alejandro Acosta to life in prison for the killing of piquetero (organized unemployed) activists Dario Santillan and Maximiliano Kosteki during a demonstration on June 26, 2002, in the Buenos Aires suburb of Avellaneda. Fanchiotti and Acosta were also convicted of attempted homicide for wounding seven other demonstrators with live bullets.

Former police inspector Felix Vega and ex-police agents Carlos Quevedo and Mario de la Fuente were each sentenced to four years of prison for aggravated concealment. Former police agents Gaston Sierra and Lorenzo Colman got three and two years, respectively, for aggravated concealment, but will not go to jail. Francisco Celestino Robledo, a retired police agent who carried out arrests during the 2002 protest despite not being in active service, gota suspended sentence of 10 months in prison for usurping authority.

More than 400 uniformed and plainclothes police agents took part in the operation against protesters who tried to march across the Pueyrredon bridge into the city of Buenos Aires. The agents were from three federal units (Gendarmeria, Prefectura and Federal Police) and the Buenos Aires provincial police. Retired agents were also called up to take part in the operation. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Jan. 12; Cronica, Buenos Aires, Jan.. 22)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22

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See also WW4 REPORT #117
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COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARY ATTACKS IN META

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Jan. 5, paramilitaries who identified themselves as members of the “Autodefensas del Llano” (Plains Self-Defense) group murdered four people in the community of Matabambu, in Puerto Lleras municipality, in the southern Colombian department of Meta. The victims were campesinos Arelis Diaz, Alcibiades Pachon, Luis Guillermo Gonzales and Rafael Quinto Orjuela Diaz. The paramilitaries also forcibly disappeared four siblings–Rafael, Amir, Yurley and Esteban Rodriguez–from the La Laguna farm owned by Rafael Rodriguez in Matabambu. The two youngest siblings are minors: Yurley is 17 and Esteban is 13. Among the paramilitaries were two men recognized as active duty soldiers from the army’s Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 42.

The massacre culminated a week of attacks on area residents by military and paramilitary forces. On Dec. 31, troops from the “Motilones” Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 17 of the Mobile Brigade No. 2, headed by Lt. Avila, arbitrarily detained Norberto Lujan in the community of El Vergel, village of Santo Domingo in Vistahermosa municipality, Meta department. On Jan. 3, soldiers arbitrarily detained eight campesinos in the village of Santo Domingo, accusing them of being guerrilla sympathizers. On Jan. 4, paramilitaries who identified themselves as members of “Autodefensas del Llano” forcibly disappeared Ecelino Pineda Pena, a campesino from the community of Santa Lucia. Pineda was on a bus headed from Granada to Puerto Toledo when the paramilitaries abducted him at a roadblock. On Jan. 6, in Villa La Paz, Puerto Lleras municipality, paramilitaries detained and disappeared campesino Gildardo de Jesus Salinas Piedrahita. Pineda, Lujan and Salinas all remained missing as of Jan. 18.

Another area resident, Rosabel Rincon, was forcibly disappeared by the paramilitaries at a roadblock in an area known as Cano Blanco. She also remained missing as of Jan. 18. Rincon was abducted while returning from Vista Hermosa, where she had gone on Jan. 4 to try to get information about her daughter, Marilyn Martinez Rincon, one of the eight people detained on Jan. 3 in Santo Domingo. The eight were all supposedly released on Jan. 5 in Vista Hermosa, although only one of them managed to return home. As of Jan. 18, the whereabouts of the others were still unknown.

A number of residents were apparently wounded during the paramilitary attack in Matabambu. While paramilitaries were still in the area, members of the Human Rights Comission of the Guejear River Region in Puerto Toledo went to see Lt. Garcia, in charge of the Counter-Guerrilla Battalion No. 42 of the army’s Mobile Brigade No. 4, to ask him to provide security for the community; Garcia responded that he had not committed himself to providing security. Soldiers under his command told Commission members that the same thing that happened in Matabambu would soon happen in Puerto Toledo. Lt. Garcia then blocked residents of Puerto Toledo from fleeing the town. (Communiques from Comision Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, Jan. 4, 5 via Red de Defensores No Institucionalizados)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22

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See also WW4 REPORT #117
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See our last update on state terror in Colombia:
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PERU: SENDERO RESURGENT?

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Dec. 20, a group of about 20 guerrillas from the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebel group ambushed a police contingent and killed eight agents in Aucayacu, Leoncio Prado province, in the central Peruvian region of Huanuco. On Dec. 5, alleged Sendero rebels ambushed two police vehicles farther south in the Apurimac river valley, killing five police agents and wounding a police agent and a prosecutor.

President Alejandro Toledo responded to the attacks on Dec. 21 by decreeing a 60-day state of emergency in the jungle provinces of Maranon, Huacaybamba, Leoncio Prado and Huamalies in Huanuco region, Tocache in San Martin region and Padre Abad in Ucayali region. The decree, which took effect on Dec. 23, allows the armed forces to take control of the provinces and suspends certain constitutional rights, including freedom from unwarranted searches and the rights to free assembly and travel. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 27; Miami Herald, Dec. 23; El Nuevo Herald, Dec. 24, 25; AP, Dec. 23)

Toledo accuses Sendero of links to drug traffickers; in November the government inaugurated a police anti-drug base, funded with aid from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in Palmapampa, in the Apurimac valley. (ENH, Dec. 31)

In a communique published in the Huancayo daily Correo on Dec. 23, Sendero Luminoso took credit for the two recent attacks and announced its rejection of the upcoming April 9 presidential elections, which it called “the electoral circus.” The communique, signed by “Comrade Netzel” of the “Center-Mantaro Base of Sendero Luminoso,” calls for a “people’s war” against the country’s “alleged democracy,” and urged Peruvians to boycott the elections by abstaining. The communique included criticism of various politicians, including brothers Antauro and Ollanta Humala Tasso, whom Sendero called “pseudo-revolutionaries and fascists.” (Resumen Latinoamericano, Dec. 27; ENH, Dec. 24; La Cronica de Hoy, Mexico, Dec. 24; Terra Peru, Dec. 23)

The Humala brothers led an insurrection in 2000 against the government of then-president Alberto Fujimori, who has been detained in Chile since last Nov. 6 and is facing extradition to Peru. On Dec. 30 Ollanta Humala, a former lieutenant colonel, registered his presidential candidacy for the Nationalist Party Uniting Peru. (ENH, Dec. 31) Humala’s nationalist and pro-indigenous rhetoric appears to have propelled him into first place in the electoral race. On Dec. 26, a survey by the polling firm Idice showed Humala leading with 21.7% of voter intentions against 21.2% for traditional right-wing candidate Lourdes Flores Nano of the National Unity party. The poll showed ex-presidents Alan Garcia and Valentin Paniagua in third and fourth place with 19.8% and 16.7% respectively. Idice warned that Flores would likely lose a runoff against Humala. A poll released Dec. 28 by the international firm Datum showed Flores Nano ahead with 25% to Humala’s 23%, but even Datum acknowledged that support for Flores has stagnated while support for Humala “is growing daily.” (ENH, Dec. 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 1

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