ECUADOR: TEN THOUSAND PROTEST TRADE PACT

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 10,000 indigenous people from throughout Ecuador gathered in the capital, Quito, Nov. 16-18 to demand that President Alfredo Palacio not sign a free trade treaty (TLC) with the US. The protesters are also demanding that the Palacio government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental (Oxy), and that a national constitutional assembly be convened to rewrite the country’s Constitution. In addition, the indigenous movement is demanding that the government end its cooperation with “Plan Colombia,” the US-backed military program which is intensifying the war in Colombia and spreading it across the border into Ecuador.

The actions in Quito, organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), started off on Nov. 16 with a march by more than 3,000 indigenous people and supporters from El Arbolito park to the National Congress. Police attacked the crowd and injured a number of people, including two children who were badly affected by tear gas.

CONAIE plans to step up the nationwide mobilization against the pending TLC. “We demand that the national government call a popular referendum in which we ask the Ecuadoran people whether or not they want to install a national constitutional assembly,” said CONAIE. (Adital, Brazil, Nov. 17; Resumen Latinoamericano, Nov. 18 from CONAIE)

On Nov. 17, some 10,000 indigenous people and Quito residents marched again in the capital, filling the Plaza de San Francisco in the historic center. The indigenous communities declared themselves in a “permanent people’s assembly” with ongoing meetings in the Agora of the Casa de la Cultura in Quito to decide next steps in the mobilization. The protesters gathered in Quito are from the provinces of Chimborazo, Imbabura, Esmeraldas, Guayas, Pichincha (Cayambe), Cotopaxi, Tungurahua and Bolivar.

Late on Nov. 17 Palacio agreed to meet with CONAIE leaders; the meeting lasted into the early hours of Nov. 18 as CONAIE emphasized its three main demands: no TLC, Oxy out, and a constitutional assembly. On Nov. 18, nearly 10,000 indigenous people and supporters marched again in Quito, some heading to the National Congress, others to the Plaza de la Independencia, in front of the Carondelet government palace. Some indigenous people then began to return to their communities, while others remained in Quito to await a response from Palacio. (Prensa Latina, Nov. 18; Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales, Nov. 18; Resumen Latinoamericano, Nov. 18 from CONAIE president Luis Macas)

On Nov. 18, CONAIE representatives joined colleagues from Accion Ecologica and the Ecuadoran Foundation for Action, Research and Social Participation (FEDAEPS) in presenting a legal challenge against the TLC in the Supreme Court. The claim says Palacio has no right to sign the TLC without first consulting the Ecuadoran people. (Minga Informativa de Movimientos Sociales, Nov. 18)

Indigenous activists are also blockading highways in the southern Ecuadoran provinces of Canar and Azuay, and the roads linking Pichincha and Esmeraldas, as part of the mobilization against the TLC. In Los Rios province, residents of the community of Patricia Pilar have begun a blockade to protest the construction of the Baba dam. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Nov. 18 from CONAIE president Luis Macas)

Cesar Cabrera, leader of the Only National Confederation of Affiliates of the Campesino Social Security System (CONFEUNASSC), announced in a press release on Nov. 18 that Minister of Government and Police Galo Chiriboga had resigned to protest the repression unleashed on the residents of Patricia Pilar and other communities in Los Rios province who were carrying out a civic strike that day against the dam construction. According to Cabrera, as the strike leaders were negotiating with Deputy Secretary of Government Ricardo Rivera over a truce, in order to begin a dialogue about alternatives, government security forces launched an attack on the communities. Police agents backed by helicopters carried out violent raids on area homes, dropped tear gas on residential areas and destroyed a local church. Police forced protesters onto the ground in the streets, then stepped on them and shouted threats at them. A number of people were injured. (Resumen Latinoamericano, Nov. 18 from ALTERCOM)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 20

RALLY AGAINST OIL COMPANY

In Ecuador on Oct. 12, the Popular Front joined with delegates from Ecuador’s indigenous organizations, the radical environmental group Ecological Action, the Federation of Ecuadoran University Students (FEUE), representatives from the Committee to Defend Oil and others in marching from Quito’s El Arbolito park to a rally at the offices of the US oil company Occidental (OXY), which has been accused of violating the terms of its contracts in Ecuador. The marchers were demanding that OXY’s contracts be cancelled, and that other companies’ oil contracts be reviewed; they were also rejecting the neoliberal economic policies of transition president Alfredo Palacio and the government’s continued negotiations for a free trade treaty with the US, Peru and Colombia. (Campana Continental Contra el ALCA, Oct. 12)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 16

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #114
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1028

See also our last news brief on Ecuador:
/node/11125

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Dec. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

VENEZUELA: OIL FOR U.S. POOR; “HOLOCAUST” IN PRISONS?

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

OIL DEAL FOR U.S. POOR

The Houston-based oil company CITGO, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company 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 its own poor. 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, Nov. 20)

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, Nov. 26)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, 27

LITERACY AND CHAVEZ RATINGS UP

On Oct. 28 Venezuelan education minister Aristobulo Izturiz declared the country an “illiteracy-free territory” as the official literacy rate reached 99%. According to Izturiz, a total of 1,482,533 residents of rural and working-class areas learned to read and write through a massive government program that started on July 1, 2003, using the Cuban “Yes I Can” method. The major failure was among some indigenous Yanomami and Yekuana communities in the south of the country, Izturiz said. Maria Elisa Jauregui, the head of literacy programs in Latin America for UNESCO, the United Nations agency for education, told reporters that Venezuela is “the first and the only country that has met the goals that were set when we met in Havana in 2002” as part of the UN’s Millennium Agenda for social programs.

Venezuela is planning to send literacy teachers to Bolivia and the Dominican Republic in the near future in a program that also includes Cuban teachers. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Oct. 29 from AFP)

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez now has an approval rating of 77%, according to a poll the Instituto Venezolano de Analisis de Datos company carried out on Oct. 7-18. The poll was based on a sampling of 1,200 people, with a 2% margin of error. (ED-LP, Oct. 24 from EFE)

“HOLOCAUST” IN THE PRISONS

In the first nine months of 2005, 314 prisoners died violently in Venezuelan prisons and 518 were wounded, Humberto Prado, the director of the non-governmental organization Venezuelan Prison Observation (OVP), charged in a press conference in early October. He said that 99 prisoners had died in the third quarter, July through September, and 235 were wounded. During the period there was a 25% increase in violent incidents compared to the previous year, according to the group, which said a total of 327 prisoners died violently in 2004, with 655 wounded.

Describing the situation as a “holocaust,” Prado called for the regional governments to take over administration of the prisons from the central government. He also called the Interior and Justice Ministry to maintain boards in the prisons to monitor the implementation of sentencing and to grant prisoners benefits they are entitled to. Observers attribute the violent incidents to disputes between rival gangs; these disputes are aggravated by poor prison conditions and the large number of prisoners waiting months or years for their trials. (Adital, Oct. 5)

On Nov. 1 Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacon said it was “impossible” for the government to enter into a dialogue with Prado, who he said had worked in the penitentiary system from 1989-1997. Prado directed the Yare I prison in 1996-97, a period in which 527 Yare I inmates were wounded, according to Chacon. (El Universal, Caracas, Nov. 2)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 7

CARACAS: METRO WORKERS STRIKE

A group of 25 workers began a hunger strike on Nov. 1 over a project to extend Line 3 of the Metro system in Caracas. The hunger strike was continuing as of Nov. 18. A total of 145 workers on the project are striking to demand union recognition and the payment of wages, social security and production bonuses owed to them by their employer, Geobrain—a subsidiary of the multinational engineering company Odebrecht. About 130 of the 145 strikers joined an independent union, the National Autonomous Workers Construction Union (SOANCA); they say the Venezuelan Construction Union (SOVINCA), which has a contract with Geobrain, has not represented them properly. (World of Labor, Nov. 18)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 20

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #115
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1242

See also our last news brief on Venezuela:
/node/1330

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Dec.. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

COLOMBIA: INDIGENOUS, PEACE COMMUNITIES UNDER ATTACK

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

CAUCA: ONE KILLED IN EVICTION

On the morning of Nov. 9 some 500 Colombian police agents attempted the forcible removal of 400 members of Paez (Nasa) indigenous communities from the El Japio farm, in Caloto municipality in the southwestern department of Cauca, which they had been occupying since Oct. 12. A 16-year old indigenous youth—Belisario Camallo Guetoto, according to the Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), and Belisario Tamayo, according to most media reports—was killed by a shot to the head. At least 36 indigenous people and 10 police agents were reportedly wounded during fighting which continued through Nov. 10. At least one anti-riot vehicle was set on fire.

On Nov. 11 the police and the occupiers agreed to a 24-hour truce, allowing for negotiations and for the burial of Belisario Tamayo in the nearby town of Caldono. Feliciano Valencia, a leader in the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), described the situation as a “tense calm.”

Indigenous protesters occupied farms and estates throughout Cauca on Oct. 11 and 12 to force the government to act on their demands for land; the occupations coincided with massive national mobilizations by workers, campesinos and indigenous communities to mark Oct. 12, the traditional anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the hemisphere. The occupiers resisted various efforts to remove them; six indigenous people and two police agents were wounded in a confrontation at El Japio on Oct. 19. Some 15 farms were still being held as of Nov. 8, when the government began new operations to remove the indigenous people with 500 police agents armed with guns and tear gas and backed by at least 10 anti-riot vehicles. [Paez people also occupied another farm in Caloto, the La Emperatriz estate, on Sept. 2; as of Sept. 10 some 35 occupiers were wounded during efforts by the police to remove them.]

Cauca indigenous communities are demanding that the government grant them 38,000 hectares of cultivable land in compliance with accords signed by the administration of former president Andres Pastrana (1998-2002). Aparicio Rios, of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), puts the total land demanded by indigenous communities at 146,000 hectares. Interior and Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt claims that the government has been negotiating with the indigenous communities for 35 months, but says it will not negotiate with people occupying farms. Albeiro Calambas, a leader in the Piayo indigenous council, said that the occupiers hadn’t intended to hold the 900-hectare El Japio permanently, “but now, because of the spilling of a companero’s blood, Japio belongs to us.” (AP, Nov. 11; Prensa Latina, Nov. 10; Comunicaciones ONIC, Nov. 10; CRIC, Nov. 9; El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Nov. 11)

The use of militant nonviolent tactics by Cauca indigenous communities, which refuse to take sides in the armed conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has won praise from many quarters. But it has also brought violent attacks from the government, from rightwing paramilitaries and from the FARC. During October ACIN communications coordinator Manuel Rozental learned that two unknown men had been asking questions about him. The ACIN decided that Rozental should leave the country for his own safety. It issued a statement on Oct. 27 to answer rumors circulating about him among pro-government forces and the FARC: “Manuel is no terrorist. He is no paramilitary. He is no agent of the CIA. He is part of our community, who must not be silenced by bullets.” Rozental is now living in Canada. (The Nation, Nov. 4)

BOGOTA: AFRO-COLOMBIANS OCCUPY CHURCH

On Nov. 4 (according to most sources), hundreds of Afro-Colombians from the western coastal region peacefully took over the San Francisco Church in downtown Bogota to press for government action on several demands. The demands “aren’t new,” said Emigdio Cuesta, a spokesperson for the communities. “We’ve spent hundreds of years defending our customs, our roots, and still we have to resort to strikes and occupations for the government to hear us.” According to the weekly magazine Semana, this was the 22nd takeover of the colonial-era church, although it wasn’t clear which groups occupied it in the past; the magazine reported that 1,000 protesters were involved in the action, which it said started on Nov. 3.

The protesters demanded postponement of a final vote on a Forest Law, which they say would give logging multinationals access to 23,000 hectares of natural forest belonging to Afro-Colombian communities, mostly in the Atrato region in Choco department and the Uraba region in Antioquia department. They also rejected Resolution 1516 of the Colombian Rural Development Institute (INCODER), which was issued in August to promote business associations between the communities and private companies. The protesters said the resolution violated Law 70 of 1993, which prevents privatization of the communities’ collective property. This would open the way for agribusinesses that had moved into some Afro-Colombian communities after rightwing paramilitaries forced the residents out in the 1990s and that have been converting the land to the commercial cultivation of African palms. In addition, the protesters demanded control over the certification of teachers in their communities and the rephrasing of a question on ethnicity in the 2005 General Census.

Former senator Piedad Cordoba assisted the protesters in negotiations with the government. As of Nov. 10 the protesters were expected to end their occupation as talks continued. “We achieved the postponement of the debate on the Forest Law to incorporate our proposals,” said one of the leaders, Jorge Garcia. “Also, they rescinded INCODER’s Resolution 1516, which allowed the entry of private [investors] in collective territories.” (El Colombiano, Medellin, Nov. 8; Semana, Nov. 13; El Tiempo, Bogota, Nov. 10; Piedad Cordoba statement, Nov. 9)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 13

URABA: PEACE COMMUNITY LEADER KILLED

On Nov. 17, troops from the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade fired their rifles and hurled a grenade at a group of campesinos weeding cornfields near Arenas Altas, which is part of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, in the Uraba region of Antioquia department. The grenade fatally wounded Arlen Salas David, a community leader who was coordinating efforts to establish Arenas Altas as a humanitarian zone, safe from the presence of armed groups. The other campesinos tried to help Salas but were forced to take shelter as the army continued firing at them. When they reached him he was dead.

Peace Community members from San Josesito, the village established last April by peace community residents displaced from San Jose de Apartado, went to the site with international accompaniment to confront the soldiers about what happened. The soldiers claimed they had been firing at guerrillas, that the whole community is made up of guerrillas and that the army is going to eliminate them. Most of the soldiers had two rifles: their regulation rifle and another type which has been seen carried by paramilitaries.

A group of soldiers then began firing at the village of Arenas Altas, forcing families to flee. Several homes were hit by gunfire, and community member Hernan Goez was wounded. The army fired at a school while a teacher was inside with several children. The army claimed gunfire was coming from the school, but the teacher told the soldiers he knew they were lying, since he and the students were lying on the floor while the army fired at them. (Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado, Nov. 18)

On Nov. 12, five days before the army’s attack on Arenas Altas, four individuals who identified themselves as government officials from the attorney general’s office entered San Josesito without authorization. They remained in the community for about 40 minutes, asking about the leaders and videotaping residents and homes. When community members challenged them about their illegal presence in the community, they did not respond. They said they were seeking witnesses; the community members refused to speak with them. The four officials finally left the community, saying they would return on Nov. 16. They left the area accompanied by police agents and other individuals in civilian clothing who had been waiting for them at the entrance to the village. (Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado, Nov. 14)

The 17th Brigade has been linked to numerous atrocities in Uraba. Its commander is Gen. Luis Alfonso Zapata Uribe, who took over the unit last February. In February 1976, when he was a second lieutenant, Zapata took a “small unit infantry tactics C-7” course at the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), then in Panama (the school moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, in late 1984). (SOA Graduates List)

The Colombia Support Network, based in Madison, Wisconsin, is urging human rights advocates to contact their congressional representatives and senators to urge a cutoff of military aid to Colombia and the immediate closure of the SOA, now called Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC); and to contact Colombian officials and the US ambassador in Bogota to demand an investigation and punishment for those responsible for the attack on Arenas Altas.

Contact: US Ambassador William Wood, AmbassadorB@state.gov;
President Alvaro Uribe Velez, auribe@presidencia.gov.co;
Vice President Francisco Santos, fsantos@presidencia.gov.co;
Attorney General Mario Iguaran Arana, contacto@fiscalia.gov.co
Gen. Zapata, comandobr17@hotmail.com.
(CSN Urgent Action, Nov. 19)

U.S. NABS DRUG SUSPECT

According to a news release from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), on Oct. 29 the Colombian National Police Jungla unit, “working with special agents from the ICE Attache Office in Bogota and the [US] Drug Enforcement Administration,” captured suspected drug trafficker Jhon Eidelber Cano Correa in the northwestern Colombian department of Antioquia. Cano Correa was apparently captured following a brief firefight that left one Colombian official wounded. Cano Correa is charged in a July 2004 indictment in the Eastern District of New York with drug and money laundering violations in connection with the Norte de Valle Cartel. In 2004, the US State Department offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest. (ICE, Oct. 31)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 20

PARAMILITARY SCANDAL SHAKES GOVERNMENT

On Oct. 25, Jorge Noguera, the director of the Administrative Department of Security, Colombia’s 7,100-member intelligence agency, gave President Alvaro Uribe his resignation; the agency’s sub-director, Jose Miguel Narvaez, was fired on the same day. The shake-up came as the agency’s internal affairs unit and the Attorney General’s Office were investigating whether the Special Intelligence Group, controlled by Enrique Ariza, a close ally of Noguera’s, had been planning to sell phone-tapping equipment to Javier Montanes, a rightwing paramilitary commander who could use the system to monitor police and military activity. Noguera and Narvaez denied the accusations.

On Oct. 22 ostensibly demobilized paramilitaries dragged Hernando Cadavid from his flower farm, which is next to Uribe’s ranch in northern Colombia, and hacked him to death with machetes. “Investigators are trying to determine if the order came from Diego Fernando Murillo, a paramilitary boss recently jailed on Mr. Uribe’s orders,” the New York Times reports. (NYT, Oct. 28)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Nov. 7

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #115
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1241

See also our last update on state terror in Colombia:
/node/1302

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Dec. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

BOLIVIA: MORE PROTESTS OVER GAS TAX

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Sept. 29, at least 5,000 Bolivian teachers staged a national strike and marched in La Paz to protest what they call a “virtual privatization” of education in Bolivia: the handing over of public school administration–with all its costs–to the country’s municipalities. The education system change was part of an accord negotiated with Bolivian municipalities on the use of proceeds from a new 32% gas tax, the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons (IDH), which is expected to bring $417 million into government coffers in 2005. Under a hydrocarbons law passed last May by Congress, the municipal governments of Bolivia’s 10 main cities will each receive about $26 million from the IDH. Following tense negotiations in early September, an agreement was reached to assign the funds, but only on the condition that the municipalities take over the cost and administration of public education in their areas. (Diario El Popular, Canada, Sept. 30)

In an agreement signed in La Paz on Sept. 28 between the Bolivian government and three indigenous organizations–the Indigenous Confederation of the Bolivian East (CIDOB), National Council of Qullasuyo Communities (Conamaq) and Assembly of the Guarani People (APG)–$23 million a year from the IDH will go into an Indigenous Development Fund, to be administered jointly by the government and indigenous representatives. (El Deber, Santa Cruz, Sept. 29) The agreement ended several weeks of road blockades and other protests by indigenous communities throughout Bolivia. More than 400 police and military troops attacked a group of Guarani men, women, children and elders on Sept. 18, the 10th day of their roadblock on the Santa Cruz-Camiri highway in Tatarenda Viejo, Santa Cruz department. (Communique, Sept. 18)

On Sept. 29, police used large quantities of tear gas to disperse demonstrators from outside the US embassy in La Paz. The protesters were demanding that the US government extradite Bolivian ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to face genocide charges in Bolivia for the October 2003 massacre of 67 protesters in La Paz and neighboring El Alto. The Sept. 29 demonstration was organized by the Bolivian Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDHB) to kick off a series of events commemorating the massacre and the October 2003 protests which forced Sanchez de Lozada from office. (AFP, Sept. 29; Europa Press via Yahoo! Argentina Noticias, Sept. 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 3

EX-REBEL RE-ARRESTED

On Oct. 17, Bolivian police arrested Aida Elizabeth Ochoa Mamani, a Peruvian member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) who was previously jailed in Bolivia for the November 1995 kidnapping of businessperson and current Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina. La Paz district prosecutor Jorge Gutierrez said Ochoa was arrested in a vehicle with explosives; the Peruvian press claimed she was trying to take the explosives to Peru to reactivate the MRTA. Ochoa denied the charges and called her arrest a “setup.” Ochoa was paroled in January 2001 from the Miraflores prison in La Paz; she served more than four years of an eight-year sentence for criminal association, “ideological falseness” and “use of a falsified instrument” in connection with the 1995 kidnapping. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Oct. 20 from AFP, EFE; AFP, Oct. 19)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #113
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1029

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

BOLIVIA: MORE PROTESTS OVER GAS TAX

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Sept. 29, at least 5,000 Bolivian teachers staged a national strike and marched in La Paz to protest what they call a “virtual privatization” of education in Bolivia: the handing over of public school administration–with all its costs–to the country’s municipalities. The education system change was part of an accord negotiated with Bolivian municipalities on the use of proceeds from a new 32% gas tax, the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons (IDH), which is expected to bring $417 million into government coffers in 2005. Under a hydrocarbons law passed last May by Congress, the municipal governments of Bolivia’s 10 main cities will each receive about $26 million from the IDH. Following tense negotiations in early September, an agreement was reached to assign the funds, but only on the condition that the municipalities take over the cost and administration of public education in their areas. (Diario El Popular, Canada, Sept. 30)

In an agreement signed in La Paz on Sept. 28 between the Bolivian government and three indigenous organizations–the Indigenous Confederation of the Bolivian East (CIDOB), National Council of Qullasuyo Communities (Conamaq) and Assembly of the Guarani People (APG)–$23 million a year from the IDH will go into an Indigenous Development Fund, to be administered jointly by the government and indigenous representatives. (El Deber, Santa Cruz, Sept. 29) The agreement ended several weeks of road blockades and other protests by indigenous communities throughout Bolivia. More than 400 police and military troops attacked a group of Guarani men, women, children and elders on Sept. 18, the 10th day of their roadblock on the Santa Cruz-Camiri highway in Tatarenda Viejo, Santa Cruz department. (Communique, Sept. 18)

On Sept. 29, police used large quantities of tear gas to disperse demonstrators from outside the US embassy in La Paz. The protesters were demanding that the US government extradite Bolivian ex-president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to face genocide charges in Bolivia for the October 2003 massacre of 67 protesters in La Paz and neighboring El Alto. The Sept. 29 demonstration was organized by the Bolivian Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (APDHB) to kick off a series of events commemorating the massacre and the October 2003 protests which forced Sanchez de Lozada from office. (AFP, Sept. 29; Europa Press via Yahoo! Argentina Noticias, Sept. 29)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 3

EX-REBEL REARRESTED

On Oct. 17, Bolivian police arrested Aida Elizabeth Ochoa Mamani, a Peruvian member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) who was previously jailed in Bolivia for the November 1995 kidnapping of businessperson and current Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina. La Paz district prosecutor Jorge Gutierrez said Ochoa was arrested in a vehicle with explosives; the Peruvian press claimed she was trying to take the explosives to Peru to reactivate the MRTA. Ochoa denied the charges and called her arrest a “setup.” Ochoa was paroled in January 2001 from the Miraflores prison in La Paz; she served more than four years of an eight-year sentence for criminal association, “ideological falseness” and “use of a falsified instrument” in connection with the 1995 kidnapping. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Oct. 20 from AFP, EFE; AFP, Oct. 19)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #113
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1029

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

VENEZUELA: PARAMILITARIES ATTACK INDIGENOUS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

ZULIA: INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY ATTACKED

On Sept. 15, a group of 15 heavily armed men in olive green military uniforms arrived in two pickup trucks at the Yukpa and Wayuu indigenous campesino community of Guaicaipuro in the El Tokuko sector of Machiques de Perija municipality in Venezuela’s Zulia state. The men entered the residents’ homes and beat a number of residents before setting everything on fire. Residents say they saw Noe Machado, former owner of the Ceilan estate on which the Guaicaipuro community settled, arrive in another pickup truck with the gasoline used to set the fires. Several community members were injured, and the attackers burned down 38 houses, leaving 376 people without homes. Furniture, livestock and other belongings were also burned and destroyed.

A week earlier, Sept. 8, some 30 armed indivivduals–mostly Wayuu indigenous people who were not from the area–had beaten and threatened the residents of Guaicaipuro. The attackers arrived in a truck and several motorcycles and told residents, in the Wuyuunaiki language, that they were there on Machado’s orders, and that they would pay the community’s residents to leave, but if the residents didn’t accept the offer, the next time they would come to kill them.

A commission from the national attorney general’s office visited the community on Sept. 17 to investigate the incident, take photographs and record witness testimony. The commission members asked residents about professor Lusbi Portillo–who was not at the scene during the attacks and whose name had not been mentioned by any of the community members–and asked them why they had occupied the Ceilan estate. Yukpa chief Ezequiel Anane responded, “No one told us to occupy, we are here because these were the lands of our grandparents.”

Following the commission’s visit, army and national guard troops were dispatched to protect the community. However, on Sept. 20 the troops were suddenly withdrawn, and rumors began circulating that the landowners were plotting a definitive attack. (Agencia Nacional del Pueblo-ANPA, Oct. 20 via Colombia Indymedia)

Portillo, an activist with Homo et Natura, told the Maracaibo weekly Sol de Occidente that violence against indigenous communities has increased in Zulia since the government announced it will not compensate landowners for lands occupied by indigenous groups with ancestral claims to those territories. Portillo said a Chaktapa indigenous community had been evicted from the Tizina estate, and a similar incident occurred on the Puerto Libre estate. Zulia state governor Manuel Rosales–one of only two state governors opposed to left-populist President Hugo Chavez Frias–has promised to create a commission to deal with land reform, but the commission has yet to be created. Five years ago indigenous people from the Wayuu, Bari, Japreria and Yupka ethnic groups began occupying lands in their ancestral territory in the Sierra de Perija mountains near the Venezuelan border. (Prensa Latina, Oct. 23)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

INDIGENOUS GET LAND; MISSIONARIES EXPELLED

In Venezuela, the government of President Hugo Chavez marked Oct. 12–which it has officially declared a “Day of Indigenous Resistance”–by handing out 15 collective property titles to indigenous communities in the states of Apure, Delta Amacuro, Sucre and Anzoategui. The ceremony took place in the community of Barranco Yopal, in Apure. (Resumen Latinoamericano “Diarios de Urgencia,” Oct. 13 from Prensa Presidencial)

The same day, Chavez announced his government was expelling the Florida-based New Tribes Mission from Venezuela’s indigenous territories. The New Tribes Mission, founded in 1942, specializes in evangelism among indigenous groups and has 3,200 workers worldwide in 17 nations. Its 160 members in Venezuela include Canadian, British and US citizens, as well as about 30 Venezuelans. “This is real imperialist penetration,” Chavez said of the group. “They are taking sensitive and strategic information.” (New York Times, Oct. 13 from Reuters; AP, Oct. 15)

The New Tribes Mission has often been accused of links to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The organization closed down its operations in neighboring Colombia after two of its US missionaries were kidnapped in January 1994 by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); their bodies were found in June 1995.

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 16

CARACAS: CAMPESINOS MARCH

On Oct. 8, thousands of Venezuelan campesinos marched in the capital, Caracas, against the latifundio–the system of large landed estates held by a few wealthy families–and in support of the government’s agrarian reform efforts. The march was organized and supported by the left-populist government of President Hugo Chavez Frias and various campesino organizations, including the Venezuelan Campesino Federation and the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ). Also participating was the Homeless Committee, which pledged to bring the promise of rural agrarian reform to the cities, “the concrete latifundio.”

The march was timed to coincide with the commemoration of the execution of Argentine-Cuban leftist guerrilla hero Ernesto “Che” Guevara, killed in Bolivia in 1967. Associated Press said 4,000 people took part in the march, though the actual crowd count was likely much higher; the organizers had predicted more than 40,000 would attend. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Oct. 8; Adital, Oct. 5; AP, Oct. 9)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 9

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #114
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1146

See also our special report on the militarization of Venezuela’s indigenous lands
/colombiavenezuelabigoil

See also our last blog post on Venezuela:
/node/1200

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

COLOMBIA: INDIGENOUS MOBILIZE—DESPITE STATE TERROR

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

INDIGENOUS HOLD NATIONWIDE “MINGA,” TWO DIE

On Oct. 10, tens of thousands of Colombian indigenous people began marching to various regional capitals in a coordinated Minga (community mobilization) to demand indigenous rights, protest the government’s economic and social policies–especially a planned “free trade treaty” (TLC) with the US, Peru and Ecuador–and protest President Alvaro Uribe Velez’s attempts to lift a ban on presidential reelection. The Minga–initiated by the Embera people but with the active participation and support of indigenous groups throughout Colombia–was organized to culminate on Oct. 12 in coordination with a national general strike called by labor unions, campesinos, students, leftist activists and others. Oct. 12 was chosen because it marks the arrival in the Americas of a group of European “explorers” headed by Christopher Columbus; for indigenous people, the day commemorates their centuries of resistance against the European invasion.

The government responded to the Minga on Oct. 9 by banning the peaceful marches, justifying the move by claiming that the indigenous mobilization was infiltrated by leftist rebels. On Oct. 10, police used tear gas and clubs against a group of indigenous marchers who were on their way from Santa Rosa de Cabal to Manizales, capital of Caldas department. Despite the attack, some 10,000 marchers reached Manizales on Oct. 11.

Also on Oct. 10, agents of the notoriously brutal Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the National Police attacked some 6,000 Embera Chami marchers in Remolino, in the central department of Risaralda. The marchers were on their way from Belen de Umbria to Pereira, the departmental capital. Marcos Soto, a member of the Chami community of Caramba, died, and at least 10 other marchers were wounded. (Adital, Brazil, Oct. 11, 13; Organizacion Indigena de Antioquia-OAI, Oct. 10; La Patria, Oct. 13 via Colombia Indymedia)

On Oct. 11, hired killers shot to death Guambiano leader Francisco Cuchillo, governor of the Canon Rio Guavas indigenous reserve in Ginebra municipality, Valle del Cauca department, as he was preparing to lead his community’s participation in the Minga. (La Jornada, Mexico, Oct. 13 from AFP, DPA; Fundacion Hemera, Actualidad Etnica, Oct. 15 via Colombia Indymedia; Consejo Regional Indigena de Risaralda-CRIR/Consejo Regional Indigena de Caldas-CRIDEC, Oct. 12 via Colombia Indymedia)

In addition to the indigenous Mingas in Pereira and Manizales in the central coffee-growing zone, more than 7,000 Zenu indigenous people from the San Andres de Sotavento reserve and other areas of the northeastern departments of Sucre and Cordoba gathered in Sampues for a 10-kilometer march into Sincelejo, capital of Sucre. (La Jornada, Mexico, Oct. 13 from AFP, DPA; Cabildos Mayores Zenu de Sucre y Cordoba, Oct. 12 via Colombia Indymedia; El Universal, Cartagena, Oct. 13)

CAUCA: NATIVES SEIZE ESTATES

As part of the nationwide mobilizations, indigenous people in the southern department of Cauca began a coordinated series of land occupations. On Oct. 11 some 2,500 Guambiano indigenous people began occupying the Ambalo estate owned by the Estela family in Silvia municipality in an effort to recover their ancestral lands. On Oct. 14 police attacked the community, injuring at least three people: one was hit in the eyes with tear gas and might lose his sight; one suffered a fractured knee, and one woman’s ribs were fractured. (Colombia’s Caracol news agency reported that the community members fought back with sticks, rocks and agricultural tools, and that four community members and a police agent were hurt in the clash.) The Estela family raises fighting bulls on the estate; Guambiano communities are also occupying two other estates, La Gloria and Puerta de Hierro, owned by the same family. (Fundacion Hemera, Oct. 15; Caracol Noticias, Oct. 15; RCN, Oct. 15; El Pais, Cali, posted Oct. 14 on Colombia Indymedia)

On Oct. 12, members of the Kizgo community began occupying Los Remedios estate, also in Silvia municipality. The estate is owned by the Colombian government, which confiscated it from drug trafficker Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and co-owner Ana Dolores Avila de Mondragon. The Kizgo community has been trying for more than 15 years to negotiate with the national government for the return of their lands; in 1996 the government promised to buy 400 hectares of land for the community. (Fundacion Hemera, Oct. 15; Autoridades Indigenas de Kizgo, Oct. 14 via Colombia Indymedia)

On Oct. 12, residents of the Paez (Nasa) indigenous communities of Pueblo Nuevo, Caldono, La Aguada, Las Mercedes, Pioya and La Laguna Siberia began an occupation of the El Japio farm in Caloto municipality to press the government to grant them land. Government forces tried to evict them on Oct. 12, but the Indigenous Authorities of Caldono report that the occupation was continuing as of Oct. 13. (Autoridades Indigenas de Caldono-Cauca, Oct. 13 via Colombia Indymedia; EP, Oct. 14)

Elsewhere in Cauca on Oct. 12, indigenous people and campesinos began occupations on the Miraflores estate in Corinto, two estates in the village of Gabriel Lopez in Totoro municipality and lands on a site known as Las Guacas, east of the departmental capital, Popayan. Cauca police commander Col. Luis de Jesus Cely Rincon said army troops from the Codazzi Engineers Battalion of Palmira evicted 200 indigenous people from lands in the community of Media Naranja. Two indigenous people were wounded–at least one of them by a bullet–and had to be hospitalized in Santander de Quilichao; two soldiers were reportedly bruised. (EP, Oct. 14)

WORKERS, CAMPESINOS STRIKE

At least 500,000 Colombians took part in protest marches around the country on Oct. 12 as part of a 24-hour national civic strike protesting the government’s economic and social policies, the planned trade pact and President Uribe’s reelection plans. Some 100,000 people shut down the capital, Bogota, and marches took place in all 32 of the country’s departmental capitals. (LJ, Oct. 13 from AFP, DPA; Vanguardia Liberal, Bucaramanga, Oct. 13; El Informador, Santa Marta, Oct. 13 via Colombia Indymedia; El Heraldo, Barranquilla, Oct. 13)

“Uribe, paramilitary, the people are pissed off,” chanted marchers in Bogota. While opinion surveys have shown the right-wing president maintaining a 70% approval rating since he took office in August 2002, the massive turnout for the protests showed that “support for Uribe is in the media, not in the people,” according to Adolfo Paez, a representative of energy sector workers. “The polls don’t show real life.” (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Oct. 13 from AFP)

Some 20,000 campesinos, indigenous people, students and workers marched in Neiva, capital of the southern department of Huila; it was the largest march the city had seen in more than 20 years. (Report from Ricardo Ramirez M. posted on Colombia Indymedia, Oct. 13) On Oct. 11 in Guacimo, on the road from Santa Maria to Neiva, the Colombian army tried to stop a caravan of some 1,500 campesinos from reaching Neiva for the protest; they detained three community activists, one of them a minor. In Tolima department, just north of Huila, the army detained 30 campesinos who were organizing for the Oct. 12 strike. (Federacion Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria-FENSUAGRO, Oct. 12 via Colombia Indymedia)

Smaller towns and cities saw protests as well. In the southwestern department of Narino, some 3,000 campesinos from rural areas of Barbacoas, Roberto Payan and Magui Payan municipalities marched in the town center of Barbacoas on Oct. 12 to demand drinking water services and alternatives to illegal drug crops. (Caracol Radio. Oct. 13) Another 4,000 campesinos and indigenous people began marching from Mallama to Ricaurte municipality in Narino on Oct. 12.

Some 5,000 African-descended people took part in a march on Oct. 12 in the Pacific coast port city of Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca department, organized by the Process of Black Communities (PCN). Hundreds of people marched from Santa Rosa del Sur municipality to San Lucas in the northern department of Bolivar in support of the national strike and to oppose gold mining by the multinational Kedhada company. (Coordinador Nacional Agrario de Colombia-CNA, Oct. 12 via Colombia Indymedia)

On Oct. 12 in Corinto municipality, in the southern department of Cauca, riot police and army troops used tear gas and firearms against campesinos who were protesting on the road that leads from Miranda municipality. In the village of Gabriel Lopez in Totoro municipality, campesinos blocked the road leading from Popayan, the capital of Cauca, into neighboring Huila department. (Proceso Coordinacion Organizaciones Populares del Suroccidente Colombiano, Oct. 12 via Colombia Indymedia)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 16

CORDILLERA ORIENTAL: U.S. DRUG PLANE SHOT DOWN

On Sept. 30 leftist rebels shot down a single-engine T-65 Turbo Thrush plane as it was spraying herbicides over northeastern Colombia’s El Catatumbo region. The US embassy in Bogota said the plane’s Colombian pilot died while being taken to a hospital. The embassy is investigating the crash. Gregory Lagana, a spokesperson for the US company Dyncorp–which carries out aerial spraying operations in Colombia under contract with the US State Department–declined to say who the pilot worked for, but said the plane was owned by the State Department.

The plane was shot down between the municipalities of Tibu and El Tarra in Norte de Santander department, near the Venezuelan border, where rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are active. In a program funded by the US government, Colombia’s Antinarcotics Police sprays the toxic herbicide glyphosate over large swathes of countryside, ostensibly to destroy coca and poppy plants.

A report earlier this year by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said that despite a record-setting aerial eradication offensive, 114,000 hectares of coca remained in Colombia at the end of 2004–slightly more than the 113,850 hectares that were left over in 2003 after spraying. (Diarios de Urgencia/Resumen Latinoamericano, Sept. 30, with info from Colprensa; Daily Journal, Venezuela, Oct. 2 from AP)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 9

HIGH COURT OK’S RE-ELECTION

On Oct. 18, Colombia’s nine-member Constitutional Court ruled that a constitutional amendment to allow presidential reelection–approved by Congress in December–did not violate legislative or constitutional norms. Opponents of the reelection amendment had sought to have it overturned, arguing that supporters of President Alvaro Uribe Velez had omitted debates, and that dozens of lawmakers had voted for reelection after their relatives were given coveted jobs in embassies and government agencies. The court must still decide the legality of the Electoral Guarantees Law, which sets out terms to restrict the unfair advantage a sitting president has as a candidate. (New York Times, Oct. 20 from Reuters)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #114
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1145

See also our last blog post on para terror in Colombia:
/node/1230

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

PERU: INDIGENOUS BLOCK CAMISEA GAS PROJECT

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Sept. 30, residents of the districts of Atalaya, Sepahua and Tahuania in the Peruvian Amazon held a 24-hour strike protesting the contamination of the region’s rivers by the Camisea natural gas project. The same day, thousands of Ashaninka, Yine Yame and Shipibo indigenous people, armed with spears and arrows, set up a river blockade in the districts of Tahuania and Sepahua, preventing ships serving the Camisea project from passing through the zone. The indigenous people, backed by Atalaya mayor Dante Navarro and the regional government of Ucayali, are demanding that the government allot 12.5% of the Camisea royalties to Ucayali to compensate for the damages the gas project causes. “We have waited eight months and we have received no response, so the dialogue has run out,” said Edwin Vasquez, president of Ucayali region.

Navarro said the blockade would go on until the government agrees to the royalty demand. “The contamination of the Ucayali and Urubamba rivers has left us almost without fish, the main food source for our people,” said Navarro. Ucayali Natural Resources Manager Edgar Tapia says the increase in river traffic and pollution caused by ships bringing supplies to Camisea has reduced aquatic species in the Ucayali and Urubamba rivers by 60%. “Our rivers have become a trash dump, and the result is that our people are poisoned and with skin diseases,” said Sepahua mayor Nicolas Salcedo.

In less than nine months Camisea’s liquid gas pipeline has ruptured three times. A rupture last Dec. 22 contaminated the Urubamba river and prompted a protest by Machiguenga communities in the area. A Sept. 16 leak in the pipeline in Ayacucho–which followed an Aug. 29 leak in the same region–contaminated the Chunchubamba river and forced the government to declare all Camisea operations in a state of emergency and to evacuate more than 200 families from the community of Tocatten. (Servindi, Oct. 4)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 9

On Oct. 16 residents of the town of Atalaya took control of the airport there. The communities have also blockaded the new highway linking Atalaya to Satipo. The indigenous people of the region say they will seize the main camp of the Camisea gasfields if their demands for compensation are not met. (Adital, Brazil, Oct. 18)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

——

Weekly News Update on the Americas
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html

See also WW4 REPORT #113
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1031

See also our special report on the Camisea project:
/node/1140

——————-

Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Nov. 1, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution