CENTRAL AMERICA: DEATH SQUADS FREELANCE FOR NARCOS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

Guatemala: Three Salvadoran Reps Murdered; Accused Killers Follow Them to Grave

Three Salvadoran legislative deputies to the Central American Parliament (PARLACEN) were murdered along with their driver on the afternoon of Feb. 19 as they were visiting Guatemala to attend a session of the parliament. Assailants followed them in vehicles to a place about 36 km from Guatemala City, killed them and set their van on fire—although there was evidence that some of the victims may have been alive when the fire was set.

The deputies were Eduardo D’Aubuisson, William Pichinte and Jose Ramon Gonzalez; the driver was Gerardo Ramirez. All three deputies were from the rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) of Salvadoran president Elias Antonio Saca; D’Aubuisson’s father, the late Roberto D’Aubuisson, founded ARENA and reportedly led the notorious death squads of the 1980s.

Four agents from the Criminal Investigation Division (DINC) of the National Civilian Police (PNC)—Luis Arturo Herrera Lopez, head of the Section Against Organized Crime, and agents Jose Adolfo Gutierrez, Marvin Langen Escobar Mendez and Jose Korki Lopez Arreaga—were arrested on Feb. 21 and Feb. 22 and charged with the murders. According to the Guatemalan government, the agents had followed the Salvadorans in a patrol car with global positioning equipment, which allowed investigators to place the agents at the crime scene.

The four police agents reportedly confessed to executing the Salvadorans but claimed they thought the victims were Colombian narco-traffickers. The agents refused to say who had told them to carry out the executions. Their lawyers, Sandra Aguilar and Amanda Salazar Rodriguez, charged that the agents were beaten and tortured after their arrests. The agents were placed in the El Boqueron maximum security prison in Cuilapa, Santa Rosa department. On Feb. 23 Salazar filed an appeal asking for her clients to be placed in a more secure unit on the grounds that they feared for their lives.

The four agents were found dead in El Boqueron on Feb. 25; a prison guard was also killed. According to Governance Minister Carlos Vielman, who is in charge of national security, a group of prisoners rioted, took the warden and four guards hostage, and cut the throats of the four agents with knives. According to the authorities, the 177 prisoners who rioted were members of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang. The authorities suggested that the killers were prisoners who had been arrested by these agents in the past. Some 300 polices and soldiers with anti-riot equipment regained control of the prison.

Some of the prisoners and family members visiting the prison gave a different version. According to them, a group of masked armed men entered the prison without opposition, cut the electricity and executed the agents. The other prisoners then took the warden and guards hostage because they feared that they too would be executed or would be blamed for the murders. The daily Siglo Veintiuno obtained a report from the Public Ministry that seemed to back the prisoners’ version. The killers had altered the scene to make it appear that they had had to force the lock, according to the report, which found no evidence of a struggle at the scene. The report said the agents were killed by gunfire; there was no mention of knives. Four eyewitnesses were willing to testify if they were guaranteed protection, according to the report.

On March 2 Governance Minister Vielman announced that police operations assistant director Javier Figueroa had resigned on Feb. 26 and that Victor Soto had been removed from his post as chief of DINC, the division to which the agents belonged. On Feb. 27 the Guatemalan Congress had passed a resolution calling for Vielman himself to resign, but Vielman said he would keep his position. (Guatemala Hoy, Feb. 21, 22, 23, 26, 28, March 3; Adital, March 26 from Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo, March 1)

The Mutual Support Group (GAM), a Guatemalan human rights organization, charged that the murders of the agents were “a demonstration of the degree to which organized crime and drug trafficking have penetrated the structures of Guatemalan state agencies, particularly in the national security forces.” Others noted that 43 complaints were filed against the DINC in 2006, including three for extrajudicial execution and 10 for forced disappearances. The GAM called the “indifference of the international community” to criminality in the Guatemalan government “worrying.” (GH, Feb. 23; Adital, Feb. 26 from GAM)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 4, 2007

PNC agent Marvin Roberto Contreras Natareno testified on March 16 for the first time since his arrest in connection with the murder of the Salvadoran deputies. In his three-hour testimony Contreras Natareno told Judge Nery Medina that he had been called in as backup after four police agents stopped the deputies’ vehicle. According to Contreras Natareno, the deputies and their driver were still alive when he arrived, and the police agents were searching the vehicle for drugs. Later the agents shot some or all of the deputies and set the car on fire with the deputies inside. As of March 16 the Public Ministry had not decided whether to charge Contreras Natareno with murder or treat him as a witness. (Diario Colatino, San Salvador, March 16; Miami Herald, March 16 from AP; La Prensa Grafica, San Salvador, March 16)

In an interview published on March 10, PNC director Erwin Sperisen told the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre that “Guatemalan drug traffickers” were behind the murder, but he refused to give details. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, March 11 from EFE) Salvadoran officials have said that the three lawmakers were not linked to organized crime. (MH, March 16 from AP) In Guatemala the case has led to the resignations of DINC director Victor Soto and assistant director Javier Figueroa; Figueroa fled to Costa Rica on March 4. (La Prensa Grafica, San Salvador, March 16)

Guatemalan authorities still maintain other prisoners were responsible for the execution-style killings of the four DINC agents. According to Mario Falla, head of the attorney general’s technical bureau, four pistols were found in electrical appliances that the prisoners had in their possession; three of the pistols were used in the killing of the agents, Falla says. Some prisoners said the weapons were in fact planted in the appliances, which had been in the hands of the authorities for several days. (La Nacion, Costa Rica, March 15 from AFP)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 18, 2007

Guatemala: Student Leader Murdered, Peasants Block Highways

On the night of March 9, unidentified assailants shot to death Guatemalan student leader Oscar Abelardo Chata as he was walking to his home in Peten. He was in his fourth year of teachers’ college. Chata’s killing is believed to be political, since none of his belongings were stolen. The Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity-Broad Movement of the Left (URNG-MAIZ) condemned the killing, noting that it was one in a string of recent attacks against leftist activists. (Guatemala Hoy, March 17)

The Movement of Human Rights has recorded 278 attacks in the past three years against community leaders, human rights and union activists, designed to intimidate them into discontinuing their work. Many of the attacks and threats have come from public security forces. (La Semana en Guatemala, March 14-19)

On March 15, members of the Committee of Campesino Unity (CUC) and the National Coordinating Committee of Campesino Organizations (CNOC) blocked several highways in Huehuetenango, Izabal, Zacapa and Chiquimula to demand justice for murdered community members. CUC leader Jose Domingo said the protest commemorated the second anniversary of the killing of CUC member Juan Lopez Velasquez by soldiers and police during protests against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) in Colotenango. Some 500 campesinos from Izabal, Zacapa and Chiquimula held a similar demonstration to demand a prompt and thorough investigation into the murder last Feb. 6 of community leader Israel Carias Ortiz and his two sons, nine and 10 years old, in Los Achiotes, Zacapa. (La Semana en Guatemala, March 14-19)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 25, 2007

Zacapa: Campesino Leader Murdered

On Feb. 6 in the Guatemalan municipality of Zacapa, unidentified assailants shot to death campesino leader Israel Carias Ortiz and his two sons, nine-year old Ledwin Anilson Carias Ramirez and 10-year-old Ronald Haroldo Carias Ramirez. The family was ambushed on a rural road while heading home to the Los Achiotes farm. According to Radio Sonora, Nelly Ortiz, the campesino leader’s mother, died of shock upon hearing the news. Carias Ortiz was a leader of the Los Achiotes Indigenous Campesino Development Association (ACIDEA), a group of 150 families fighting to recover their lands on the Los Achiotes farm in Zacapa, which is currently occupied illegally by large-scale landholders. The Committee of Campesino Unity (CUC) blamed the murders on landholders Geraldina Cordon, Faustina Barrillas, Jorge Madrid, Victor Hugo Salguero, Edwin Ruiz, Salvador Cabrera and others. According to CUC, these landholders have been threatening local campesino leaders, including Carias and his family, and regional CUC leader Abelardo Roldan. (AP, Feb. 7; CUC communique, Feb. 6)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Feb. 11, 2007

Costa Rica: 50,000 Protest Free Trade

Some 50,000 people took to the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, on Feb. 26 to demand that the country’s Legislative Assembly not ratify the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a US-sponsored trade pact referred to in Central America by the Spanish initials for free trade treaty, TLC. The demonstration, dubbed “A Day for the Homeland” and organized by the National Front to Support the Struggle Against the TLC, was the largest one yet in Central America against the trade pact, and one of the largest protests ever in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica signed DR-CAFTA last year but is the only participating nation which has not yet ratified the pact. The Legislative Assembly had planned to debate the TLC on Feb. 26. President Oscar Arias, who has been pushing heavily for DR-CAFTA’s approval, claimed his supporters have the 38 votes they need to ratify the pact. But in the end the Legislative Assembly was unable to debate the treaty on Feb. 26 because it lacked a quorum. (Red de Comunicacion Alternativa contra el TLC, Feb. 26; El Comerico, Peru, Feb. 27 from DPA; Inter Press Service, Feb. 26)

Ricardo Segura of the National Committee of Struggle Against the TLC said simultaneous demonstrations were also held in San Carlos and Palmares de Alajuela in Guanacaste province, in Coto Brus in the south of the country, and in Limon on the Atlantic coast, among other areas. Carlos Arguedas, leader of the Union of Agricultural and Plantation Workers (SITRAP), said riot police violently attacked more than 600 demonstrators who blocked Route 32 in Siquirres, Limon province. The agents destroyed banners and signs and confiscated a loudspeaker vehicle, detaining its driver. At least five people were arrested, and a group of at least 80 demonstrators encircled the Siquirres jail to demand their release. (Red de Comunicacion Alternativa contra el TLC, Feb. 26; Argenpress, March 4)

Leaders of the Union of National University Workers (SITUN) and the Union Association of Industrial Communication and Energy Workers (ASDEICE) said separately that police stopped and searched several buses taking workers to the demonstration in San Jose, and a number of protesters had to continue on foot. (Red de Comunicacion Alternativa contra el TLC, Feb. 26)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, March 4, 2007

El Salvador: Students Block Streets

In El Salvador, 27 people—most of them students of the University of San Salvador—were arrested on Feb. 28 for “public disorder” after blocking traffic on Constitucion Boulevard in the northern sector of San Salvador during a protest against DR-CAFTA. The protest marked the close of the country’s first year under DR-CAFTA; El Salvador was the first nation to implement the pact, on Mar. 1, 2006. (El Vocero de Michigan, March 2 from AFP)

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

See also:

WW4 REPORT #130, February 2007
/node/3112

From our weblog:

Guatemala: Maya priests to purify sacred site after Bush visit
WW4 REPORT, March 13, 2007
/node/3340

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, April 1, 2007
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: DEATH SQUADS FREELANCE FOR NARCOS 

GUATEMALA: MINERAL CARTEL EVICTS KEKCHI MAYA

Security Forces Burn Peasant Settlements for Canadian Nickel Firm

by Bill Weinberg, Indian Country Today

On January 8, some 200 Guatemalan army troops and twice as many national police occupied two Qeq’chi (Kekchi) Maya indigenous communities at El Estor, a rural municipality in the department of Izabal, on the shores of the scenic lake of that name. Their orders were to evict the 308 families that made up the settlements, La Unión and La Pista. The following morning, 175 more Kekchi families were forcibly expelled from the nearby communities of La Revolución and La Paz. That day also saw the eviction of a Kekchi community at a site called Lote 8 in Cahaboncito municipality just across the line in the neighboring department of Alta Verapaz.

The evictions were carried out on behalf of the Guatemala Nickel Company (CGN), a subsidiary of the Vancouver-based Skye Resources Nickel Mining Co., which holds a disputed title to the lands in question.

The first evictions at La Unión were peaceful. Public Prosecutor Rafael Andrade Escobar read the eviction notice aloud as workers-contracted by CGN-Skye-dismantled the modest wood-and-thatch structures. But when the security forces next arrived at La Pista, they found the residents had fled. Police troops set upon the dwellings, sacking and torching them.

The following day at La Revolución, contracted helicopters hovered low over the community as a mixed force of army troops, black-clad riot police and CGN security guards wearing black face paint arrived by land. Security guards were also positioned on the cliffs overlooking the road in and out of the settlement. Some 50 residents were surrounded, including about a dozen women and some children. As the prosecutor finally arrived, CGN-contracted security dispersed throughout the settlement and set the dwellings ablaze, according to witnesses. The prosecutor ostensibly attempted to call the security personnel to order them to stop, but claimed his cell phone had no signal. The residents watched as 18 of their homes were reduced to ashes and wreckage.

James Rodriguez, a photojournalist who was on the scene, posted shots to his website of peasants looking on the destruction in tears. “I am sad because my little home is gone,” he quoted one elderly man.

Eventually, the torchings were halted, and the remainder of the settlement’s dwellings were dismantled. By then, the families were gathered on the roadside with what was left of their belongings.

Grahame Russell, co-director of Rights Action, a Connecticut-based group that supports Kekchi alternative development and land reclamation efforts, calls the actions illegal, and protests that “483 families were made homeless in less than forty-eight hours.”

He says the evictions show a deep iniquity in the Guatemalan legal system more than 21 years after the end of military rule in the Central American republic. “The local communities that have lived there forever don’t have title. It never gets resolved, because the courts do not work when its issues pertaining to human rights or the rights of the poor. They only work when companies come along and want an eviction order.”

In a press release, Skye Resources calls the Kekchi “squatters who had been illegally occupying, for several months, land leased by Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN) for its Fenix project.” It claims, “The operation is being carried out by a special unit of the national police that has been trained to avoid violence in such situations.”

The statement says Guatemala’s First Instance Criminal Court had ruled in favor of CGN in December. “Since then,” it reads, “the company has worked to find a peaceful resolution to the dispute.”

“We’re disappointed that the organizers of the land invasions were not able to keep their commitment to have their people leave the land so we could engage in further dialogue,” Skye president and CEO Ian Austin says in the statement. “However, we’re also thankful that the Guatemalan government has upheld the company’s rights to the land and we remain committed to working with community leaders to find solutions to this important issue.”

According to the statement, community leaders had promised to abandon the lands in exchange for a pledge of dialogue in a December meeting brokered by the bishop of Izabal. “Land rights are a challenging issue throughout the country, but we believe that the programs we already have in place and our continuing commitment to employ as many local people as possible, while we develop the Fenix project, will help us work positively with the community,” says Austin.

Leonardo Crippa, a staff attorney with the DC-based Indian Law Resource Center (ILRA), which is working with the Defensoria Qeq’chi, the local land rights organization, says some of the sites were in fact abandoned in December-but retaken after Skye showed bad faith. “The communities called for a nonviolent solution to the question of land claims. The Defensoria and the bishop were working to have a meeting with all the parties concerned, and set a date, but the mining company representatives didn’t attend.”

As accounts mounted of the torching of La Revolución, on Jan. 17 Austin issued a new letter admitting that “during the eviction process, a total of 18 makeshift houses were set on fire… While we don’t know who started the fires, we do know it was not anyone who works for CGN or contracted by CGN.” This is contradicted by the accounts from Rights Action and James Rodriguez.

Austin’s letter also claimed, “During the final eviction a small group of 15 squatters confronted the police.” It claimed the company is offering financial compensation for lost property-but his list (“structures, cooking utensils and any crops that were planted”) makes clear this excludes land. The letter says the displaced were offered transportation to Panzos, where food and water would be made available. It does not mention shelter or lands. Panzos is outside the immediate region-some 50 kilometers away, across the department line in Alta Verapaz.

On the same day Austin issued his letter, there were more evictions-and more dwellings burned down-as national police and soldiers were sent in to remove Kekchi who had re-entered the lands they had been expelled from days earlier. At Lote 8, the security forces found the residents had already fled, and again set the huts alight. At La Unión, police used tear gas to disperse the Kekchi, and a group of gunmen apparently deputized by El Estor’s municipal government arrived in three pick-up trucks, firing in the air.

At La Paz, the evictions were orderly and no homes were torched, due to the presence of an observer from the national Human Rights Prosecutor’s office. At La Pista and Revolución, residents also fled into the forest before the arrival of the security forces.

The dispute goes back to the 1960s when the Canadian mining giant INCO, started to buy or force out local campesinos from their small agricultural holdings. At the time, the Guatemalan army was putting down a guerilla insurgency in the region, and human rights violations were widespread. Campesinos who refused to sell out were violently evicted by company thugs, often backed up by the army. This was one of the most violent periods in the 1954-86 military dictatorship. In 1999, the UN Truth Commission for Guatemala found INCO directly responsible for killings and other rights abuses.

Land claims related to INCO operations were among the grievances at issue when over 100 protesting Maya were massacred by the army at Panzos in May 1978—seen as the key step towards the genocide in the Guatemalan highlands that would take some 50,000 lives over the next five years. Graham says the military used company airstrips and trucks in Izabal and Alta Verapaz in those years. “INCO’s been challenged on this at shareholders meetings,” he says. “They do nothing about it.”

INCO had bought other of the lands in question from the Guatemalan government in the late 1950s, on very favorable terms. This was the aftermath of the CIA-back coup of 1954, which toppled the moderately socialist elected government. North American corporations were granted widespread and easy access in these years.

The Guatemalan government had acquired the lands during World War II, when the large holdings of oligarchs of German ancestry were expropriated. The lands had been granted to the Germans in the 1870s under the Liberal dictatorship of Justino Rufino Barrios-which, in turn had illegally expropriated them from the Kekchi communities.

Under INCO’s local subsidiary EXMIBAL open-pit mining began in 1979, scarring the hillsides and-residents claim-releasing acid and sulfur into the lake, although no study was ever conducted. Operations halted with falling nickel prices in 1981, and the lands lay vacant and unproductive for decades. Cattle grazed on the company golf course, and the opulent housing for company managers-a stark contrast to the humble campesino homes nearby-also sat vacant. Locals were allowed to use an access road through the vast holdings, which incorporate much of the Sierra de Santa Cruz, a small mountain range overlooking the lake. But the road is lined with “private property” sings in Spanish and Kekchi. A force of private guards kept residents away from the empty housing.

In 2004, Skye purchased the mining leases from INCO, and announced plans to resume operations under the name Project Fenix. Skye began exploratory drilling in the high cloud forest of the sierra. The Kekchi settlement of Las Nubes, high in the Sierra, faced eviction due to the explorations slated for their lands. The residents of Las Nubes repeatedly blocked access roads last year to keep Skye from entering their lands, until the company agreed to halt the encroachment pending dialogue. But on the agricultural lands at El Estor below, nothing changed.

Then in September 2006, hundreds of Kekchi families who had been living in the overcrowded town of Chichipate, just to the west, moved back to El Estor to reclaim their ancestral territories. On September 19, dozens of landless Kekchi families moved onto “La Pista”-the long-unused company landing strip. Families subsequently entered the lands at the other nearby locations, and began to prepare the ground for their subsistence crops of beans and maize.

Doña Fidelia, an elder in La Revolución community, told independent journalist Dawn Paley in an account distributed by Rights Action: “We are recuperating our lands, not invading them. Some of us were born on these lands, before any mining company arrived in the area…. EXMIBAL was not here first, our parents were.”

The new settlements at La Unión, La Pista and Revolución were evicted by a force of around 60 police on November 12. Rights Action says that one of the men involved in the land occupation at La Pista, Jose Chocoj Pan, was seriously beaten in the operation. Walking alone on the road to El Estor following the eviction, he was stopped and abducted by a truck of police. After hours of physical abuse, he was left unconscious in the forest.

The lands were subsequently re-taken by the Kekchi, after CGN representatives failed to show up for a Nov. 15 meeting to discuss the land claims issue, according to Rights Action.

Following the November land actions, a group calling itself the “civil society of El Estor” paid for an open letter, “El Estor United Against the Violence and Vandalism,” published in the national daily Prensa Libre. Purportedly comprised of “business people, hotel owners, honorable persons and members of the civil society” (no actual signatories), the group called themselves “members of the Mayan culture Q’eqchi’,” and referred to El Estor as “Land of Nickel.” Ominously, the letter stated “that as a “contribution to the solution of this problem, [we have] has organized [our]selves into a group of Civil Patrollers. The Civil Patrols will work together with the public security forces (National Civil Police and Army) to re-establish order and maintain the peace in our municipality.” The clearly invokes the Civil Patrols established by the army in occupied Maya villages during the years of the genocide. The deputized gunmen in pick-up trucks who backed up the official security forces in the Jan. 17 eviction at La Unión appear to be a part of this new semi-official force.

The mayor of El Estor, Rigoberto Chub, is in favor of Skye Resources and appears to be responsible for the creation of the civil patrol. In November, an open-air kiosk on his property was burned down in an apparent arson attack. Subsequently, the Defensoria Qeq’chi started receiving anonymous telephone threats to burn their offices and the home of the group’s coordinator Arnoldo Jat. The group’s Kekchi attorney Juan Chen Dubon and an American priest who supports the Defensoria, Daniel Vogt,, have also been threatened. The Guatemalan courts are considering a petition to issue an amparo or protection order. Meanwhile, the ILRC is asking the Inter-American Human Rights Commission to order measures to protect the lives of the Defensoria leaders.

In its November 2006 report “Land Conflicts in El Estor, Izabal, Guatemala & the Rights of the Maya Q’eqchi’ People,” the Defensoria Q’eqchi protested the transfer of the 250-square kilometer lease area to Skye. “This area is mostly on lands possessed by 16 Q’eqchi’ communities. No previous consultation with the indigenous communities was undertaken. The communities have repeatedly stated that they do not wish their lands to be mined. The granting of this license represents a clear violation of Convention 169 of the ILO (International Labor Organization), ratified by Guatemala in 1996, an international treaty with the force of law that requires the state to consult indigenous communities when and if mining or other projects would affect their lands or impact their lives.”

“There should be an outright moratorium on mining in Guatemala just for the sake of decency,” says Grahame Russell of Rights Action. “There’s too much conflict. The Canadian government should call for a moratorium. The issues are not being resolved peacefully. The powers that be are resorting to violence and the people who lose are always the campesinos and indigenous peoples.

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A shorter version of this story appeared in the Jan. 23 edition of Indian Country Today, a national weekly published at the Oneida Nation, Canastota, NY

http://www.indiancountry.com/

RESOURCES:

Rights Action
http://www.rightsaction.org

Indian Law Resource Center
http://www.indianlaw.org/

James Rodriguez blog
http://www.mimundo-jamesrodriguez.blogspot.com/

Skye Resrouces
http://www.skyeresources.com

From our weblog:

Guatemalan war criminal dies a free man
WW4 REPORT, May 30, 2006
/node/2022

See also:

GUATEMALA: INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE TO GLAMIS GOLD
Maya Municipal Democracy Versus the Mineral Cartel by Cyril Mychalejko
WW4 REPORT #114, October 2005
/node/1142

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2007
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingGUATEMALA: MINERAL CARTEL EVICTS KEKCHI MAYA 

CENTRAL AMERICA: ECOLOGISTS ASSASSINATED IN HONDURAS; LAND CLASH, ASSASSINATIONS IN GUATEMALA

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HONDURAS: ENVIRONMENTALISTS MURDERED

On Dec. 20, environmental activists Heraldo Zuniga and Roger Ivan Cartagena were shot and killed in the central plaza outside the mayor’s office in Guarizama municipality, in the large eastern Honduran department of Olancho, bordering Nicaragua. The two men were activists with the Environmental Movement of Olancho (MAO), which described their murder as an extrajudicial execution carried out by National Police agents. On Dec. 19, according to MAO, Zuniga had reported receiving death threats from loggers employed by the Sansone logging company in Salama municipality, in northeastern Olancho.

The killing was apparently organized by Salama-based police Sgt. Juan Lanza, who brought Zuniga and Cartagena to Guarizama, in the northwest corner of Olancho, where other police agents linked to the powerful logging companies finished them off. Both Zuniga and Cartagena were left to die in the municipal plaza in the center of Guarizama. Before he died, Zuniga managed to tell witnesses that loggers had paid Sgt. Lanza to ambush them. MAO reports that with these latest killings, six environmental activists have been murdered in Olancho in recent years.

In May, after Honduran President Manuel Zelaya declared a logging ban in several municipalities in northern Olancho, loggers blamed MAO for the ban, and death threats against environmental activists became increasingly frequent. That same month, MAO asked the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to recommend that the Honduran government take measures to protect a number of MAO activists: Father Andres Tamayo, Santos Efrain Paguada, Victor Manuel Ochoa, Rene Wilfredo Gradiz, Macario Zelaya and Pedro Amado Acosta. The Commission granted the request on Dec. 22, two days after Zuniga and Cartagena were murdered. The Honduran government is required to inform the Commission by Jan. 7 of measures taken to protect the safety of the MAO activists.

Messages demanding protection for environmental and human rights activists and a thorough investigation and punishment for those responsible for the murders can be sent to Honduran embassies in the US (embassy@hondurasemb.org) or Canada (embhonca@embassyhonduras.ca); to President Manuel Zelaya Rosales (Fax #504-221-4552); Attorney General Leonidas Rosa Bautista (Email: Lrosa@mp.hn); and National Human Rights Commissioner Ramon Custodio Lopez (Email: central@conadeh.hn); with copies to MAO at info@maoambiente.org and Rights Action at info@rightsaction.org. [Rights Action Urgent Action 12/29/06, from MAO press releases; EFE 12/22/06]

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 31

GUATEMALA: ONE DEAD IN LAND CLASH

One person was killed and two wounded on Jan. 3 in a clash between residents of the municipalities of Nahuala and Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan in Solola department, western Guatemala. The conflict began when a group of campesinos from Nahuala were hired to cut down trees in an area disputed by the two municipalities. Francisco Tambriz, mayor of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, said the wounded were taken to a health center in Salcaja, Quetzaltenango. Tambriz said negotiations had been held over the land dispute but were not respected. Calm returned later in the day, said Tambriz, but residents refused to allow the National Civilian Police (PNC) to enter the area. (Guatemala Hoy, Jan. 3 from Prensa Libre, Nuestro Diario)

On Dec. 29, Guatemalan president Oscar Berger promised to revive constitutional reforms to help Guatemala’s poor and indigenous population as the nation prepared to mark the 10th anniversary of peace accords that ended a 36-year civil war. Berger said he would send Congress a bill on Jan. 13 with measures that include granting official recognition to Mayan languages, strengthening the justice system, allowing a civilian defense minister and ending the army’s role in policing. “We need to construct a more just, united and tolerant society,” Berger said. The measures had originally been promised in a United Nations-brokered peace accord signed on Dec. 31, 1996. (Miami Herald, Dec. 30)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 7

GUATEMALA: UNIONISTS, ECOLOGISTS MURDERED

A group of unidentified men in a white pickup truck assassinated Pedro Zamora, general secretary of the Union of Workers of the Quetzal Port Enterprise (STEPQ), the night of Jan. 15 near his home in Iztapa, in the southern department of Escuintla. Zamora was driving home with his two small children when the assailants rammed his car and sprayed it with gunfire; 100 bullets hit the vehicle, and 20 of them struck Zamora. One of the assailants then walked up to the car and shot Zamora in the face. Zamora’s three-year-old son, Angel Estuardo Zamora, was wounded in the attack and had to be hospitalized.

Zamora led the 500-member dock-workers union in Puerto Quetzal, the country’s main Pacific port, for eight years. At the time of his death he was renegotiating the Collective Work Pact with the port’s management and arranging the rehiring of nine laid-off workers. According to the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Zamora had been leading efforts to stop the privatization of the port; the union was proposing a program of upgrading and modernization as an alternative, ITUC said. Nery Barrios, the leader of the Union and Popular Action Unity (UASP) coalition, said five union leaders have been murdered in Guatemala since October. Another STEPQ leader was shot in the chest six months ago, according to the union’s secretary, Lazaro Reyes. Activists say Zamora had alerted the authorities that he was receiving death threats. On Jan. 18 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), said that Zamora had been given police protection because of “a series threats he had received as a result of his union activities.” The IACHR called on the Guatemalan government to investigate the murder and punish those responsible. (Prensa Latina, Jan. 16; ITUC OnLin, Jan. 17; Europa Press, Jan. 17; Univision, Jan. 19 from EFE)

At least three armed men shot at environmental activists Carlos Albacete Rosales and Piedad Espinosa Albacete shortly after midnight on Jan. 10 as they were riding home in a taxi from La Aurora National Airport in Guatemala City. At least six bullets hit the taxi; Carlos Albacete was left slightly injured by broken glass from a shattered window. The men didn’t pursue them, but a car followed the couple again on Jan. 12. The two activists work for the Guatemalan environmental organization Tropico Verde (Green Tropic), which seeks to protect the Mayan Biosphere Reserve in the northern Peten region and has been active in exposing the usurpation of land inside the reserve by cattle ranchers and alleged drug traffickers. The couple’s house was shot at in September, and they have heard rumors of plans to kill them.

The Guatemala Human Rights Commission (GHRC)-USA urges letters to Attorney General Juan Luis Florido (fax 011 502 2411 9124) and others calling for an investigation of the incidents and protection for the activists. (Sample letters are available from ghrc-usa@ghrc-usa.org.) (GHRC-USA urgent action , Jan. 18, with info from Amnesty International)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 21

According to the Guatemalan National Civilian Police (PNC), community leaders Marco Antonio Leon Salazar and Rolando Eugenio Orellana Perez were shot to death on the night of Dec. 21 in the La Majada neighborhood of Zacapa, capital of Zacapa department in eastern Guatemala. (Guatemala Hoy, Dec. 26 from Nuestro Diario)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 31

GUATEMALA: WORKERS BURN MAQUILA

Dozens of laid-off workers looted and set fire to the Genesis Feliz Tex S.A. garment plant in Guatemala City on the afternoon of Jan. 20. The workers came to the plant to demand their severance pay. Finding no one at the factory, the workers decided to seize apparel and machinery in compensation. Within minutes unit of the National Civil Police (PNC) arrived and dispersed the crowd with tear gas, but before they left the workers started a fire; firefighters spent two hours putting it out. No arrests were made.

The plant was a maquiladora (tax-exempt assembly plant producing for export) apparently owned by a Korean company. There are more than 300 apparel-producing maquiladoras in Guatemala, employing about 100,000 workers, mostly impoverished women. Some 20 of these plants closed down in 2006, leaving 5,000 people without work. (Prensa Libre, Guatemala, Jan. 21; La Gente, online service of Radio La Primerisima, Managua, Jan. 21; El Diario-La Prensa, NYC, Jan. 21, 22 from EFE, AFP)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 27

GUATEMALA: HYDROELECTRIC PLANT PROTESTED

On Dec. 23, some 300 residents from the municipalities of Tajumulco, Malacatan and San Pablo in the western Guatemalan department of San Marcos marched peacefully in the town center of San Pablo to protest the planned construction of a hydroelectric plant in that municipality. The march started in front of the Urban School and ended in front of San Pablo’s central park with a rally where leaders from all three municipalities spoke. Humberto Orozco of Malacatan said construction of the hydroelectric plant will affect residents of all the neighboring communities. Marcotulio Lopez of San Pablo said the protesters want “the waters of the Canuja, Cutzulchima and Rio Negro rivers to be used in a rational manner, otherwise when they feed into the Cabuz river they will cause it to overflow with potentially fatal results for the communities along its banks.”

The demonstrators said they don’t oppose development, but want it to be carried out in a transparent way and with respect for the safety of local residents. The protesters asked the municipal corporation of San Pablo to carry out a popular referendum, mediated by Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini, to decide the future of the plant. (Guatemala Hoy, Dec. 27 from Prensa Libre)

In other news, according to the Guatemalan National Civilian Police (PNC), community leaders Marco Antonio Leon Salazar and Rolando Eugenio Orellana Perez were shot to death on the night of Dec. 21 in the La Majada neighborhood of Zacapa, capital of Zacapa department in eastern Guatemala. (Guatemala Hoy, Dec. 26 from Nuestro Diario]

GUATEMALA: PRISONERS WERE EXECUTED

Guatemala’s human rights ombudsperson, Sergio Morales, has revealed that seven prisoners who died in a police operation last Sept. 25 at the Pavon Rehabilitation Center west of Guatemala City were probably executed after being subdued by police and soldiers. The facility had been controlled for over 10 years by a committee of prisoners when some 3,000 police agents and soldiers retook control of the prison.

Morales called the government’s claim that the seven victims died in a shootout amid the chaos of the operation “hard to substantiate.” The investigation carried out by the ombudsperson’s office found that the victims’ wrists appeared to have been bound before they were killed, and that authorities went into the operation with a list of prisoners they were seeking–the same ones who ended up getting killed. Three of the prisoners bled to death without receiving medical attention. Another had five bullet wounds across a small area of his chest, spanning three ribs. “How is it going to be possible that they hit him with five bullets in the same spot in the middle of a chaotic shootout?” asked Carla Villagran, author of the ombudsman’s office report. (AP, Dec. 28)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 31

EL SALVADOR: 20 DEAD IN PRISON FIGHT

At least 20 prisoners died on Jan. 6 in what authorities said was a fight among gang members using homemade weapons in the maximum security Apanteos prison in the western Salvadoran department of Santa Ana. The conflict reportedly broke out on the afternoon of Jan. 5 when a group of prisoners from the Mara 18 gang attacked a guard, then started to break down the prison’s internal walls. Authorities initially reported 17 dead, but said three more prisoners were killed in a subsequent clash.

“The information we have is that another uprising erupted in sector 11, where they were holding the prisoners from the 18 gang,” said Wilfredo Olivares, one of the representatives from the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s office who monitor prison conditions. Human Rights Ombudsperson Beatrice Alamanni de Carrillo called it “the worst massacre in recent years,” and criticized prison authorities for mixing gang members with other prisoners. Alamanni confirmed that the prisoners had knocked down six walls, joining six separate cell areas which were previously separate and leading to the mixing of gang members, common prisoners and sick prisoners.

More than 20 journalists, both national and international, tried to reach the prison to report on the situation, but national prisons director Jaime Roberto Vilanova barred them from approaching. Some 100 police shock troops entered the jail to maintain order, and two police buses were used to transfer more than 200 prisoners to the central jail in the city of Santa Ana. Apanteos prison has a capacity for 1,800 prisoners, but holds more than 2,000. (AP, Jan. 6)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 7

NICARAGUA: ORTEGA IS PRESIDENT AGAIN

Daniel Ortega Saavedra, leader of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), was sworn in as Nicaragua’s president on Jan. 10 in Managua’s Omar Torrijos Plaza of the Non-Aligned States with 14 heads of state and some 300,000 Nicaraguans in attendance. Leftist leaders such as Bolivian president Evo Morales, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias and Ecuadoran president-elect Rafael Correa were present, along with right-wingers like Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Mexican president Felipe Calderon. On Jan. 8 US president George W. Bush phoned Ortega and congratulated him and the Nicaraguan people for their “commitment to democracy,” according to US national security spokesperson Gordon Johndroe.

Ortega was the coordinator of the council that headed the Nicaraguan government after a 1979 revolution overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship, and he was president from 1985 to 1990. He failed in three attempts to regain the presidency–in 1990, 1996 and 2001–but won on Nov. 5, 2006 with about 38% of the vote. Ortega’s presidency may not lead to drastic changes. Right-wing parties continue to hold a majority in the National Assembly; Ortega’s vice president, Jaime Morales Carazo, was a leader of the US-backed contra movement that tried to overthrow the FSLN government in the 1980s. (La Prensa, Managua, Jan. 10; La Nacion, Costa Rica, Jan. 11 from AFP; BBC News, Jan. 10)

On Jan. 11 Ortega signed on to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a trade pact promoted by Chavez as an alternative to US-sponsored trade accords. Cuba and Venezuela signed on Dec. 14, 2004, and Bolivia joined on Apr. 29, 2006; Chavez, Morales and Cuban vice president Jose Ramon Machado attended the ceremony, in the Ruben Dario Theater. (El Diario de Yucatan, Jan. 11 from DPA)

NICARAGUA: ABORTION LAW CHALLENGED

On Jan. 8 the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (Cenidh) led a march to the Supreme Court of Justice (CJS) in Managua to file a constitutional challenge to a law that the National Assembly passed on Oct. 26 criminalizing all abortions, including therapeutic abortions when the life of the mother is at risk or when the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. Therapeutic abortion had been legal in Nicaragua for at least 100 years prior to the new legislation. The CSJ has four months to respond to the challenge. The law was rushed through the National Assembly in the days before the Nov. 5 national elections, with the support of most parties and candidates, including the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and its candidate, current president Daniel Ortega.

“We cannot teach medical students to kill women who need a therapeutic abortion,” Professor Matilde Jiron of the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) medical faculty said during the protest. “On the contrary, we must teach them respect for life and women’s rights.” Women’s groups have collected more than 100,000 signatures on a petition in favor of therapeutic abortions and expect to get at least 150,000. The petition will be presented to the new National Assembly. (El Nuevo Diario, Managua, Jan. 8, 9; La Prensa, Managua, Jan. 9)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 14

COSTA RICA: CAFTA-CRATS EXPLOIT LAY-OFFS

During the week of Jan. 1, the WR Alajuela company announced it would close its garment factory in La Uruca, San Jose, Costa Rica, laying off 400 workers. The factory has produced jeans for the Wrangler label for over 20 years. The factory claimed the reason for the shutdown was a decrease in demand. Its parent company, VF Corporation, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, had closed another factory in Vazquez de Coronado, San Jose, in December, laying off 350 workers. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Jan. 6 from AP; La Nacion, San Jose, Jan. 6)

In January 2005, VF Corporation had laid off 300 of the 700 workers at the same La Uruca plant, eliminating the production of Lee brand jeans at the plant while maintaining production of Wrangler jeans. At the time, the company was operating six plants in Costa Rica with more than 3,000 workers. (LN, Jan. 17)

Foreign Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz issued a communique on Jan. 5, saying the closure of the factories will also have a negative impact on companies that provide services and raw materials. Ruiz tried to use alarm over the layoffs to bolster support for the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA); Costa Rica is the only participating country which has not yet ratified DR-CAFTA. Ruiz called the factory closings a “warning signal” and urged Costa Rica’s legislative deputies “to quickly approve the free trade treaty between the US, Central America and the Dominican Republic, since this situation is generating uncertainty among companies established here.” (ENH 1/6/07 from AP; LN, Jan. 6)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 7

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Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: ECOLOGISTS ASSASSINATED IN HONDURAS; LAND CLASH, ASSASSINATIONS IN GUATEMALA 

CENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS MARCH FOR LAND, WATER

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

El Salvador: Water “Reform” Protested

About 50 Salvadoran union members, campesinos and environmental activists blocked the Juan Pablo II avenue near the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador for about two hours to protest a proposed new General Water Law that they say will in effect privatize the country’s water supply. Protesters held large banners across six lanes and handed out fliers to passersby. Police agents eventually removed the protesters from the street with no serious incidents; the activists continued to hold banners on the sidewalk afterwards. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters shut down bridges and highways in coordinated actions at seven points across the country, including Santa Ana, Ahuachapan, Chalatenango and the Puente de Oro.

Officials in the government of rightwing president Antonio Saca—including Cesar Funes, who heads the government’s water agency, the National Administration of Aqueducts and Sewers (ANDA)—plan to introduce a new law to the Legislative Assembly early next year that would reduce ANDA’s role and transfer control of water rates to a panel including the National Association of Private Enterprise (ANEP), the main business group. Opponents include members of the ANDA Workers’ Enterprise Union (SETA) and the Salvadoran Ecological Unity (UNES), which is proposing an alternative law that would involve local communities and provide for protecting the environment.

Currently about 60 percent of Salvadoran households receive potable water. The water supply has a high level of contamination with lead, aluminum and other minerals; a March 2006 World Bank study found that 98 percent of household waste and 90 percent of industrial waste go into rivers and streams without treatment. (CISPES Update, Deec. 15; UpsideDownWorld, Dec. 14; Prensa Latina, Dec. 14)

Honduras: Campesinos Protest Murders, Logging

On Nov. 16, some 5,000 campesinos from the municipalities of Macuelizo, Nueva Frontera and Azacualpa in the western Honduran department of Santa Barbara blocked a major international highway in La Flecha and in the Seis de Mayo community to demand justice in the murders of a teacher and a church representative. The protest interrupted traffic for about eight hours along 40 kilometers of the highway, which leads to neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador.

Church delegate Hector Enrique Sola Ramos was killed on Nov. 10 in the village of Los Pocitos, in Macuelizo. Teacher Reina Isabel Pena was murdered by unidentified assailants on Nov. 6 on the detour to San Marcos in Santa Barbara; her body was discovered three days later in an advanced state of decomposition. The campesinos are also demanding a ban on logging in the area; they say powerful groups are destroying the forest and endangering local water sources. The protesters said Sola was killed because of his intense fight against logging. They are also demanding that local authorities ban the sale of alcohol, which they say is destroying their communities. Police say they are close to solving the murder of Sola, but that they can’t proceed because community members refuse to testify. (La Prensa, Honduras, Nov. 17, Nov. 18; Honduras News in Review, Dec. 5 from La Tribuna, Nov. 17)

According to organizers, both victims worked to protect the forest. The two had received death threats prior to their murders, and protesters say other leaders have been threatened as well. The protesters left the highway after agreeing to talks with representatives of the security minister. (Honduras News in Review, Dec. 5 from La Tribuna, Nov. 17)

On Nov. 29, hundreds of campesinos occupied the offices of the National Institute of Agriculture in Tegucigalpa demanding property titles, technical assistance and the removal of judges they say are bribed by large landowners, among other demands. Similar protests occurred in other cities around the country. The protests continued on Nov. 30. Agriculture and Livestock Minister Hector Hernandez said the government had previously reached an agreement with campesino leaders and the protests were due to a lack of communication. (Honduras News in Review, Dec. 5 from La Prensa, Nov. 29, EFE, Nov. 29, Hondudiario, Nov. 30)

Honduran Human Rights Lawyer Killed

On the morning of Dec. 4, presumed paid assassins riding a motorcycle shot to death Honduran attorney Dionisio Diaz Garcia of the Association for a More Just Society (ASJ). Diaz was on his way to the Supreme Court of Justice in Tegucigalpa to review case files in preparation for hearings scheduled for that afternoon. The hearings involved accusations that the firm Delta Security Services had unjustly fired a number of employees. Two of the fired workers were to have their cases heard that day; another 10 had hearings scheduled for Dec. 8. Diaz was representing the fired workers and supporting a journalistic investigation by ASJ. In a statement condemning the murder, the Committee of Relatives of the Detained Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) said Diaz had been the victim of death threats and constant harassment. (COFADEH statement, Dec. 5 via Equipo Nizkor; Comite por la Libre Expresion-C-Libre, Dec. 8, translated into English by Rights Action)

Since March 2006, Diaz had been defending 16 security guards who worked for Delta Security Services, owned by US citizen Elvin Richard Swasey, or its subsidiary, Seguridad Tecnica de Honduras (SETECH). In August, when Diaz won a court embargo of the companies’ vehicles, Delta and SETECH began a campaign of intimidation and defamation against the ASJ and its staff, including journalists Dina Meza, Claudia Mendoza, Rosa Morazan and Robert Marin.

COFADEH is demanding that the government fully investigate the murder of Diaz and adopt protective measures for all of ASJ’s staff. COFADEH is also demanding that the government repeal a discretionary measure it adopted last Aug. 29 which allows private security companies to carry out police functions. In addition, COFADEH calls for an audit of all the security companies operating in Honduras, and the cancellation of the operating licenses of any found to be violating human rights law or constitutional guarantees. According to COFADEH, the owners of many private security agencies belonged to death squads that carried out repressive actions during the 1980s. (COFADEH, Dec. 5 via Equipo Nizkor)

On Dec. 7, ASJ president Carlos Hernandez was followed for two hours by an unidentified individual on a motorcycle in Tegucigalpa. At the same time, he received a message in English on his cellular phone, warning him that he would be the next victim because he is the head of ASJ. (C-Libre, Dec. 8, via Rights Action)

Costa Rica: CAFTA Closer to Approval

The International Affairs Committee of the Costa Rican Congress voted 6-3 late on the night of Dec. 12 to advance the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a trade accord between the US and Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. The move clears the way for the full Congress to debate ratification of the treaty in January; analysts expect the process to continue until March or April. Of the seven countries that signed the accord in 2004, only Costa Rica has failed to get the necessary approval from its legislature; the agreement took effect in the other countries during 2006.

Opposition to the accord—known as the TLC, the Spanish initials for “Free Trade Treaty”—remains high in Costa Rica. Hundreds of people protested the committee’s vote outside the Congress building. Unions and social organizations have been organizing against the accord through a coalition, the National Front of Struggle Against the TLC. On Dec. 11 politicians from the Citizen Action Party (PAC) and academics formed their own coalition, the National Front of Support for the Struggle Against the TLC. (Servicio Informativo “Alai-amlatina,” Dec. 13; Adital, Dec. 13; Punto de Noticias, Venezuela, Dec. 13 from AFP)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 17

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“SOA protests at Ft. Benning—and throughout Americas”
WW4 REPORT , Nov. 21, 2006
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Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS MARCH FOR LAND, WATER