CENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA DELAYED; REPRESSION CONTINUES

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

U.S. DELAYS CAFTA

On Dec. 30 Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) spokesperson Stephen Norton announced that the US was postponing implementation of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), which was scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1. Although “various countries are almost ready for their startup, none have completed their internal procedures,” he said, referring to enabling legislation the participating countries have to pass for DR-CAFTA to go into effect. The trade pact will be implemented progressively, according to Norton, “to the extent that the countries make sufficient progress to comply with the promises set in the accord.” Until then, the countries will continue to benefit from tariff reductions under the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA).

DR-CAFTA is intended to bring Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US together into a trade pact which would largely eliminate tariffs between the countries. Costa Rica’s legislature has yet to approve the pact; the legislatures of all the other participating countries have approved it despite major protests by labor, campesino, environmental and other groups.(El Nuevo Herald, Jan. 30, 31, quotes retranslated from Spanish)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 1

GUATEMALA: NEW VIOLENCE AT OCCUPIED RANCH

Four Guatemalan campesinos were reportedly wounded when private security guards opened fire on Jan. 20 on protesters attempting to renew their occupation of the Nueva Linda ranch in Champerico municipality, Retalhuleu department. At least two of the campesinos were injured seriously and were taken to a hospital in Retalhuleu. The names of three of the wounded were given: Roberto Gonzalez, Macario Gomez and Bernardo Guillen.

Twelve people, including protesters and police agents, were killed at Nueva Linda on Aug. 31, 2004, when hundreds of police used force to end a year-long occupation by thousands of campesinos protesting the disappearance of ranch administrator and campesino leader Hector Rene Reyes; some of the campesinos renewed their occupation in September 2004 but were removed without major violence two months later. There were conflicting reports about the Jan. 20 incident. The leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) party said the campesinos had wanted to talk to people at the ranch about their demands for justice for Reyes, while the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinating Committee (CONIC) reported that the campesinos, who have maintained a protest along the highway outside Nueva Linda, were trying to reoccupy the ranch. Other sources said they had succeeded in renewing the occupation.

The Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA (GHRC-USA) is calling for letters to President Oscar Berger Perdomo (fax: +502-2251-2218), Interior Minister Carlos Vielman (fax: +502-2362-0237, e-mail: ministro@mingob.gob.gt) and others to demand a full investigation of the current incident and prosecution of those responsible for Reyes’ disappearance and the deaths in 2004. (GHRC-USA urgent action, Jan. 20)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22

GUATEMALAN RESEARCHER THREATENED

On Jan. 9 Fredy Peccerelli, the head of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG), received a text message on his mobile phone with a death threat against his brother, Gianni Peccerelli. “Stop the exhumations, sons [of bitches],” the message ended, referring to the FAFG’s work exhuming mass graves of those killed by the Guatemalan military and their civilian adjuncts in the early 1980s.

On Jan. 10 Fredy Peccerelli’s sister, Bianka Peccerelli Monterroso, and her husband, Omar Giron de Leon, who is the laboratory coordinator for the FAFG, received an anonymous letter deposited in their mailbox. “We’re going to kidnap your sister and rape her again and again,” the letter read, “and if you don’t stop, we’ll send her to you piece by piece. Omar will be a widower, but only for a few minutes. Then we’re going to put a bullet in your head. One by one we will kill you. Death to the anthropologists.”

Fredy Peccerelli, his family and other members of the FAFG have received numerous threats over the last several years. After an earlier threat to Bianka Peccerelli and Giron de Leon, the government provided some police protection. But the police agents began skipping shifts in December and stopped guarding the couple completely on Jan. 7. The human rights organization Amnesty International is recommending letters expressing concern to Vice-Minister of the Interior Julio Cesar Godoy Anleu (+502 2361 5914) and Head of Special Prosecutor’s Office on Human Rights Rosa Maria Salazar Marroquin (+502 2230 5296), with copies to Ambassador to the US Jose Guillermo Castillo (fax: 202-745-1908, e-mail: info@guatemala-embassy.org). (AI Urgent Action, Jan. 13)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 15

HONDURAS: INDIGENOUS ARRESTED

On Jan. 12, Margarito Vargas Ponce and Marcos Reyes, members of the Honduran indigenous community of Montana Verde, presented themselves in court in the town of Gracias, Lempira department, in an attempt to end their persecution by security forces. The judge acceded to their written request to revoke an arrest order against them. Then, according to the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), another judge at the court, Hermes Omar Moncada, vacated the order in what COPINH called an “abuse of authority.” COPINH noted that Moncada is the same judge who refused to dismiss charges against “Luciano Pineda” (Feliciano Pineda), a member of the Montana Verde community who was jailed last June after being shot and wounded by paramilitaries. (COPINH press release, Jan. 17)

On Jan. 19, Amnesty International began an international campaign to win the release of Feliciano Pineda and two other Montana Verde activists, Marcelino and Leonardo Miranda. All three were charged with the 2001 murder of Juan Reyes Gomez, another community member, in an alleged land dispute. Last December, Pineda was acquitted of homicide charges in the case, but the judge refused to dismiss theft and vandalism charges, even though the statute of limitations on those crimes had run out. The Miranda brothers were arrested on Jan. 8, 2003; they were convicted of murder in December 2003 and are each serving 25-year prison sentences, even though evidence showed that the charges were falsified in retaliation for their efforts to win recognition of their community’s land rights.

AI has adopted Pineda and the Miranda brothers as prisoners of conscience and is demanding their immediate release, as well as a full and thorough investigation into the murder of Juan Reyes Gomez. “The criminal charges against Feliciano Pineda and the Miranda brothers are part of a campaign against indigenous leaders and human rights defenders in Honduras that aims to deter them from their work to secure land titles and to protect the environment,” said AI in a press release. (AI press release, Jan. 20)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 22

EL SALVADOR: TORTURE VERDICT UPHELD

On Jan. 4 a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta reversed its own earlier ruling and upheld a jury’s $54.6 million verdict against two retired Salvadoran generals accused of responsibility for torture by soldiers under their command. The same panel had thrown the verdict out on Feb. 28, 2005, saying a 10-year statute of limitations had expired. But the panel reversed its decision after concluding that it had made factual errors on the dates. “I have never, ever heard of such a thing,” the defendants’ attorney, Kurt Klaus, Jr., said on learning that the panel had reversed its own decision.

Three Salvadorans living in the US filed the suit on May 11, 1999 under the 1991 Torture Victim Protection Act against former defense ministers Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova and Gen. Jose Guillermo Garcia, who both left El Salvador in 1989 and now live in Florida. A federal jury found the generals liable for torture in July 2002. Vides Casanova left office as defense minister on May 31, 1989, less than 10 years before the suit was filed. In addition, in its new ruling the panel decided that the statute of limitations did not apply until 1992, when the Salvadoran government signed a peace accord with the rebel Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), since until then the government “remained intent on maintaining its power at any cost and acted with impunity to do so.” (New York Times, Jan. 8)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Jan. 8

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

See also WW4 REPORT #117
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1440

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Feb. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA DELAYED; REPRESSION CONTINUES 

CENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS BLOCK HIGHWAYS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

EL SALVADOR: FMLN BACKS ANTI-CAFTA PROTESTS

Thousands of Salvadorans participated in a nationwide day of protest on Nov. 30 against the neoliberal economic policies of President Antonio Saca. The demonstrations, organized by the Popular Social Bloc (BPS) and backed by the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), consisted of 17 different actions, including the blocking of major highways, rallies in front of government offices and the distribution of literature on the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a trade pact set to go into effect on Jan. 1 between five Central American countries, the Dominican Republic and the US.

The protesters used what they called “leaking blockades” on the highways. This consists of “closing and opening, letting a line pass slowly, talking, handing out literature, closing again, and so on,” explained BPS director Roberto Pineda. Blockades were set up on highways in at least eight of the country’s 14 departments: Morazan, Usulutan, La Libertad, San Miguel, San Vicente, Santa Ana, San Salvador and Ahuachapan. There were also protests in front of the Labor Ministry and a gas station belonging to ESSO, the local affiliate of the US-based multinational ExxonMobil. The Movement for the Self-Determination of Peoples (MAP) held a protest outside the building of the Legislative Assembly, which voted that day to allow the US to run a regional police training school, the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), in El Salvador.

The protesters had five demands: aid for communities hurt by Hurricane Stan, rejection of a new law on land leases, reduction of gasoline prices, rejection of the privatization of water services, and a return to the national currency, the colon [replaced by the US dollar in 2001]. (Adital, Dec. 1; Upside Down World, Nov. 30)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 4

HONDURAS: WINNER FINALLY DECLARED

On the evening of Dec. 6, Honduras’ Supreme Electoral Council (TSE) announced that Manuel Zelaya of the right-wing Liberal Party (PL) had won the Nov. 27 presidential election with 49.9% of the votes to 46.16% for Porfirio Lobo of the ruling [even more] right-wing National Party (PN). On Dec. 7 Lobo conceded defeat, 10 days after the vote. Also at stake were the 128 deputies’ seats in the National Congress and the 398 municipal governments. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Dec. 8 from AFP)

The PL is projected to have won 63 of the deputies’ seats, two seats short of a majority. The PN followed with 54, the leftist Democratic Unification Party (UD) with five, the Christian Democrats (DC) with five and the social democratic Innovation and Unity Party (PINU) with two. Zelaya is now seeking an alliance with one of the smaller parties in order to get a majority in the Congress. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Dec. 11 from AFP)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Dec. 11

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

See also WW4 REPORT #116:
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1346

See also our last update on Central America:
/node/1333

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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Jan. 1, 2006
Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS BLOCK HIGHWAYS 

CENTRAL AMERICA: HURRICANE HITS; CAFTA ADVANCES

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

DEADLY HURRICANE HITS

More than a thousand people are feared dead in flooding and mudslides in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas as a result of Hurricane Stan, which hit the region on Oct. 4. Heavy rains continued in some areas at least until Oct. 8. The worst destruction was in western Guatemala, where at least 652 people were reported dead and 384 missing as of Oct. 10; whole indigenous communities were buried by mudslides in Solola and San Marcos departments. Another 133 people died in Mexico and the rest of Central America. Observers attributed much of the devastation to deforestation, and noted that poverty forces poor campesinos to live in vulnerable areas.

Panabaj, a community on the outskirts of Santiago Atitlan in Solola, was buried by a mud flow a half-mile wide and up to 20 feet thick. On Oct. 9 residents blocked troops who came to help dig out victims. “The people don’t want soldiers to come in here. They won’t accept it,” Panabaj mayor Diego Esquina told Associated Press. Esquina said there are still vivid memories of a 1990 army massacre of 13 residents. About 160 bodies were recovered in Panabaj and nearby towns, and most were buried in mass graves. Further west in Tacana, near the border with Mexico, rescue workers recovered more than 130 bodies on Oct. 9; a mudslide had buried a shelter where people had taken refuge from the flooding. (New York Times, Oct. 9; El Diario-La Prensa, Oct. 5 from EFE, Oct. 9 from unidentified wire services; Miami Herald, Oct. 11 from AP]

The effects of Hurricane Stan dominated much of the discussion at an Oct. 12-13 meeting US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld held in Key Biscayne, Florida, with seven defense ministers from Central America and the Caribbean. Guatemalan defense minister Gen. Carlos Humberto Aldana Villanueva pushed for increased coordination among regional militaries to deal with emergencies. “We have to prepare a bit more for the future, now that disasters seem to be coming every day,” he said. “State responses are sometimes limited.” But Rumsfeld promoted trade pacts like the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) to solve regional programs, focusing on military cooperation as a way to deal with people “who want to obstruct the path to social and economic progress, to return Central America to darker times of instability and chaos. No one nation can deal with those kinds of cross-border threats.” (Miami Herald, Oct. 13)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 16

NICARAGUA: DR-CAFTA PASSES

After more than five hours of debate, on Oct. 10 Nicaragua’s National Assembly voted 49-37 to ratify the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), which brings Central America and the Dominican Republic into a trade zone with the US. The accord, which is scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1, had already been approved by the legislatures of the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the US. Of the seven signatories to the agreement, only Costa Rica has not completed the approval process.

All but one of the 38 deputies of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) voted against DR-CAFTA; according to the FSLN general secretary, former Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra (1984-1990), the other deputy, Bayardo Arce, was out of the country at the time of the vote. National Assembly president Rene Nunez, an FSLN deputy, had previously blocked the accord from coming to a vote. But on Oct. 8 Ortega announced that the FSLN would no longer use its positions in the National Assembly leadership to keep the accord off the legislative agenda.

Also on Oct. 10, the same day DR-CAFTA was passed, Ortega made an agreement with right-wing Nicaraguan president Enrique Bolanos, following seven hours of negotiations in the presence of Argentine diplomat Dante Caputo, a special envoy from the Organization of American States (OAS). (Caputo was the United Nations’ special envoy to Haiti at the end of the 1991-1994 period of military rule.)

The FSLN agreed to break off its pact with Bolanos’ former party, the right-wing Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC), which is dominated by former president Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo (1997-2002). Under the FSLN-PLC pact, the two parties had used their majority in the National Assembly to push through constitutional reforms in 2004 severely limiting the president’s powers. In September of this year, the FSLN and PLC deputies stripped six members of the Bolanos cabinet of immunity from criminal prosecution and seemed set to impeach Bolanos himself. In the Oct. 10 meeting, Ortega agreed to postpone implementation of the reforms until January 2007, when Bolanos leaves office; apparently plans to impeach Bolanos have been dropped. Ortega is expected to run as the FSLN’s presidential candidate in 2006, following unsuccessful runs in 1990, 1996 and 2001.

In an Oct. 11 press conference, Ortega denied that the FSLN’s new stance was connected to the Oct. 4-5 visit of US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, who had threatened to cut off US aid and trade if the PLC continued to bloc with the FSLN. This led to speculation that the PLC was about to pull out of the pact. Ortega insisted he and Bolanos started their discussions on Sept. 11, long before Zoellick’s visit. (El Nuevo Diario, Managua, Oct. 11, 12 from ACAN-EFE,Oct. 13, 14; La Prensa, Managua, Oct. 11, 12, 14; Nicaragua News Service Vol. 13, #38, Oct. 3-10; FSLN communique, Oct. 11; BBC News, Oct. 11)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 16

U.S. THREATENS NICARAGUA

In a visit to Nicaragua Oct. 4-5, US deputy secretary of state and former trade representative Robert Zoellick warned business sectors and the rightwing PLC against continued collaboration with the leftist FSLN and against efforts to impeach President Bolanos. Bolanos “is democratically elected, and for those who think they can remove him, my message is there will be consequences in terms of their relations with the US,” Zoellick said.

Zoellick warned that the US could block a $4 billion debt forgiveness plan and withhold a planned $175 million aid package. In an Oct. 5 meeting, he told business leaders they would lose business with the US if they backed the FSLN or the PLC. “Your opportunities will be lost,” he said. On Oct. 4, as he began his trip, the US State Department announced it was revoking the US visas of chief prosecutor Julio Centeno, a PLC backer, and two of the children of former president Aleman (1997-2002), who heads the PLC.

The US government is said to be worried that despite his current low standing in the polls, Ortega may regain the presidency in November 2006 and ally Nicaragua with Cuba and Venezuela. Zoellick made a point of meeting with presidential candidate Herty Lewites, Managua’s former mayor, who was expelled from the FSLN for seeking the party’s presidential nomination. Zoellick said the meeting was a clear sign Washington “could work with” Lewites.

“As Nicaraguans, as Central Americans and sons of Latin America, we protest to the world about the US government’s unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of our country,” the PLC said in a statement. But the New York Times reported that Carlos Noguera and other “senior members” of the PLC were backing away from the agreement with the FSLN. Aleman and the PLC were strong allies of the US during Aleman’s term; Bolanos was Aleman’s vice president and remained an ally until after his own inauguration. (New York Times, Oct. 5, 6; Boston Globe, Oct. 6 from Reuters; The Guardian, UK, Oct. 6)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 9

MANAGUA: NEW TRANSPORT STRIKE

A strike by bus owners’ cooperatives shut down most of the public transportation in Managua Sept. 19-21 as Nicaragua continued to confront problems from rising petroleum prices. Rafael Quinto, president of Managua’s Regional Union of Collective Transportation Cooperatives (URECOOTRACO), announced on Sept. 17 that bus owners would begin an open-ended strike on Sept. 19 because of the local and national governments’ inability to provide 30 million cordobas ($1.8 million) in subsidies to allow the owners to cover higher fuel prices without raising fares. Managua’s bus owners, who generally drive their own buses, were demanding $4.8 million in subsidies for the rest of the year.

The national government of President Bolanos and the Managua government, headed by Dionisio Marenco of the FSLN, originally agreed to the subsidies to end three weeks of militant protests in April. Initially intended for May through July, the subsidies were extended in July for another three months when the owners threatened more protests. But the governments failed to carry out the agreement, according to Quinto. When the bus owners started an unauthorized fare hike, Mayor Marenco threatened to suspend their licenses and start a municipal company to compete with the 38 cooperatives.

Violence broke out on Sept. 21, the third day of the strike. At various points in the city, bus owners began attacking “pirate vans” that had been transporting people during the strike. Meanwhile, the bus drivers attacked police agents with rocks when the agents tried to confine their protest to a small area outside one of the main public transportation cooperative buildings, in the northeastern sector of the city. Six to eight agents were injured, and some 63 people were arrested. The French wire service Agence France Presse reported that the drivers also used clubs and homemade mortars (which are like firecrackers but can be deadly).

The owners called off the strike on Sept. 21 after Public Finance Minister Mario Arana promised to provide $1.8 million to the bus drivers within the coming days. (Nicaragua News Service V. 13, #36, Sept. 2026; El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Sept. 19, 22)

On Sept. 20, in the midst of the transit strike, Marenco announced an agreement on petroleum between the Nicaraguan Association of Municipal Governments (AMUNIC) and Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), Venezuela’s state-owned oil monopoly. As part of an initiative by the left-populist government of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias to aid regional governments, PDVSA will be supplying petroleum to Nicaragua’s municipalities, starting with Managua, at 40% less than the international prices. Through an agreement with the Nicaraguan Petroleum Company (PETRONIC), AMUNIC will distribute the cheaper fuel only to drivers of taxis and buses for the first year; the project could be expanded later to include other vehicles such as small business vehicles. Marenco was unable to say when the Venezuelan oil will start to arrive. (NNS, Sept. 20-26)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 3

COSTA RICA: DR-CAFTA ADVANCES

On Oct. 21 Costa Rican president Abel Pacheco sent DR-CAFTA to the Legislative Assembly for debate and an eventual vote on ratification. The accord has already been approved by the other partners. Costa Rica’s trade representative signed it in May 2004, but Pacheco refused until now to send it on to the 57-member legislature for approval, saying he wanted a fiscal reform proposal passed first.

Ratification seems certain. Only the Citizen Action (AC) party openly opposes DR-CAFTA, and it lacks the votes to block approval. The vote isn’t expected to come up before Jan. 1, when the treaty takes affect in the other DR-CAFTA countries, Pacheco acknowledged. Legislative Assembly President Gerardo Gonzalez said he thought the debate would start before Feb. 15, and Foreign Trade Minister Manuel Gonzalez expressed certainty that the ratification would come before Pacheco’s term ends in May.

Pacheco said the legislative deputies were already analyzing a “complementary agenda” to mitigate negative effects on some sectors, and he indicated that the vote on the treaty would come after approval of a law strengthening the Electricity Institute (ICE), the state agency that controls energy and telecommunications, areas that DR-CAFTA will open up to private competition.

Labor and grassroots groups were not satisfied with these measures. “The red alert remains activated,” the Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP), the country’s largest union, said in a press release, while the National Civic Committee threatened on Oct. 21 to begin strike actions as early as November. The committee’s Jorge Coronado called for a “national day against the DR-CAFTA” in November, with marches and an open-ended general strike. Students from the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and the National University (UNA) have already planned two protests. On Nov. 1 UCR students are to march on the Legislative Assembly, while on Nov. 2 UNA students plan to march in Heredia province, 15 km north of San Jose. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Oct. 22 from AP; La Nacion, Costa Rica, Oct. 22)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 30

HONDURAS: CAMPESINOS ON HUNGER STRIKE

A group of 16 campesinos from the Honduran department of Colon began a hunger strike in front of the National Congress in Tegucigalpa on Oct. 17. The campesinos are demanding the return of 25,000 hectares of land in the Bajo Aguan area which they say was illegally taken from them by a Honduran business owner with the last name Facusse and a Nicaraguan identified as Rene Morales; they say the two men bribed local officials to get legal title to the properties. The business owners claim the land had been abandoned, but protesters insist it had been actively worked by cooperatives for over 30 years. The strikers, members of the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguan (MUCA), say they will continue their protest until the government addresses their demands. MUCA represents some 15,000 families from Tocoa, Saba, Limon, Trujillo, Bonito Oriental and other areas of the Aguan valley in Colon department. (Hondudiario, Oct. 17 via Honduras News in Review Update, Oct. 22; Adital, Brazil, Oct. 17)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct 23

HONDURAN WORKERS OCCUPY MINE

On Oct. 26 some 200 workers took over the San Martin open-pit gold mine operated by Entre Mares Honduras, S.A. in San Ignacio in the Honduran department of Franciso Morazan. As of Oct. 27 they were still occupying the mine to push demands for the company to recognize their union, which has been active for two months; provide medical benefits to the workers and their families; and stop the planned layoff of 27 workers from the crushing department.

“We’ll be here until the company takes care of our demands,” union president Daniel Martinez told the Associated Press wire service. “Entre Mares is violating our rights, which we are defending today.”

Entre Mares has 300 employees at the plant, which it has been operating for about five years. Local residents have staged protests, accusing the company of degrading the environment and affecting the sources of their drinking water. The Tegucigalpa archbishop, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez, headed a protest by some 5,000 residents on July 4, 2001. The company is a subsidiary of Glamis Gold Ltd, based in Reno, Nevada and Vancouver, British Columbia. (AP, Oct. 28) Glamis’ Marlin mine in Guatemala has also been the target of protests.

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 30

EL SALVADOR: PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE

More than 2,000 Salvadoran prisoners, most of them accused of being gang members, began a simultaneous hunger strike on Sept. 27 at jails in Chalatenango, Cojutepeque and Ciudad Barrios, a maximum security prison in Zacatecoluca and a juvenile detention center in Tonacatepeque. The hunger strikers were demanding improved conditions and treatment, respect for their rights, medical care, and the firing of the prison directors. They are also demanding that the original visitation system be brought back instead of a new system of staggered visits.

Another 2,800 prisoners at the Mariona prison in San Salvador have been protesting since Sept. 4, preventing garbage from being removed from the prison and refusing orders to attend court hearings. The Mariona prisoners are demanding respect for their rights, dismissal of the prison authorities and repairs to the facility. El Salvador has a prison population of 12,000, housed in jails with a capacity for 7,000. (La Opinion, Los Angeles. Sept. 29, Oct. 6; Hoy, NY, Sept. 29 from AP; EFE Sept. 30)

The last of the hunger strikes apparently ended on Oct. 5 after prison authorities beat and threatened the participants and doused them with buckets of water. Authorities also prevented reporters and human rights representatives from entering the jails to interview the hunger strikers.

The hunger strikers included many prisoners who were deported to El Salvador after living for years in the US. On Oct. 5, family members of jailed Salvadoran deportees joined members of Homies Unidos, an organization of former gang members, in a demonstration in front of the Salvadoran consulate in Los Angeles, California, to protest prison conditions in El Salvador and the treatment of the hunger strikers. (LO, Oct. 6)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 9

SALVADORAN HURRICANE VICTIMS PROTEST

Dozens of residents of various communities in the central Salvadoran departments of Cuscatlan and San Salvador blocked the Pan-American highway at the Cojutepeque exit on Oct. 27, halting hundreds of vehicles for two hours. The protesters were among the many who suffered losses when Hurricane Stan hit El Salvador at the beginning of October, causing 69 deaths and some $200 million in damages. Mauricio Martinez, a spokesperson for the residents, told reporters: “[W]e’re demonstrating, in the first place, to let public opinion know the feeling and the suffering we’ve had after Hurricane Stan.” He asked for the government “to pay attention to us, to give the population the international aid and not to play politics with aid.” The area needs housing for 800 families, he said.

Hundreds of residents of the eastern departments of Usulutan and San Miguel, another area affected by Stan, protested in San Salvador, also on Oct. 27. “We’re tired of the government’s abandonment of us and its indifference to the problems of the communities of Rio Grande de San Miguel and of Bajo Lempa,” said Mercedes de Jesus Reyes, who lives in Santa Rosa community, in Puerto Parada. “That’s why we’ve come to ask [Governance Minister] Rene Figueroa to resign.” The protesters marched to the Governance Minister, where they denounced Figueroa as “inept and corrupt.”

The protesters proceeded to the Legislative Assembly to demand that the legislative deputies intervene to get aid to the victims; carry out a serious investigation of the country’s vulnerabilities; reconsider the Disaster Prevention Law proposed by environmental groups; start the construction of dikes to prevent flooding; forgive agrarian debt and provide compensation to farmers for the loss of crops. Only deputies from the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) met with the protesters. (Terra, El Salvador, Oct. 28; Diario Co Latino, El Salvador, Oct. 27, 28)

Residents had attempted a march on the Presidential Residence the weekend of Oct. 22, but anti-riot police harassed the protesters and attempted to disperse them. They also blocked a group of university students who had tried to join the march; the police violently detained 16 students. Aristides Arevalo, director of the Bajo Lempa Coordinating Committee, criticized the “authoritarian measures of the regime of [President Antonio] Saca, which is scared of popular protest. We demand the release of the captured students and the distribution of the aid to the poor communities of our country.” (Adital, Brazil, Oct. 24)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Oct. 30

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

See also WW4 REPORT #114
http://www.ww3report.com/node/1149

See also “Gold Mine in Guatemala Faces Indigenous Resistance,” WW4 REPORT #114
/node/1142

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: HURRICANE HITS; CAFTA ADVANCES 

CENTRAL AMERICA: BUSH SIGNS CAFTA; NAVAL MANEUVERS HELD

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Shortly before flying to his Texas ranch for a month-long vacation, on Aug. 2 US President George W. Bush signed the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) into law, following a 19-month effort to get the controversial measure approved by Congress. So far, the legislatures of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the US have approved it; Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua have not yet ratified. “CAFTA is more than a trade bill,” Bush said at the White House signing ceremony. “It is a commitment among freedom-loving nations to advance peace and prosperity throughout the region.” (Bloomberg News, Washington Times, Aug. 2)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Aug. 7

DOMINICAN SENATE PASSES CAFTA, WORKERS PLEDGE RESISTANCE

On Aug. 26 the Dominican Senate voted 27-2 to ratify DR-CAFTA. The approval process requires the Senate to vote a second time and the Chamber of Deputies to also ratify the pact; the vote in the lower house is expected soon. The trade accord has yet to come up for a vote in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, Aug. 27; Miami Herald, Aug. 28)

At a press conference in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Aug. 23, leftist unionists from the region announced plans for the Central America and Caribbean Union Coordinating Committee, an organization to coordinate regional strategies against the impacts of DR-CAFTA, which is expected to go into effect on Jan. 1. “[I]t is essential that we workers be united to block the negativity of this trade accord,” Israel Salinas, general secretary of the Unified Federation of Workers of Honduras (CUTH), told a press conference. The organization expects to have branches in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Aug. 23 from AP)

PANAMA: THREE DEAD IN U.S.-LED MANEUVERS

Three members of Panama’s National Maritime Service died on Aug. 14 while participating in “Operation Panamax 2005,” a US-led international naval exercise in which some 3,500 sailors from nine countries practiced repelling a hypothetical terrorist attack on the Panama Canal. The maneuvers took place from Aug. 9 to 16 with the participation of the Panamanian maritime police agency and the navies of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru and the US. Six other countries–Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Mexico and Uruguay–acted as observers. After Sgt. Luis Perez and marines Omar Durango and Jackson Angulo drowned in an attempted amphibious landing on Guacha Island in Lake Gatun, Panama suspended its forces’ direct participation in the exercises and began an investigation. (Adital, Aug. 16; El Nuevo Herald, Miami, Aug. 15)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Aug. 28

GUATEMALA: 33 DEAD IN PRISON RIOT

On Aug. 15, a string of gang riots at six Guatemalan prisons left at least 33 alleged gang members dead and at least 80 others wounded. The attacks–five of which were nearly simultaneous–are believed to have been planned by the Mara Salvatrucha gang; nearly all the victims were apparently members of the rival Mara 18 gang. Weapons used in the attacks included fragmentation grenades, 9mm and 45mm pistols and at least one “mini-Uzi” assault rifle. The riots took place in the departments of Guatemala, Suchitepequez and Escuintla. Police reportedly headed off similar riots at prisons in Chimaltenango (Chimaltenango department) and Coban (Alta Verapaz). (Centro de Estudios de Guatemala–CEG, “La Semana en Guatemala,” Aug. 8-15; Guatemala Hoy, CEG, Aug. 16)

Penitentiary System director Francisco de la Pena said prison guards were responsible for inflicting most of the deaths, in their efforts to restore order. One of the wounded prisoners said Salvatrucha members at the “El Hoyon” prison in Escuintla–where 18 prisoners died–planned the attacks and coordinated them via telephone. A representative of the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s office in Escuintla, Osmin Revolorio, said survivors told him a prison guard had entered one of the jails with a suitcase full of weapons which were later used in the attacks. (GH, Aug. 16)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, Aug. 21

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

See also WW4 REPORT #112
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, Sept. 1, 2005

Reprinting permissible with attribution

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: BUSH SIGNS CAFTA; NAVAL MANEUVERS HELD 

CENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA ENDGAME LOOMS

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

DR-CAFTA SHOWDOWN NEARS

On June 30 the US Senate voted 54-45 to approve the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a pact largely eliminating tariffs on about $32 billion in annual trade between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US. Also on June 30, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted 30-11 to send the measure to the full House for a vote. The House debate will probably start on July 11, when Congress returns from its Independence Day recess.

DR-CAFTA, which is strongly backed by the administration of US president George W. Bush, is expected to face serious opposition in the House, especially from Democrats. DR-CAFTA opponents are urging activists to communicate with their representatives during the recess and pressure them to vote against it. The Stop CAFTA Coalition has set up a website (www.stopcafta.org) with talking points and additional background. So far only the legislatures of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras have approved the measure. (Radio Mundo Real, July 1; NYT, July 1; Campaign for Labor Rights Action Alert, June 30)

On June 29, the day before the Senate vote, the Associated Press wire service revealed that for more than a year the US Labor Department suppressed studies it had commissioned from the International Labor Rights Fund on labor conditions in Central American countries. “In practice,” one study said, “labor laws on the books in Central America are not sufficient to deter employers from violations, as actual sanctions for violations of the law are weak or nonexistent.” The Bush administration claims Central America has made progress on working conditions, and is using this as an argument in favor of DR-CAFTA. The Labor Department, which calls the studies “unsubstantiated” and “biased,” initially barred the contractor from distributing them and ordered it to remove them from its website. Under a new agreement, the International Labor Rights Fund can now distribute the studies, but it will not receive $250,000 of the $937,000 it was to be paid for the work. (Miami Herald, June 30 from AP; NYT, July 1)

In the middle of June former Wal-Mart Stores executive James Lynn filed a suit in Arkansas against the company charging that he was fired in 2002 “for truthfully reporting the abysmal working conditions in Central American factories utilized by Wal-Mart and for refusing to comply with Wal-Mart’s demand that he certify the factories in order to get Wal-Mart’s goods to market.” Wal-Mart says it fired Lynn for “having inappropriate contact with a woman who directly reported to him,” but it acknowledges it spied on him. Wal-Mart says several factories that Lynn reported on subsequently corrected their problems. But Charles Kernaghan of the New York-based National Labor Committee told the New York Times that workers at one of the factories, located in Honduras, reported continuing problems as recently as April of this year. (NYT, July 1)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 3

GUATEMALA: UNION OFFICE RAIDED

Unknown persons raided the Union of Education Workers of Guatemala (STEG) office in Guatemala City some time between the evening of June 25 and the morning of June 27. The intruders stole a computer with extensive information on the National Assembly of Teachers’ programs and history; destroyed two other computers; spilled red paint on all the files and destroyed other papers; and painted red crosses on walls and desks. A desk drawer containing cash was left open, but the money was not stolen.

Unidentified vehicles began to park outside STEG’s office in March after the union joined other groups in demonstrating against DR-CAFTA. STEG has also opposed the Law of Concessions, a measure for the privatization of public resources, and has protested government corruption and human rights abuses. Social organizations, especially those that oppose DF-CAFTA, have been subject to a large number of break-ins this year. The Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA (GHRC-USA) is asking for appeals to Guatemalan president Oscar Berger Perdomo (fax +502-2-251-2218, presidente@scspr.gob.gt) and Attorney General Juan Luis Florido (fax +502 251 2218) to insure the safety of STEG members and to carry out a thorough investigation of the break-in. (GHRC-USA Urgent Action 6/28/05; Guatemala Hoy, June 30)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, July 3

HONDURAS: COMMUNITY LEADER SHOT

On June 5, paramilitaries stabbed and wounded Feliciano Pineda, a leader of the Montana Verde community in Gracias municipality, Lempira department in western Honduras. Pineda was left in critical condition with stab wounds to his face, neck, back, sides and hands, and a blow to his spine. Community members took Pineda to a hospital in Tegucigalpa, but despite his precarious state of health, agents from the General Department of Criminal Investigation (DGIC) transferred him in chains to the regional jail in Gracias. (Rights Action, June 10; Consejo Civico de Organizaciones Populares e Indigenas de Honduras-COPINH Urgent Alert, June 10/) The Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) points out that the DGIC is run by Napoleon Nazar, who in the 1980s belonged to an army death squad linked to the disappearance of more than 150 activists. (Prensa Latina, June 10)

The paramilitaries who shot Pineda have been identified by eyewitnesses as Delfino Reyes, Santos Reyes, Pablo Reyes and Cecilio Reyes, some of whom were involved in the Jan. 8, 2003, violent arrest and subsequent torture of Montana Verde Lenca indigenous council members Leonardo and Marcelino Miranda, as well as in legal proceedings as false witnesses against Montana Verde community leaders. The Miranda brothers remain jailed in Gracias since their arrest. (RA, June 10; COPINH Urgent Alert, June 10)

The four paramilitaries were briefly detained but were then granted conditional freedom by Gracias judge Atiliano Vasquez. Vasquez previously served as the private accusing lawyer in two politically motivated cases against Montana Verde community leaders; after becoming a judge, he was put in charge of all the Montana Verde cases and has consistently issued flawed rulings against community members. (RA, June 10)

COPINH is calling for messages of protest to President Ricardo Maduro (fax #504-221-4552, 221-4545, 221-4647); Supreme Court president Vilma Morales (504-233-8089, 234-2367); and Congress president Porfirio Lobo Sosa (504-238-6048, 222-3471, 237-0663). Rights Action also suggests contacting US ambassador to Honduras Larry Palmer (fax #504-236-9037); Honduran ambassador to the US Mario Miguel Canahuati (fax #202-966-9751, embassy@hondurasemb.org); and Human Rights Commissioner Ramon Custodio Lopez (fax #504-232-6894, custodiolopez@conadeh.hn); with copies to COPINH at fax 504-783-0817, copinhonduras@yahoo.es.

On June 8, police and local judicial authorities carried out a violent eviction of the Lenca indigenous community of Golondrinas, in Marcala municipality, La Paz department. Police beat up and arrested dozens of community members, stole work tools and other property and bulldozed the entire community’s homes and property to the ground. The land had been abandoned for 25 years when the community began squatting it in May 2004, and although the National Agrarian Institute (INA) ruled that the lands belonged to the municipality of Marcala, they have now been transferred to a private construction company, ASOTRAMM. (RA, June 10; PL, June 10; Community Member’s Eyewitness Report posted on indigena.nodo50.org, June 15)

In other news, some 500 members of the gay and lesbian community of San Pedro Sula marched on June 4, demanding respect for their rights. (La Prensa, Honduras, June 5)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 19

EL SALVADOR: FIRED WORKERS ON HUNGER STRIKE

Eight former employees of the Salvadoran Interior Ministry began a liquids-only hunger strike outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in San Salvador on May 26 to demand severance pay. They were among 106 employees dismissed in December 2004 and denied severance pay because they worked on an annual contract and were not covered under laws against unjustified dismissal. Many had worked for the Salvadoran government for more than 20 years.

On June 23, some of the hunger strikers moved to the Legislative Assembly and occupied the chamber, causing the session to be suspended. William Huezo, president of the General Association of Public and Municipal Employees (AGEPYM), said the hunger strikers were in “critical health,” but he hoped Deputy Archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez would mediate so that they could win the payment of one month’s wages for each year they worked. (La Nacion, Costa Rica, June 19 from ACAN-EFE; El Diario de Hoy, San Salvador, June 24)

Weekly News Update on the Americas, June 26

PANAMA: SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM HALTED

Panama’s grassroots movements won a victory on June 27 in their fight against changes to the country’s Social Security Agency (CSS) when President Martin Torrijos and his council of ministers formally asked the National Assembly to approve a bill suspending the reform package for 90 days. The National Front for the Defense of Social Security (FRENADESSO)–representing thousands of construction workers, teachers, doctors and CSS workers, among other sectors–responded by immediately calling off the strike it began on May 27. The National Assembly unanimously approved the 90-day suspension of the CSS reforms on June 30, and Torrijos signed the suspension into law on July 1, exactly a month after he signed the bill enacting the reforms.

FRENADESSO had set suspension of the reforms as a condition for beginning a dialogue with the government over the measure’s more than 180 articles. The talks began on June 28, although FRENADESSO chose not to join them until the suspension of the reforms is officially enacted. Participants in the dialogue include government representatives, business associations, retiree organizations, unions and professional guilds. The Council of Rectors of Panama’s public and private universities is facilitating, with the Panama Bishop’s Conference and the National Ecumenical Committee acting as observers. The talks are scheduled to conclude on Aug. 29. (El Nuevo Herald, Miami, June 28 from AP; EFE, June 30, July 1)

Weekly News Update in the Americas, July 3

Some 6,000 Panamanians (or 2,500 to 3,000, according to police) marched on June 16 in Panama City to demand the repeal of reforms to the Social Security Agency (CSS). During the march, police used tear gas to break up a roadblock set up by students, workers and CSS employees along the trans-isthmus road. Marches also took place in the cities of Colon and David. (EFE, June 16)

Weekly News Update in the Americas, June 19

On June 4, after a six-hour meeting by strike leaders, FRENADESSO urged Panamanians to reject a planned referendum on the broadening of the Panama Canal, free trade agreements and the Puebla-Panama Plan. (La Prensa, Panama, June 5)

Weekly News Update in the Americas, June 5

Weekly News Update on the Americas
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See also WW4 REPORT #110
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Reprinted by WORLD WAR 4 REPORT, July 10, 2005
Reprinting permissible with attribution

http://WW4Report.com

Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAFTA ENDGAME LOOMS