WTC Fallout in Latin America Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit "Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory" excerpts from... WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #609, SEPTEMBER 30, 2001 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 3. Peru: Bin Laden's Holiday Spot? 7. El Salvador: FBI Investigates Left Protest 8. Paraguay: Witchhunt on Triple Border 9. Dominican Republic: Arab Residents Investigated 14. Mexico: Peace Marches in DF and DC 15. Mexico: Economy Slumps Some More 16. Nicaragua: Terror Charges As Vote Nears 18. Puerto Rico: Vieques Bombing Resumes 19. In Other News: Uruguay, Venezuela, Brazil *3. PERU: BIN LADEN'S HOLIDAY SPOT? Over the weekend of Sept. 23, the Peruvian television program "Don't Anyone Sleep" ("Nadie Se Duerma") aired a video from Mar. 1, 2000, showing former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos Torres discussing the presence in Peru of Saudi Arabian terrorism suspect Osama Bin Laden, with Alex Kouri, mayor of the port city of Callao (adjacent to Lima). In the conversation at the headquarters of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) in Lima, Montesinos told Kouri that "the Americans are extremely concerned" about Bin Laden, and that Bin Laden's organization was using Lima as its "rest zone" and "center of gravity" for Latin America, where it prepared actions against the US, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and other countries. Montesinos said the US was opposing the privatization of Lima's Jorge Chavez international airport because it was the base from which drug trafficking and terrorist movements were being monitored. The airport is now in the hands of a German consortium. Kouri, who is of Arab origin, remains the mayor of Callao. Montesinos has been jailed at the Callao Naval Base since June 28, following his June 25 deportation from Venezuela [see Update #596]. [Hoy (NY) 9/24/01 & 9/25/01, both from EFE] *7. EL SALVADOR: FBI INVESTIGATES LEFT PROTEST Agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have gone to El Salvador to investigate incidents that occurred during a Sept. 15 march by union members, students and leaders of the leftist Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN) protesting privatizations of state enterprises. Some participants who identified themselves as the Revolutionary Brigade of Salvadoran Students (BRES) burned the US and Israeli flags, and some protesters reportedly shouted slogans supporting Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, and Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire the US says is responsible for the attacks [see Update #607]. Most sectors of Salvadoran society condemned the expressions of support for terrorism. The FBI agents "are examining the videos [of the demonstration], and work is being done on it," head prosecutor Belisario Artiga told a press conference on Sept. 27. Artiga insisted that the investigation was not political but concerned common crimes. "Whoever it may be," he said, will be brought to justice. The main purpose of the FBI agents' visit is ostensibly to investigate Luis Alonso Martinez Flores, a Salvadoran national said to have had some connection with the people who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. The agents reportedly joined with the National Civilian Police (PNC) to investigate in San Dionisio, Usulutan, Martinez's home town. [La Prensa Grafica (San Salvador) 9/28/01] *8. PARAGUAY: WITCHHUNT ON TRIPLE BORDER Paraguayan interior minister Julio Fanego has ordered an investigation into charges that police agents in the city of Ciudad del Este, on the "triple border" with Brazil and Argentina, have been blackmailing businesspeople of Arab or Muslim origin. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 9/27/01 from AFP] The large community of Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian and Saudi Arabian immigrants in Ciudad del Este have asked the Catholic Church "to prevent the police from continuing to commit abuses" against them. The police crackdown on the community began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US. [Hoy (NY) 9/25/01] Thirteen Lebanese nationals, a Jordanian, a Palestinian and a Brazilian were arrested in Ciudad del Este on Sept. 21 as terrorism suspects. Thirteen of them reportedly remained detained as of Sept. 26; 11 have been ordered held in preventive detention on charges of procuring authentic documents with false information, and one faces deportation to Lebanon for being in the country illegally. (It was unclear what happened to the other.) [Hoy 9/24/01 from AP, 9/26/01 from unspecified wire services; ED-LP 9/27/01 from AFP] According to Agence France Presse, some 20,000 Middle Eastern immigrants, mostly small-scale merchants, live in the triple border area; many live in the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu and work just across the Parana river in Ciudad del Este. (The New York Times reports that 12,000 people of Arab descent live in the triple border region.) [ED-LP 9/27/01 from AFP; NYT 9/27/01] The border crossing between Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguacu reopened on Sept. 26 after being closed by protests for a week. Brazilian workers shut down the bridge over the Parana to protest the expulsion from Paraguay of 5,000 Brazilians who worked without authorization in Ciudad del Este. The standoff ended when authorities agreed to negotiate a definitive solution to the problem of the undocumented workers. [ED-LP 9/27/01 from EFE] In related news, Paraguayan former consul in Miami Alejandro (or Carlos) Weiss is now under arrest for allegedly having sold more than 300 passports, visas and cargo shipment authorizations at up to $8,000 apiece during his tenure from June 1999 to May 31 of this year, when he resigned, reportedly because of the scandal. Authorities say at least 16 of the passports Weiss authorized ended up in the hands of terrorism suspects--Lebanese, Syrian and Egyptian citizens--who intended to move to Ciudad del Este. [NYT 9/27/01; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 9/20/01] *9. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: ARAB RESIDENTS INVESTIGATED Dominican president Hipolito Mejia bragged to reporters on Sept. 23 that following the Sept. 11 attacks, his country was the first to hand over to the US government detailed information about all of its Arab residents. "The day after the case happened," Mejia said, "the only security service in the world which had all the Arabs with their photographs and their names was us, and we gave this to the Americans." Mejia said 90% of the Arabs living in the Dominican Republic have US visas. The National Investigations Department (DNI) announced it will continue to question foreign nationals from the Middle East to determine whether they are linked to terrorism. The DNI has arrested dozens of Middle Eastern immigrants since Sept. 11; DNI director Maj. Gen. Fernando Cruz Mendez admitted that so far "nothing compromising" has been discovered. The Dominican Telecommunications Institute (INDOTEL) meanwhile denied reports that it is tapping the telephones of Muslim residents in the country, who reportedly number about 4,000. At a press conference at the site where the country's first mosque is under construction, Maimon Khan, a student from India, and Ahmad Alkayyat, president of the Islamic Circle, said they agreed with the presence of police at the entrance to the site, and said they have more fear of the public's ignorance than of government security measures. Khan and Alkayyat condemned the attacks on the US, but called for a response rooted in justice, not war. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 9/24/01] *14. MEXICO: PEACE MARCHES IN DF AND DC Mexican labor, political, religious and human rights groups and a group of children marched from the Hemiciclo a Juarez to the Zocalo plaza in downtown Mexico City on Sept. 29 to oppose US plans for a "war on terrorism" and the support for these plans by the government of Mexican president Vicente Fox Quesada. Chanting "Down with war" and carrying branches with white flowers, the marchers stressed Mexico's traditional policy of opposition to all military intervention. "Not one barrel of Mexican oil for military actions!" said Dominican monk Miguel Concha, referring to Fox's promise to supply oil for the US war effort. Gustavo Brener of the Rigoberta Menchu Foundation, headed by Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchu Tum, read a statement calling for respect for international law and insisting on due process for all criminals and terrorists, "from [Saudi millionaire] Osama Bin Laden to [former US secretary of state] Henry Kissinger." Laura Carolina, one of the group of children at the march, called for stopping "World War Three." When the speakers finished, the children released doves and lit a torch they said is to stay in the Zocalo until peace is achieved. [La Jornada (Mexico) 9/30/01] Various student groups are reportedly planning a large march for peace in Mexico City next week. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 9/30/01 from combined wire services] Mexicans were also among the nearly 5,000 activists in a peace demonstration in Washington, DC on Sept. 29. One of the speakers was a Mexican from the DC support committee for Mexico's rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), who apologized for Fox's support for the war policy; the largely Mexican EZLN support committee in Virginia also participated. [LJ 9/30/01] *15. MEXICO: ECONOMY SLUMPS SOME MORE The effects of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US economy have apparently pushed Mexico further into a recession that started earlier in the year [see Update #603]. The bank conglomerate BBVA-Bancomer, which is owned by the Spanish bank Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, writes that "[a]lthough it may be premature to analyze the implications of the tragic events in the US for the economy of Mexico, our preliminary estimates indicate that the gross domestic product could find itself between -0.4% and 0.0% this year." Mexico's growth rate last year was 6.9%. Tourism has been especially hard hit. In the two weeks after Sept. 11, international arrivals at airport for Acapulco, one of Mexico's main tourist attractions, decreased by 80%. Tourism is Mexico's fourth largest source of foreign exchange, after petroleum exports, remittances from Mexicans living in the US and illegal drugs. But the Sept. 11 attacks are not the only cause of Mexico's economic decline. In an appearance before Congress, Economy Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez reported that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in effect since 1994, has had a debilitating affect on the agricultural sector and that 95% of the nation's established businesses are "confronting difficulties" as a direct result of the agreement. He also reported that the entry of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO) would adversely impact Mexican industry, which will have trouble competing with China's low wages and huge work force. [Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News Summary 9/27/01] *16. NICARAGUA: TERROR CHARGES AS VOTE NEARS US agents are in Nicaragua investigating supposed links between Nicaraguan residents and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, US ambassador Oliver Garza told the media on Sept. 24. "We know many foreigners settled here," he said, "particularly during the 1980s [under the government of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)], and have become citizens of this country. The government should establish whether those citizens are still good citizens and determine their behavior." Former interior minister Rene Herrera said "there are Palestinians, Libyans, Iranians, from 20 guerrilla organizations, terrorists of the 1980s living in this country." Also on Sept. 24, the conservative daily La Prensa reported that Niall Connolly (aka David Braken), an alleged explosives expert and member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) arrested in Colombia in August [see Update #608], was in Nicaragua last May during the FSLN's Third Congress. FSLN officials said they knew nothing about this report. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 9/25/01 from AP] Almost immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman Lacayo suggested that FSLN general secretary Daniel Ortega Saavedra, who was president during the 1980s, was connected to terrorism through his association with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Ortega is the FSLN presidential candidate for Nov. 4 national elections; he is locked in a tight race with former vice president Enrique Bolanos of Aleman's rightwing Liberal Constitutionalist Party (PLC). [Hoy (NY) 9/18/01 from EFE] The leftist Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diario counterattacked on Sept. 13 with an interview with political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas, who tried to make a connection between the rightwing contra rebels who attempted to overthrow the FSLN government in the 1980s and Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, identified by the US as the mastermind of the attacks. Calling Bin Laden a "Frankenstein" created by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Vargas said the Saudi "had his links to the Nicaraguan contras. We have to remember that this gentleman came from an upperclass family in Saudi Arabia, a country that together with Brunei gave millions of dollars to finance the war against the Sandinista revolution." Although Vargas failed to give more specific evidence, the article was headlined: "Bin Laden Was a Contra." [END 9/13/01) *18. PUERTO RICO: VIEQUES BOMBING RESUMES The US Navy began a new round of military exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques on Sept. 24, starting with shelling of the Navy's test range from ships. The exercises are scheduled to run from 8 am to 11 pm for at least 23 days and will include the participation of the aircraft carrier "John F. Kennedy." The majority of groups that carried out acts of civil disobedience during exercises over the past two year declared a moratorium on the militant protests following Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, at least in part because of concern about possible danger to the protesters in the US's newly militaristic mood [see Update #607]. But Rev. Wilfredo Estrada, spokesperson for the Ecumenical Coalition for Vieques, said the exercises should still end, "because they have nothing to do with what is happening" in relation to the attacks. Robert Rabin, spokesperson for the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques (CPRDV), said the military exercises "were immoral before Sept. 11 and they continue to be immoral today." Gov. Sila Maria Calderon has apparently shifted her position on the Navy's presence in Vieques following the Sept. 11 attacks. Previously she pushed for an immediate end to military exercises and the departure of the Navy from Vieques; now her government backs US president George W. Bush's proposal for the Navy to leave the island in May 2003. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 9/24/01 from EFE, 9/25/01 from correspondent] US Democrats who had backed the fight to end the military exercises have also toned down their support. "Everyone understands that times have changed," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). "You can't pull the rug out from under the war effort at this moment." Rep. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) said that putting aside the struggle for Vieques was a difficult decision but that he felt "we have to recognize the reality of the moment." [New York Times 9/27/01] *19. IN OTHER NEWS... In a phone call over the weekend of Sept. 23 to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias offered to provide humanitarian aid to the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees who are trying to flee their country because they fear an imminent bombing attack by the US. The UNHCR has sent special teams to the region to address the situation. UNHCR regional representative Maria Virginia Trimarco said the office would send a list of what is needed so the Venezuelan government can determine how best to help. [ED-LP 9/26/01 from AP]... The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is planning to establish an office in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, according to a Sept. 25 communique issued by the US embassy in Brasilia, which said plans for the office had been under negotiation for the past year and were not related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the US. [Hoy (NY) 9/26/01] END ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytcamer-10.01.01-19:26:41-23562