Wkly News Update on the Americas #396 9/1/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #396, AUGUST 31, 1997 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Ecuadorans Hit With New Defeat in Texaco Lawsuit 2. Gay Groups Hold First Protest in Ecuador 3. Gay Club Raided in Cuba 4. Cuba: Rumors, Denials, Bishops & Bugs 5. Did Nazi Run Bolivian Death Squads? 6. Mexican Left Steals March on Government 7. Haitian Politics in Port-au-Prince and New York 8. Disabled Veterans Protest in Guatemala 9. Venezuelan Prison Riot Leaves 29 Dead 10. Peru: Tortured Agent to Mexico, Exile to Denmark 11. Exiled Peruvian Journalist Fights Expulsion from Panama 12. New Indigenous Protest in Honduras 13. US: New "Free Trade" Battle Shapes Up 14. In Other News: El Salvador, Colombia & Puerto Rico ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. A one-year subscription (52 issues) is $25. To subscribe, send a check or money order for US $25 payable to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. Please specify if you want the electronic or print version: they are identical in content, but the electronic version is delivered directly to your email address; the print version is sent via first class mail. For more information about electronic subscriptions, contact wnu@igc.apc.org. Back issues and source materials are available on request. If you are accessing this Update for free on electronic newsgroups, we would appreciate any financial support you can contribute. We are a small, all-volunteer organization funded solely through subscriptions and contributions. Please also help spread the word about the Update. If you know someone who might be interested in subscribing, send their email (or regular mail) address to and request a free one-month trial subscription to the Weekly News Update on the Americas. Feel free to reproduce these updates, or reprint or re-post any information from them, but please credit us as "Weekly News Update on the Americas," and include our full contact information so that people will know how to find us. Send us a copy of any publication where we are cited or reprinted. We also welcome your comments and ideas: send them to us at the street address above or via e-mail to CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/nsnhome.html *1. ECUADORANS HIT WITH NEW DEFEAT IN TEXACO LAWSUIT On Aug. 12, US federal judge Jed Rakoff dismissed a civil suit filed by Ecuadoran indigenous groups against the oil company Texaco for compensation for damages to the Ecuadoran Amazon region and its peoples. The plaintiffs are expected to appeal the ruling; the appeal will be heard by the Second Circuit Court of New York within the next two to three months. Rakoff dismissed the case because he said the Ecuadoran government had delayed too long before making up its mind about which side it was taking in the lawsuit. The Ecuadoran government had initially opposed the lawsuit, and Rakoff ruled last November that the case could not proceed without naming the Ecuadoran government and the state-run oil company Petroecuador as co-defendants, because Texaco only owned three eighths of the Ecuadoran consortium while Petroecuador owned the rest. However, in January of this year the Ecuadoran government joined the suit against Texaco as a co- plaintiff [see Update #366]. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 8/26/97 from AP, 8/31/97] *2. GAY GROUPS HOLD FIRST PROTEST IN ECUADOR On Aug. 27, a coalition of gay groups and human rights organizations held the first-ever public demonstration for gay rights in Quito, Ecuador. The two-hour protest was organized by gay associations to promote a petition campaign to decriminalize homosexuality. The organizers hope to gather the signatures necessary to present formal charges that the Penal Code's references to homosexuality are unconstitutional. In addition to signatures, the groups must collect copies of the identity cards of all who sign the petition (an activist at the rally made copies of ID cards on the spot). Most of those participating were members of the recently formed Grupo Coccinelli; the two other gay groups that helped organize the event were Tolerancia and Triangulo Andino. The presence of nearly 20 transvestites at the protest attracted the attention of many curious onlookers. "We are here for tolerance and for respect for difference," said singer and songwriter Jaime Guevara, who performed and spoke at the rally. Gay activists spoke of constant abuses by police. Human rights defenders from the Permanent Human Rights Assembly (APDH) and the Ecumenical Human Rights Commission took part in the protest, on the request of the gay organizations. During the protest, an administration official approached to ask if the demonstrators were seeking a meeting with the Secretary of Administration. The protest organizers declined; APDH spokesperson Alexis Ponce explained that everything was being handled on the level of the Constitutional Court. The lawsuit will be presented by the American Jurists Association, the APDH and gay groups. Only 700 more signatures--with copies of their respective ID cards--are needed to complete the petition. The organizers were satisfied with the protest and are thinking to hold another one soon. They are also considering collecting signatures in front of the National Congress building and in other public places. [El Comercio (Quito) 8/28/97] *3. GAY CLUB RAIDED IN CUBA Dozens of Cuban police agents raided a clandestine gay disco in Havana on Aug. 23 and arrested some 300 clubgoers. When the raid took place there were between 700 and 1,000 people at El Periquiton; the club is extremely popular with locals and foreign tourists, partly because of its low door prices--10 pesos for Cubans (the equivalent of about 50 cents at the official exchange rate) and one US dollar for foreigners. The spot began three years ago as a restaurant and expanded to a discoteque over the past year. Most of the detainees were freed after paying a fine and receiving a warning letter, according to a witness who identified himself as Julio Lopez. The detained foreigners were taken to the Immigration office to verify their immigration status. Famous foreigners at the club that night included Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar and French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. Almodovar escaped arrest; it was not clear whether Gaultier was detained. Maj. Angel Diaz of the National Revolutionary Police announced on Aug. 27 that the police action resulted in several arrests, the confiscation of $2,000 and the closing of the club. According to Diaz, the raid turned up prostitutes, pimps, several minors and a number of foreigners--"a little of everything," as he described it. The only detainees whose names Diaz revealed were Cubans Leonardo Suarez and Guillermo Blanco, identified as the club's owners. The police raid was carried out just three days before a new law was to take effect on Aug. 25 establishing strict penalties for pimping, the corruption of minors, encouraging children to beg for money, and other economic crimes. [El Diario- La Prensa 8/31/97 from AFP, 8/28/97 from combined services] The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) sent a letter to Rosario Navas, Cuba's ambassador to Spain, on Aug. 27, protesting the raid on El Periquiton. The letter also charged that the day after the raid Cuban police carried out "identity controls" on the Mi Cayito beach, located in a predominantly gay eastern beach area. ILGA, which groups 300 lesbian and gay organizations from 75 countries, also protested in its letter the fact that homosexuality is mentioned in article 303 of the Penal Code, and is punishable with a year in prison if manifested publicly. The letter asked the government "not to paralyze the process of progressive tolerance toward gay meetings and parties that was opening in Cuba." [ED-LP 8/28/97 from EFE] *4. CUBA: RUMORS, DENIALS, BISHOPS & BUGS A Cuban government spokesperson has accused rightwing emigres in Miami of propagating unconfirmed rumors that Cuban President Fidel Castro is very sick or has died. The rumors "are lies, are absolutely false," said spokesperson Marianela Ferriol. The Cuban Interests Section in Washington also issued a declaration dismissing the rumors. [ED-LP 8/31/97 from AP] Ricardo Alarcon, president of the Cuban parliament, denied the rumors on Aug. 27, saying: "It's one more proof that you can't believe what they say in Miami." In Washington, the State Department said on Aug. 28 that they "had no reasons" to believe that Castro had died, and that the rumor may have originated with confusion over the news-- reported on Havana's Radio Reloj on Aug. 27--that Rene Orley Sanchez Castro, a hero of the Cuban revolution, had died. However, President Castro's absence from the public eye and from the media has continued to fuel speculation that he is ill. He has not appeared on television since Aug. 8 and has not been mentioned in the newspapers since Aug. 13. [Diario Hoy (Quito) 8/29/97 from AFP, EFE] During the week of Aug. 24 various rightwing Miami-based Cuban American groups issued an open letter "earnestly" asking Miami archbishop John Clement Favarola to cancel plans to take about 1,000 US citizens to Cuba on Jan. 24, 1998, in a chartered cruise ship. The passengers would attend an open-air mass during Pope John Paul II's first visit to the island. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/28/97 from Notimex] The administration of US president Bill Clinton, which has tightened restrictions on US citizens traveling to Cuba, is making an exception for the papal visit, approving the archbishop's plan and holding out the possibility of letting other US citizens attend as well. [WP 8/24/97 from AP] New York's Cardinal John O'Connor is planning to attend with a group of 300. [ED-LP 8/29/97 from EFE] On Aug. 26 Cuba formally asked for the 138 nations that signed the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention to investigate its charges that a US State Department plane spread the thrips palmi insect, which damages crops, over part of Cuba last October [see Updates #388]. State Department spokesperson James Rubin called the charges "ridiculous and without merit." [Washington Post 8/26/97 from AP] But the US failed in its effort to quash the Cuban complaint. On Aug. 27 British delegate Ian Soutar said that 74 of the nations will examine the evidence and will release a written report by Dec. 31. Cuban officials said they were satisfied with the arrangement. [New York Times 8/28/97] *5. DID NAZI RUN BOLIVIAN DEATH SQUADS? Former Bolivian interior minister Gustavo Sanchez Salazar told a special commission on Aug. 27 that convicted German Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyon," directed murders, torture and other crimes in Bolivia during the 1970s and early 1980s. Sanchez, a member of the Nationalist Revolutionary Left Movement (MNRI) who headed the Interior Ministry 1982-85 under President Hernan Siles Zuazo, was testifying to a commission investigating the whereabouts of the remains of Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, leader of Socialist Party One (PS-1). Quiroga was assassinated on July 17, 1980 during the coup that brought Gen. Luis Garcia Meza to power. His body was reportedly transported to Cuba; it was in fact buried in Bolivia, according to Sanchez, who headed a 1983 investigation into the case. Sanchez went on to charge the late Klaus Barbie, who lived in Bolivia under the name "Klaus Altmann" before being deported to France in the 1980s, with organizing a group of German, Austrian and Italian mercenaries for the 1980 coup. Sanchez said the group included rightwing Italians Stefano Delle Chiae and Pier Luigi Pagliai, accused in connection with the bombing of a train in Bologna during the 1970s. "[I]n this country there is no culture of crime," according to Sanchez. "We Bolivians aren't criminals." But Sanchez said that repression during the dictatorship was also directed by Garcia Meza's interior minister, Col. Luis Arce Gomez. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/28/97 from AP; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba, Bolivia) 8/28/97 from ANF] Arce Gomez was turned over to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Dec. 11, 1989 and is now a prisoner in Miami. [Los Tiempos 8/30/97 from ANF] [The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of having a working relation with the "narco-general" Garcia Meza; see "How the US Drug War Plays in the European Media," Update supplement 8/2/97.] *6. MEXICAN LEFT STEALS MARCH ON GOVERNMENT With just 255 out of 500 legislators in attendance, the opposition bloc in Mexico's newly elected Chamber of Deputies held its first working meeting on Aug. 30. Facing a boycott by the 239 deputies of the largest party--the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which held an absolute majority in the Chamber from 1929 until this year's July 6 elections--the deputies from four opposition parties appointed the legislature's directorate and assigned the rotating presidency for the year to Porfirio Munoz Ledo of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), now the second largest in the Chamber. The PRI deputies are threatening to constitute a "parallel" lower house. The PRI still controls the Senate. The opposition bloc consists of the PRD, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and two small parties, the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM) and the Labor Party (PT). Despite ideological differences, the four formed a coalition to take control of the Chamber's directorate. The bloc attempted to negotiate a compromise with the PRI, but the talks broke off on Aug. 29. Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon is required by the Constitution to present a state of the nation report to the two houses of the Congress on Sept. 1. As Chamber president, the oratorical Munoz Ledo will be able to reply to the report; in the past the PRD was reduced to silent protests, culminating in last year's political theater by Dep. Marco Rascon in a pig mask [see Update #345]. Zedillo may send the report in writing, avoiding a televised confrontation. [La Jornada (Mexico) 8/30/97, 8/31/97; New York Times 8/31/97; Washington Post 8/31/97] On a more substantive level, the PRD is planning to use its position in the Chamber of Deputies to block part of the government's proposed $7.5 billion bailout of 23 highways privatized over the last 10 years [see Update #395]. [LJ 8/26/97] Meanwhile, the PRD took advantage of the opening of the school year on Aug. 25 to pass out free textbooks to 700,000 secondary students in the 235 municipalities it governs, fulfilling a pledge the party made last year to help students with part of its government-financed campaign fund [see Update #358]. PRI mayors are now begging the federal government to send them textbooks to distribute free in their school systems. [LJ 8/25/97] The rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) is also planning theatrical moves against the government, in this case with a huge caravan to Mexico City. The rebels have announced that 1,111 delegates from pro-Zapatista villages in the southeastern state of Chiapas will attend the Sept. 13-16 founding congress of their political group, the Zapatista National Liberation Front (FZLN), in the capital [see Update #395]. After making whimsical suggestions that the Zapatistas might come on bicycles or by balloon, EZLN spokesperson "Insurgent Sub-Commander Marcos" issued a communique, dated Aug. 22, with a complete itinerary of the delegates' "motorized march," leaving San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, on Sept. 8 and making various stops in indigenous areas in Oaxaca and Pueblas, where supporters are to join the caravan. After a visit on Sept. 12 to the rebellious town of Tepoztlan near Mexico City in the state of Morelos, "following the route taken by the troops of [Mexican revolutionary hero] Gen. Emiliano Zapata in 1914, we will all march until we enter the Federal District through Xochimilco and then on to the capital's Zocalo [main plaza]." [La Jornada 8/27/97] On Aug. 22 Ausencio Chavez Hernandez, an official from the Governance Secretariat, said that the rebels were free to come if it was "with respect for the law, without weapons and without masks." [Reuter 8/22/97] Other officials indicate that the Zapatistas can wear their trademark ski masks. Marcos has made it clear that the rebels will be masked, and suggests that he might join the delegation. [LJ 8/30/97; El Diario-La Prensa 8/31/97 from EFE] Peace talks between the government and the EZLN have been stalled for a year, and the Mexican army continues to surround rebel villages in Chiapas. Tensions have increased over the past month as the military has rotated troops. On Aug. 24 a thousand or more unarmed Zapatista supporters kept the fresh troops from reoccupying an abandoned camp at the village of San Cayetano, in San Andres Larrainzar (or Sakamch'en de los Pobres) municipality, site of the peace talks. The Zapatistas let the troops enter the next day. [LJ 8/25/97, 8/26/97; Mexico Update (Equipo Pueblo) #137, 8/28/97 from La Reforma (Mexico) 8/26/97] Mexico's defense budget has risen by 1,000%, to $1.58 billion a year, in the last three years, a period marked by the emergence of the EZLN in January 1994 and of the Revolutionary Popular Army (EPR) in June 1996. [Inter Press Service 8/22/97] *7. HAITIAN POLITICS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE AND NEW YORK Haiti's Chamber of Deputies voted 43-9, with 9 abstentions, against President Rene Preval's nominee for prime minister, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) official Eric Pierre. As a strong proponent of neoliberal policies, Pierre was expected to run into opposition from the left wing of the governing populist Lavalas coalition, the Lavalas Family (FL) of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But deputies from the more conservative Lavalas Political Organization (OPL) finished the nomination off, possibly to punish President Preval for finally accepting the results of the disputed Apr. 6 elections, in which the FL won most of the nine Senate seats in contention [see Update #376]. Much of the fight over Pierre's confirmation centered on technicalities about his Haitian citizenship, especially a birth certificate which gave his name as "Jean Ericq Pierre." Some leftist analysts suggest that Preval may be provoking a governmental crisis so that he can dissolve Parliament and call for an extension of the United Nations military mission past its November expiration date. [Haiti Progres (NY) 8/27-9/2/97] The Haitian community in New York was the main force behind a demonstration that the New York Times says was the largest in the city since a raucous police rally in 1992. On Aug. 29 thousands of New Yorkers marched from Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall in Manhattan to protest police brutality, with a focus on charges that police in Brooklyn's 70th Precinct tortured Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by forcing the handle of a toilet plunger into his rectum, causing severe injuries to his intestines and bladder. Police estimated the crowd at 7,000, while organizers set the figure at 15,000; the Mexican daily La Jornada reported that about 10,000 attended. A group of 107 demonstrators were arrested as they were returning to Brooklyn after the rally. Police say they were blocking traffic, while the demonstrators say the police caused the incident. [NYT 8/30/97, 8/31/97; La Jornada 8/30/97] The Louima case marks the decisive entry of New York's 300,000 Haitians into local politics. Until recently the immigrants were mostly focused on returning to Haiti, but now many are becoming US citizens. Pro-police Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who justified deportations of Haitians when he was a federal prosecutor in the 1980s, is now presenting himself as a defender of Haitian rights. Giuliani is running for reelection in November. Polls show him far ahead, but three Democrats are seeking their party's nomination for the post in a Sept. 8 primary. The various candidates have been rushing to Louima's hospital bed, with Rev. Al Sharpton in the lead. An African- American Democrat with professional boxing connections, Sharpton got himself photographed with boxing promoter Don King as King handed Louima a $5,000 check. Meanwhile, Giuliani was playing on his connection to the victim's wealthy, conservative uncle, Rev. Philius Nicolas, to get Louima away from his Trinidad-born lawyers, thought to be close to the Lavalas movement. [Village Voice (NY) 9/2/97] *8. DISABLED VETERANS PROTEST IN GUATEMALA Some 100 war-wounded veterans of the Guatemalan army held a peaceful march from the military's Polytechnic School to the National Palace on Aug. 28 to demand that their monthly pensions be increased from $100 to $335; that each ex-soldier be paid a compensation of $16,666; and that when a soldier dies his disability pension be transferred to his survivors, and his burial costs covered by government insurance. Protest leader Magno Moran Solares told Agence France-Presse that the veterans had originally intended to carry out a hunger strike, but had decided not to risk their lives or cause further discomfort to those already suffering from physical disabilities. The protest was organized by the Association of Disabled Ex-Soldiers of Guatemala (ADEGUA), which represents some 2,000 former soldiers injured during the country's 36-year counterinsurgency war. "While the high-level chiefs who led the war from their barracks enjoy extraordinary and special pensions, the soldiers who left part of their bodies on the front are enjoying the benefits of poverty," reads an ADEGUA communique. [Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 8/29/97; El Diario-La Prensa 8/29/97 from AFP] *9. VENEZUELAN PRISON RIOT LEAVES 29 DEAD At least 29 inmates (42 according to some sources) were killed and another 22 were wounded (at least 13 of them very seriously) on Aug. 28 in an alleged clash between rival gangs at El Dorado, a provincial jail for highly dangerous prisoners in Venezuela's southeastern Amazon region. The situation was worsened by the fact that there are no doctors at the prison or in the nearby villages; wounded prisoners had to be transported on dirt roads 100 km north to the village of Tumeremo for treatment. Unlike most Venezuelan prisons, El Dorado is not overcrowded; in fact it currently holds some 420 inmates although it was designed for 1,300. The violence broke out in an area called the Yellow House, where prisoners are sent as punishment for bad behavior. Monica Fernandez, the Justice Ministry's director of prisons, told Associated Press that the fight began with a clash between prisoners from the east and southeast of the country ("easterners") and a group of prisoners from the northwest region who were transferred from the Sabaneta national prison last November for their involvement in riots there. The northwestern prisoners are primarily indigenous, from the Wayuu ethnic group, known as "Guajiros." [El Diario-La Prensa 8/29/97 from AP, 8/31/97 from EFE; Diario Hoy (Quito) 8/29/97 from AFP, EFE] According to another version, a group of "highly dangerous" prisoners from the "easterners" or "locals" group broke open one of their cellblock walls to escape, but clashed with the Guajiros in a violent confrontation. "The prisoners faced off with homemade knives and the National Guard had to shoot into the air several times to control the situation," said Justice Minister Hilarion Cardozo. Cardozo admitted that initial information about what happened was imprecise because the prison has no telephone and the only radio equipment that prison authorities had access to was not working. The attorney general's office has ordered an investigation into the events. [ED-LP 8/30/97 from Notimex, 8/31/97 from EFE] "It was an act of lynching planned and executed by one group of prisoners against another," Cardozo said later. "When I entered the site where the bodies were, there were no weapons there; meanwhile among those who caused this loss of life there was not a single injured person. It was a massacre." National Guard Capt. Juan Jose Delgado Gonzalez, responsible for the prison's external guard, admitted that the action was well planned by the eastern prisoners against the Guajiros over control of the prison. In an Aug. 29 letter to Caracas daily El Nacional, inmates calling themselves "the survivors" called the massacre "a product of the struggle for survival in the `Amazon Hell.'" The survivors charged that prison guards made no attempt to stop the violence, but rather withdrew from the scene so the prisoners could kill each other. Prison security personnel who requested anonymity said that the National Guard is only in charge of guarding the exterior of the prison, and that in the case of riots it can only act with authorization of the director. It is believed that the director had prior knowledge of the attack plan, in which inmates from cellblock 3 were to attack cellblock 4 to avenge the death of "easterners" leader Ely Carreno (known as "El Drogo"), who was killed in a fight with the Guajiros in late July. The letter from survivors also points out that if investigators check the files on the dead prisoners, they will find that all of them had served out their sentences more than three months earlier. [El Nacional 8/30/97] *10. PERU: TORTURED AGENT TO MEXICO, EXILE TO DENMARK On Aug. 27 the Peruvian government authorized the transfer of former Army Intelligence Service (SIE) agent Leonor La Rosa Bustamante to Mexico for rehabilitation from her torture by other SIE agents [see Updates #356, 359, 386]. The authorization, signed by President Alberto Fujimori, provides for La Rosa to receive specialized treatment in neurological physical therapy in the National Orthopedic Institute of Mexico. La Rosa is to be accompanied by her mother, Leonor Felipa Bustamante Martinez, and by the neurological doctor Silva Margarita Montano Torres of the Oscar Trelles Montes Institute of Neurological Sciences. The Peruvian state will pay $18,690 for travel expenses and all costs of the treatment. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/28/97 from Notimex] However, La Rosa expressed surprise at the news on Aug. 27, insisting that the government had not notified her of the decision. La Rosa said she had not signed any document agreeing to be sent to Mexico. [ED-LP 8/28/97 from EFE] Meanwhile, Peruvian Julian Calero Salazar left the US on Aug. 24 for Denmark, where he has been granted political asylum. The US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) released Calero last February [see Update #370] on $100,000 bail after keeping him imprisoned for nine months on the request of the Peruvian government; he was released after the Peruvian government failed to win his extradition, since it could not produce any evidence to support its charges that Calero was a member of the Maoist Peruvian Communist Party (PCP), also known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path. Calero was denied political asylum in the US, however, and was ordered to leave the country by Sept. 1. Calero's wife, Fresia Calderon, lives in Denmark, where she was previously granted asylum. [ED-LP 8/25/97] *11. EXILED PERUVIAN JOURNALIST FIGHTS EXPULSION FROM PANAMA On Aug. 29 Panama's Supreme Court of Justice declared invalid a writ of preventive habeas corpus filed on behalf of Peruvian exile journalist Gustavo Gorriti, co-director of the Panamanian daily La Prensa. Gorriti's visa expired on Aug. 28; his wife Esther and daughters Galia and Dafna flew to New York on Aug. 26 so that they would be safe from "situations of violence or mistreatment" that Gorriti feared might occur if the Panamanian government tried to deport him. On Aug. 27, Gorriti brought a sleeping bag to work and holed himself up in the newspaper's offices, where he remained as of Aug. 31 as his lawyers prepared the next fight against his ordered expulsion from Panama. Gorriti's lawyers called the Aug. 29 court ruling "excellent," since it prevented his immediate deportation. Judge Fabian Echevers said in his ruling that the Government and Justice Ministry's Migration Department had confirmed that there was no arrest order against Gorriti; therefore, his deportation would be carried out in compliance within constitutional and legal bounds- -in other words, he will not be arrested while he pursues legal appeals. [La Prensa 8/30/97; Washington Post 8/30/97 from Reuter] Panamanian journalists, politicians and others began a vigil outside the offices of La Prensa in support of Gorriti on Aug. 28. [LP 8/28/97, 8/29/97] Gorriti has also received considerable international support, and there is speculation that the Panamanian government may back down rather than risk further deterioration of its image in the international community. However, the Panamanian foreign ministry announced on Aug. 25 that President Ernesto Perez Balladares would not meet with a delegation of Peruvian opposition congresspeople who went to Panama to ask the government to change its decision and renew Gorriti's work permit. The delegation was made up of Harold Forsyth of the Union for Peru (UPP); Javier Velasquez of the Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP); and Antero Flores-Araoz of the Popular Christian Party (PPC). [LP 8/26/97] On Aug. 27, the US State Department asked the Panamanian administration to halt the deportation order. [Diario Hoy (Quito) 8/30/97 from EFE] State Department officials are also said to be exerting private pressure on the case, according to La Prensa correspondent in Washington Betty Brannan. [LP 8/30/97] When it first announced that Gorriti's work permit would not be renewed, the Labor Ministry had argued that there were dozens of Panamanian journalists who could do his job. [Diario Hoy 8/29/97 from EFE, AFP] However, as lawyer Jose Blandon Figueroa noted at a public debate on Aug. 26, the Panamanian government has failed to apply the law in other cases of work authorization. Blandon pointed to the case of US nationals Roberto Cortez, Kermith Nourse and Niles Higgins, who according to a document from the Labor Ministry "are not currently authorized to work in national territory." The three continue to work as air traffic controllers for the Panamanian government, replacing Panamanians fired for striking last November [see Update #356]. Blandon, who is representing the fired strikers, questioned the government's willingness to allow three foreigners to work without permits when it had fired 68 Panamanians trained to do the same job. [LP 8/28/97] *12. NEW INDIGENOUS PROTEST IN HONDURAS On Aug. 23 some 1,000 Hondurans from the Lenca indigenous nation arrived in Tegucigalpa for what they called the "First civic day for the dignity of the Lenca people." The Lenca held a march through the capital on Aug. 23, followed by a public meeting in which they outlined their demands to government officials and presidential candidates from the five main political parties. The Lenca are demanding land titles; the creation of a National Council of Ethnic Groups; definitive delimitation of municipalities; recognition of the National Lenca Indigenous Organization of Honduras (ONILH) as the only legal organization representing the Lenca people; and community development programs, among other demands. After the protest the Lenca returned to their communities in the departments of La Paz, Intibuca, Lempira and Francisco Morazan. [La Prensa (Honduras) 8/23/97, 8/25/97] The Lenca protest followed a much higher profile series of protests and a two-week hunger strike in Tegucigalpa by a large group of mainly Chorti indigenous people demanding land and protesting ongoing violence by landowners against Chorti activists [see Updates #393, 394]. Honduran indigenous Chorti activist Antonio Perez was ambushed and seriously injured on the night of Aug. 16 in Boca del Monte, a small village near Copan Ruinas. Perez was attacked with machetes by three unidentified assailants as he left his home to find a midwife as his wife was in the final stages of labor. His arm was nearly severed and he remained in critical condition as of Aug. 18. [Honduras Indigenous Bulletin, produced by Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (CONPAH), 8/18/97] CORRECTION: An attack against that left two CONPAH members dead and three others wounded in Yoro province occurred on Aug. 10, not on Aug. 15 as reported in Update #394. *13. US: NEW "FREE TRADE" BATTLE SHAPES UP On Aug. 23 US president Bill Clinton used his weekly radio address to call on Congress for "fast-track" authority to negotiate "tough new trade agreements" that will "keep tearing down foreign barriers to American goods and services." [New York Times 8/24/97] Clinton is expected to submit his request for the authority to Congress on Sept. 10. According to the Washington Post, Clinton wants to win the fast track "before Congress adjourns for the year so he can avoid having to wage a divisive fight in a congressional election year and so that he can have that authority in hand when he travels to Santiago, Chile, next spring for the Summit of the Americas... Democratic strategists hope to secure at least House approval before Clinton leaves for a tour of South America in mid-October." One problem for the president, a Democrat, is that he "has to cajole mostly Democrats for votes because it is they who represent the union workers and many of the border communities fearful of losing their plants under fast-track treaties." [WP 8/31/97] The liberal Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is circulating a sign-on letter to Clinton asking the president "to demonstrate moral leadership by reasserting your commitment to make protections for labor and the environment an integral part of your request to Congress for fast-track negotiating authority." The WOLA letter is much weaker than a statement issued in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, on May 15 by a number of Canadian, Latin American and US labor and civil society organizations. "There should be no FTAA agreement if it [is] to be created along the lines of other existing agreements such as NAFTA," the groups wrote, referring to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas pact and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which includes labor and environmental "side agreements" promoted by Clinton in 1993. The Belo Horizonte statement calls for trade agreements to include a Charter of Social and Economic Rights for the Citizens of the Americas; demands "genuinely democratic means" for the pacts' ratification; insists on "special attention to food security, and therefore [to] protection and support for campesinos, small-scale farmers and the social sector"; raises the question of external debt reduction as part of trade agreements; and asks for "the elimination of non-tariff barriers to legitimate trade," presumably a reference to US-sponsored embargoes against countries like Cuba. The signers included the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC), the US-based Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, Action Canada Network and the Quebec Network on Continental Integration; the groups pledged to work to defeat any agreement that failed to meet their demands. [WOLA letter and Belo Horizonte statement posted by Witness for Peace 8/28/97] CORRECTIONS: Update #395, item 4, gave incorrect dates for a 1995 meeting of Latin American military heads in Virginia; it was held July 25 and 26. Item 7 erred in the name of Mexico's president from 1934 to 1940; he was Gen. Lazaro Cardenas del Rio, not "del Rios." *14. IN OTHER NEWS... The body of radio journalist Maria Lorena Saravia was found in El Salvador on Aug. 26, two days after she disappeared. Saravia, who worked for Radio Corporacion Salvadorena (RCS), never arrived home after leaving work on Aug. 24. It was the first murder of a journalist since hostilities between rebels and the government formally ceased in 1992. [El Diario-La Prensa 8/27/97 from AP]... Some 27,000 teachers in Bogota, Colombia, began an open-ended strike on Aug. 27 demanding payment of back benefits owed, more investment in school construction and changes in promotion policies. Also on strike are workers at the Social Security Institute and soccer players with the Independiente Santafe de Bogota team. Workers at the National Telecommunications Enterprise (TELECOM) were to hold a 24-hour strike on Aug. 29 to protest the planned privatization of the long distance phone service, which is set to take effect on Dec. 15. [ED-LP 8/28/97 from AP] Meanwhile, the Colombian government sent three negotiators to Mexico on Aug. 23 to hold high level meetings with international representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). [La Jornada 8/24/97 from ANSA, DPA, EFE, AFP, Prensa Latina]... The Justice Department of Puerto Rico and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have assumed jurisdiction over the investigation into the death of Rafael Herrera, an undocumented Dominican immigrant, to determine if he died from having been beaten by agents of Puerto Rico's police. The FBI has begun to interview another seven undocumented immigrants arrested with Herrera, who are now being held at the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention center in Aguadilla. [ED-LP 8/22/97 from EFE] END For New York area events, check out the CREED NYC calendar at http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/creed.html (if you don't have web access, write for info). 1996 INDEX OUT NOW!!! ANNUAL UPDATE INDEX available for each year from 1991 through 1996. Ascii text versions free to subscribers via electronic mail. Send your request to (specify which year or years you want--each is over 100kb). Each index will be sent as a separate text message (not an attached file) unless you request otherwise. STILL AVAILABLE: "Immigration in the USA One Year After Proposition 187," a Weekly News Update on the Americas special report, dated March 1996, accompanied by a resource list and organizing leaflet. Ascii text version free to subscribers via email. Send your request to 1996 SOURCE LIST STILL AVAILABLE: A list of sources commonly-used in the Weekly News Update on the Americas, along with abbreviations and contact information. Free to subscribers. 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