Wkly Update on the Americas#404 10/26/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #404, OCTOBER 26, 1997 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Dominicans Protest Blackouts, Four Killed 2. Colombian Voters Face Government Bribes, Rebel Threats? 3. US To Step Up Colombia Intervention 4. Asian Crisis Shakes Latin American Markets 5. Argentina Prepares for Legislative Vote 6. Haiti: Smarth Walks, Mill Privatized for Peanuts 7. Mexican Union Supporters "Talk to Hyundai" 8. Mexico: DF Police Shakeup, Veracruz and Tabasco Elections 9. Peru Frees "Terrorist" Teacher 10. Germany Stifles Peru Rebel Spokesperson 11. A Million Women Demand CIA-Crack Probe 12. In Other News: Cuba, Guatemala, Venezuela, Honduras... ISSN#: 1084-922X. The Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York. 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DOMINICANS PROTEST BLACKOUTS, FOUR KILLED Five people have been killed in new street protests that erupted on Oct. 20 in the Dominican Republic, sparked by the extension of electricity blackouts to more than 16 hours a day, a cutoff in water supply, bad road conditions and the high cost of living [see Updates #398, 399, 403]. On the night of Oct. 21, Temistocles Montas, general administrator of the state-run Dominican Electricity Corporation (CDE), promised that the blackouts would be reduced by Oct. 23. However, the public remained unconvinced and the protests spread on Oct. 22 and 23, with demonstrators blocking roads, burning tires, damaging vehicles and confronting police in 40 neighborhoods of northern and eastern Santo Domingo, as well as in the provinces of Bani and Bonao. On Oct. 22 police reported that Rafael Manuel Perez Luna was killed by a bullet wound to the buttocks; that Edwin Martinez Rosa died after being shot in the forehead during a clash between police and demonstrators; and that Virgilio Jimenez died in a traffic accident at a protesters' roadblock in Sabana Perdina, in eastern Santo Domingo. However, Jimenez' body had a bullet wound in the mouth, while family members of Edwin Martinez and another victim, Eddy Paredes, charged the two were badly beaten by police after being arrested. Paredes was a popular resident of the impoverished Gualey neighborhood in Santo Domingo, and protests there intensified in response to his killing. Adolescent Marlene Santana died on Oct. 23 of asphyxia from exposure to tear gas used by police against protesters in the capital's Maria Auxiliadora neighborhood. On Oct. 22 students at the Republica Dominicana high school in the Villa Juana neighborhood in northern Santo Domingo walked out of their classrooms after a blackout to join the protests; police patrols were sent to control the situation. Students at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD) joined the protests on Oct. 23, clashing with police and burning a truck of the telephone company CODETEL (a subsidiary of the US company GTE) just outside the campus. A 48-hour national strike has been called for either Nov. 10-11 or Nov. 11-12 (sources differ on the dates) to continue the protests, and the National Coordinating Committee of Union, Grassroots and Drivers Organizations warns that "the grassroots movement will not give an inch in its struggle for better living conditions for the people." [Different sources ascribe leadership of the strike and protest movement to the above-mentioned coordinating committee, to the Coordinating Committee for Popular Struggle, or to the Board of Popular Organizations.] [El Diario- La Prensa (NY) 10/23/97 from EFE, AFP, 10/24/97 from AFP, 10/25/97 from correspondent] On Oct. 24, President Leonel Fernandez took over the administration of the CDE and promised that in 120 days he would put an end to the blackouts. The decision came after a meeting between Fernandez and the board of directors of the state-owned monopoly; the meeting was broadcast by a radio and television network. The country's energy crisis has been provoked by a more than eight-month long drought; technical problems with the private energy producing companies Destec and Smith and Enron; and an estimated 20% increase in consumption. Fernandez has called CDE authorities to a meeting with representatives of the private energy producing firms to demand an explanation of why their generators have gone off-line in recent days, and of what guarantees they will make to improve their service. Fernandez said that the government and the CDE have contracted with a French and a German firm to install new facilities within 120 days; he said he would personally supervise the construction of the new facilities. [ED-LP 10/25/97 from correspondent] *2. COLOMBIAN VOTERS FACE GOVERNMENT BRIBES, REBEL THREATS? Regional elections are being held in Colombia on Oct. 26, despite an armed strike by leftist rebels and the withdrawal of more than 300 mayoral candidates and more than 10,000 council candidates due to threats. On Oct. 24, the first day of the armed strike, 25 bombs exploded throughout the country and 13 people died in armed conflicts. In addition to ballots to choose 1,071 mayors, 32 governors, 500 deputies and 11,000 council members, Colombians can request an additional ballot for "The Citizen Mandate for Peace, Life and Liberty," a referendum on peace promoted by civic organizations and supported by UNICEF [see "Colombia's War Overshadows Hope for Peace Talks," Update supplement 9/21/97]. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 10/25/97] On Oct. 23, rebels from the National Liberation Army (ELN) kidnapped two election observers from the Organization of American States (OAS)--Chilean citizen Raul Martinez and Guatemalan citizen Manfredo Marroquin--along with Colombian Juan Diego Ardila, a member of the Human Rights Commission of Antioquia department, while the three were traveling in San Carlos municipality in Antioquia. In a communique handed to the driver who was transporting the observers, the ELN's Carlos Alirio Buitrago Front took responsibility for the kidnapping and said the observers would be released the following week after the armed strike ends. Foreign minister Maria Emma Mejia and the rest of Samper's cabinet immediately offered to trade places with the kidnapped observers. "It is impossible that the international community should perceive that here in Colombia we don't even respect the sacred character of an international observer," said Mejia. From its headquarters in Washington, the OAS demanded the immediate release of its kidnapped members. OAS spokesperson Jorge Telerman told Buenos Aires daily Clarin that the kidnapping was the worst incident the organization has faced since the end of the cold war. In a communique issued on Oct. 24, the ELN called the kidnapping a "political-military action to sabotage the elections." [Clarin 10/24/97, 10/25/97] Antioquia governor Alvaro Uribe Velez escaped unhurt on Oct. 25 from a rebel attack in San Francisco municipality, in the same area where the OAS observers were kidnapped. A priest was killed in the same attack. [Clarin 10/26/97] The ELN is demanding the demilitarization of four Antioquia municipalities, including San Francisco, before it will free the two OAS observers. [Diario Los Andes (Mendoza, Argentina) 10/26/97 from Reuter, AFP; El Tiempo (Bogota) 10/26/97] The government is pressuring candidates and poll workers to keep participating in the elections, and has finally given in to demands to provide each of the 350,000 poll workers with a life insurance policy equivalent to 48 minimum monthly salaries, about $8,000. At the same time, the government is trying to encourage voting by offering a series of incentives to people who vote, including priority entry into university and a 10% discount on tuition; priority in public administration jobs; priority in government credits for housing; a one to two month reduction in obligatory military service; and a half day of paid vacation for public and private workers. The government will also award $500,000 to the municipality with the highest level of voter participation. [Clarin 10/25/97] Another less subtle form of persuasion is being exercised in some areas by rightwing paramilitary groups. In a communique circulating in the municipality of Mistrato, Risaralda department, the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC) urged people to vote and threatened retaliation against those who abstain. A communique circulating in the same town from the Oscar William Calvo front of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) made similar threats against all those who vote. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 10/23/97] Meanwhile, the Pascual Bravo Technical Institute, an all-male public high school in Medellin, has been shut down since Oct. 8, when a video forum on revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara sparked a riot and students armed with rocks and firecrackers clashed with police and army units. Male and female students from other high schools reportedly also participated in the riot. Classes are set to resume on Oct. 28. [EC 10/23/97] *3. US TO STEP UP COLOMBIA INTERVENTION On Oct. 20, some 100 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ambushed a group of high-ranking anti-drug police who had just finished destroying a cocaine processing laboratory in Puerto Toledo municipality and were starting to board five police helicopters to leave the area. National anti- narcotics police commander Col. Leonardo Gallego escaped unhurt in one of the helicopters, but his right-hand collaborator, regional anti-narcotics commander Maj. Jairo Alberto Castro, was killed, along with another officer. The attack took place just a day before Gallego planned to take US anti-drug chief Barry McCaffrey to visit the site. [Clarin 10/21/97; Reuter 10/20/97] On Oct. 19, McCaffrey visited a US radar station on the outskirts of the Amazon jungle town of Leticia, strategically located close to the shared borders with Peru and Brazil and a major cocaine production and transshipment point. McCaffrey also inspected a military base in the area and met with Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri and Foreign Minister Maria Emma Mejia. US officials will not say how many radar stations the US has in Colombia and the size of the US contingent that operates them. However, a Western diplomat recently told Reuter that at least 40 US military personnel and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents are based in Leticia alone. Leftist rebels say they have detected at least 14 US radar stations and bases in Colombia, and that US agents are providing counterinsurgency training to the military as well as taking a frontline role in the so-called war against drugs. US anti-drug aid to Colombia this year was more than $80 million, including extra assistance for the purchase of helicopters and other equipment [see Update #403]. [Reuter 10/19/97] In a speech on Oct. 20 at a Bogota military academy, McCaffrey said both the FARC and the ELN were infested with "narco- corrupted cadres that have turned revolution into little more than a grab for drug dollars." According to Eduardo Gamarra, a Florida-based Latin American political analyst, McCaffrey is deliberately blurring the lines between the war on drugs and Colombia's counter-insurgency war. "What US policy is angling toward is a greater presence of US counterinsurgency advisers in Colombia," explained Gamarra, adding that a large number of US military advisers are already providing counter-insurgency assistance in Colombia. [Reuter 10/20/97] Colombian armed forces commander Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett Locarno announced on Oct. 22 that he had been given the go-ahead to use US anti-drug aid to fight leftist rebels. Speaking the day after McCaffrey ended his three-day visit to Colombia, Bonett said he expected the US Congress might even approve a specific counterinsurgency package for Colombia. "The US can give all the aid it likes for counternarcotics operations, and now there's a strategic alliance between drug traffickers and guerrillas," Bonett told reporters. "Basically all the money that the United States gives now is for fighting drug trafficking and the narco- guerrillas," he added. "I don't think the day is far away when [the US] Congress decides to back our struggle against the guerrillas," Bonett said. The terms of the so-called End Use Monitoring Agreement, which governs the implementation of US aid, allows anti-drug funds to be used against guerrilla forces that are suspected of links to the drug trade, McCaffrey said. [Reuter 10/22/97] During the week of Oct. 20, a US House-Senate conference was expected to consider a proposal by the House leadership to give Colombian anti-narcotics police an additional $50 million for four Blackhawk helicopters and related aid. [Associated Press 10/18/97] *4. ASIAN CRISIS SHAKES LATIN AMERICAN MARKETS Key indexes in Brazilian stock markets fell by about 8% on Oct. 23 in response to a 10.4% plunge in Hong Kong earlier in the day. Mexican stocks went down by 4.5%. Markets in Asia and Europe stabilized on Oct. 24, but Latin American stocks continued to fall; Brazil's by 3% and Mexico's by 2.7%. The Asian crisis started with currency problems in Thailand in July and has spread to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and now Hong Kong. International lending institutions have reacted with a $17 billion credit line to Thailand, the second largest bailout in history; the largest was the $40 billion credit line extended to Mexico in 1995, following the December 1994 collapse of the peso. [New York Times 10/24/97, 10/25/97] The weakness in Southeast Asia's economies--until this year considered the strongest in the Third World--has made investors nervous about Latin America. "People may end up saying that because things are bad in China, they don't want to lend money in Brazil," says Rajeev Bhaman, co-manager of the Oppenheimer Developing Markets fund. "The question is: do you want to get out of the way of a falling safe, even though you know there's lots of money in it," Robert Swift of Putnam Investments told the New York Times. A special concern is the Brazilian real. "Brazil has a current account deficit [and] a fiscal deficit, and the real is currently overvalued," Angeline Ee, co-manager of the Montgomery Emerging Market fund, explained on Oct. 23. "I think that is why it was hit so hard today." [NYT 10/24/97] Meanwhile, Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who created the real in 1994 when he was finance minister, is pushing ahead with his ambitious privatization plan. Communications Minister Sergio Motta announced on Oct. 23 that the government plans to sell its 53.3% stake in the state telecommunications company, Telebras, in the first half of 1998. Analysts expect the government to get $130 billion from the sale, one of the largest privatizations ever. [NYT 10/24/97 from Dow Jones] *5. ARGENTINA PREPARES FOR LEGISLATIVE VOTE Some nine million voters are expected to go to the polls on Oct. 26 in Argentina to elect candidates to fill 129 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. [El Nacional (Venezuela) 10/26/97] Two different polls published two days before the elections showed the Alliance--which was formed in August by the two main opposition parties, the social democratic Radical Civic Union (UCR) and the center-left Front for a Country in Solidarity (FREPASO)--ahead of the ruling Justicialist Party (PJ, Peronist) nationally. When voter intentions for the Alliance were combined with those for the UCR and FREPASO separately, the opposition parties led the PJ by about 10 percentage points. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 10/24/97] Polls show the Alliance and the PJ virtually tied in Buenos Aires province, which has about one third of the electorate. The Buenos Aires provincial elections have focused attention on the two candidates who head their parties' lists for the deputy seats: the Alliance's Graciela Fernandez Meijide, who became a human rights activist after military death squads disappeared her son Pablo in 1976, and Hilda "Chiche" Duhalde, wife of Buenos Aires governor Eduardo Duhalde, the PJ's leading contender to succeed President Carlos Saul Menem in the 1999 presidential elections. Gov. Duhalde accompanied his wife, previously a retiring housewife, as she campaigned in a car known as the "Duhaldemobile." The left accuses the Alliance of being a redundant variant of "Menemism," adopting such elements of the president's neoliberal policies as the pegging of the currency to the US dollar. "I can't discuss these criticisms," Fernandez Meijide told the left- leaning daily Clarin. "For some reason, they don't have a single seat in the legislature." Polls show the main leftist coalition, the United Left, with less than 1%, short of the 3% required to get a seat in the legislature. "[T]he major difference between us and [the PJ]," Fernandez Meijide told the New York Times, "is that we recognize...the shortcomings" of Menem's economic program. "It does not address the poor, the jobless, and the inequity that exists in Argentine society." [Clarin 10/23/97, 10/24/97, NYT 10/26/97] *6. HAITI: SMARTH WALKS, MILL PRIVATIZED FOR PEANUTS Acting Haitian prime minister Rosny Smarth announced on Oct. 20 that he would no longer head a caretaker government, as he had since June 9, when he formally resigned but agreed to serve as acting prime minister until a replacement was approved. President Rene Preval nominated Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) official Ericq Pierre on July 25, but has made no new nominations since the Parliament rejected Pierre in late August [see Updates #385, 392, 396]. In an effort to fight a tradition of powerful presidents, the 1987 Constitution reserves a number of important functions for the prime minister, so that Smarth's decision creates a governmental crisis. Many in Haiti suspect that Smarth's act was related to a quick visit to Haiti on Oct. 17 by US secretary of state Madeleine Albright. "Obviously Haiti is one of our big successes," a State Department official said to announce Albright's visit. "But there are challenges that remain there. She was passing by Haiti and decided that it would be a good idea to divert her travel." Albright made it clear that the US had had enough of the delays in appointing a new prime minister. "Disputes in Parliament are the lifeblood of democracy," she said at a meeting with legislators, "but Haiti has gone too long with its government at a standstill." Albright also confirmed that Canadian and Pakistani troops under United Nations command will begin leaving the country on Dec. 1, the day after the UN mandate ends, although the withdrawal will take at least until Feb. 28, 1998. Some 500 soldiers from the US Special Forces are expected to remain until 2000; these troops are not under UN command but are ostensibly in the country to provide help building schools and repairing roads. Albright announced that the US was giving the Haitian National Police (PNH) bulletproof vests, gas masks and four specialized vehicles. Before leaving office, Smarth finally managed to carry out the first sale in a controversial privatization program demanded by the US and the international lending institutions. On Oct. 14 two US agribusiness giants, Seaboard Corporation of Kansas and the Continental Grain Company of New York, joined the Haitian banking firm Unifinance to purchase 70% ownership in the state grain milling company, the Minoterie. The investors paid $8.4 million. Wilfrid Joseph and Louis Metellus, heads of the Minoterie workers' union, noted that the enterprise spent $13 million on repairs in 1977, and another $19 million in 1985 and 1986 for repairs and expansion. "Now you sell it for $9 million; that's a catastrophe, it's completely incomprehensible," they said. [Haiti Progres (NY) 10/22-28/97] *7. MEXICAN UNION SUPPORTERS "TALK TO HYUNDAI" Labor rights activists scheduled leafleting on Oct. 25 in 25 US cities to kick off a boycott of Hyundai Motors called by the San Diego-based Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers (SCMW). The boycotters are protesting the firing of workers who back an independent union at the Han Young de Mexico plant near Tijuana in Mexico's northwestern state of Baja California Norte. Han Young produces exclusively for Hyundai, which under Mexican labor law is therefore responsible for labor code violations at Han Young [see Updates #394, 402, 403]. As of Oct. 22 Han Young seemed to have suspended the firings, which had been going at a rate of two a day earlier in the month. Despite a management attempt to rig the election, Han Young workers voted overwhelmingly on Oct. 6 to join the Union of Metal, Steel and Iron Industry Workers (STIMAHCS), a member of the Authentic Labor Front (FAT). Lawyers for the workers filed a criminal action on Oct. 22 against fraudulent voters in the Oct. 6 election. The Tijuana branch of the National Conciliation and Arbitration Board (JNCA) has still not certified the election. Han Young's employees were the first workers in the huge maquiladora zone along the Mexico-US border to form an independent union; most maquiladora workers belong to company unions or to unions affiliated with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The Canadian Labor Congress, the European-based International Metalworkers Federation and the US- based AFL-CIO have all provided some type of support for the Han Young workers. Federal law bars US unions from organizing secondary boycotts. The US-based Campaign for Labor Rights (CLR) has prepared an action packet, and activists are preparing "Boycott Hyundai" bumper stickers. The CLR suggests calling local Hyundai dealerships to demand an end to the illegal firings, reinstatement of the fired workers and respect for the workers' right to join the union of their choice. Hyundai can also be reached through the "Talk to Hyundai" feature on its web site (http://www.hmaservice.com). The SCMW is tied up with the campaign and asks that requests for more information go to CLR at 541-344-5410, , http://www.compugraph.com/clr. [Labor Alerts/Labor News (Campaign for Labor Rights) 10/22/97, 10/25/97] *8. MEXICO: DF POLICE SHAKEUP, VERACRUZ AND TABASCO ELECTIONS Mexico City forensic experts announced on Oct. 15 that DNA tests showed that three badly decomposed bodies found south of the capital on Sept. 29 belonged to three of six youths detained by the police in a sweep on the night of Sept. 8 in the Buenos Aires and Doctores neighborhoods after a confused incident in which one police agent and one civilian were shot dead [see Updates #398, 399, 401]. The bodies of the three others were identified earlier. All six youths appeared to have been executed, and as of Oct. 15 total of 25 police agents had been arrested for murder. [La Jornada (Mexico) 10/16/97] The agents belonged to the 135-member Special Strike Force (GED), better known as the "Jaguars." On Oct. 17 Brig. Gen. Enrique Tomas Salgado Cordero, head of the Federal District Public Security Secretariat (SSP), announced that the group had been dissolved. [LJ 10/18/97] Opposition leaders declared the move a "smokescreen" for continued police repression. Armando Quintero Martinez, president of the Mexico City branch of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), said on Oct. 18 that the PRD's Cuauhtemoc Cardenas Solorzano would start an investigation of Gen. Salgado and district attorney Lorenzo Thomas after assuming the mayor's office on Dec. 5. But Quintero said the police sweeps may continue under Cardenas' government. [LJ 10/19/97] The PRD won the capital on July 6 in a vote which also brought ended the PRI's 68-year old majority in the federal Chamber of Deputies. The opposition continued to gain in a local vote on Oct. 19 in the populous Caribbean coast state of Veracruz. The PRI won 38.9% of the 2.2 million votes cast, followed by the PRD with 30.09% and the conservative National Action Party (PAN) with 20.09%. But the opposition parties won the most important cities. The PRD took Jalapa, the capital, along with Coatzacoalcos, Minatitlan and Cosoleacaque in the state's oil-producing region; the PAN held on to the port of Veracruz, which it won in 1994. The PRD will govern about 34% of the state's population and the PAN will govern some 32%. The abstention rate was 52.5%. The opposition gains may affect the plans of Governor Patricio Chirinos to seek a national position after his term expires next year. But the opposition lost heavily in a local vote the same day in the southeastern state of Tabasco, where the PRI took all 17 municipalities in what Mexicans call a carro completo (full car). This was a blow for the PRD, which lost all four of the municipalities it won in previous elections, and especially for the PRD's Tabasco-born national president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who called the vote the "most fraudulent" since President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon took office in December 1994. One of the state electoral board's "citizen advisers," Joaquin Diaz Esnaurrizar, charged that the PRI had illegally used its control of the state government to win; he expressed surprise that the PRD did as well under the circumstances as it did, losing by just 5-8% in some municipalities. Current governor Roberto Madrazo Pintado defeated Lopez Obrador in November 1994 after a campaign in which the PRI spent at least $38 million, according to the federal attorney general's office (PGR). This would be about 30 times the legal limit [see Updates #281, 332]. [LJ 10/19/97, 10/21/97, 10/25/97; Clarin 10/21/97; Reuter 10/19/97] *9. PERU FREES "TERRORIST" TEACHER On Oct. 16, the Peruvian government freed Maria Elena Loayza, a university teacher who had been wrongly imprisoned for terrorism since 1993 after confessing under torture to being a member of the Maoist Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path). The release was in compliance with a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. "I am innocent, but nobody can give me back the time I have lost in this prison," said Loayza as she left the Chorrillos women's prison in Lima. The Costa Rica-based rights court, an arm of the Organization of American States (OAS), had ruled on Sept. 20 that Loayza should be freed because she had been arbitrarily detained, tortured and raped by Peru's anti-terrorist police, and was systematically tortured "with the aim of having her declare herself guilty and confess to belonging to the Communist Party of Peru." The ruling also ordered the government to pay damages to Loayza and her family and to reimburse them for the cost of their lengthy judicial battle. In her testimony, Loayza recalled being blindfolded, tied up and taken with other detainees to a beach, where she was beaten, stripped, raped and held underwater until she lost consciousness. Loayza was absolved by a military court but then convicted on terrorism charges by anonymous judges in a faceless civilian court and sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. The ruling marked the first time an international court had overturned a conviction by Peru's "faceless" courts. On Oct. 15, Peru allowed the mandate of its secret courts to lapse [see Update #402]. [Reuter 10/16/97; DESCO Resumen Semanal #940, 10/15-21/97] Meanwhile, on Oct. 18--a day after Interior Minister Gen. Jose Villanueva Ruesta had discounted any resurgence in rebel activity--a column of 30 PCP guerrillas shot to death three top police officials of the National Anti-Drug Division (DINANDRO) in the forest region of Tingo Maria. The officials killed were DINANDRO regional operations commander Walter Esquivel and police majors Luis Castillo and Luis Caceres. The officials were en route to Aguaytia, in Pucallpa, to establish a new anti-drug police base. [El Colombiano 10/20/97 from AFP; DESCO Resumen Semanal #940, 10/15-21/97] *10. GERMANY STIFLES PERU REBEL SPOKESPERSON On Sept. 12, the Interior Ministry of Germany's Hamburg state ordered a "restriction on political activity" by Hamburg resident Isaac Velazco, European spokesperson for Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Velazco is accused of having "damaged the foreign policy interests of the Federal Republic of Germany" in his media interviews. In newspaper and TV interviews during the MRTA's occupation of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru, Velazco had refused to distance himself from the rebel action, and had warned that the MRTA had plans for further actions if the embassy were to be stormed by force. According to German authorities, Velazco "publicly supported and approved of the use of violent means to achieve political ends" by making such statements. The push to ban Velazco's public statements on behalf of the MRTA came at the request of German federal Interior Minister Manfred Kanther, who was acting on a "request" from Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori. Velazco's lawyer, Harmut Jacobi, plans to appeal the ruling. [Initiative "Kein Maulkorb fur Isaac Velazco", no date, posted by Arm the Spirit] On Oct. 14 Japan began demolishing the bombed-out and gutted diplomatic residence in Lima, empty since the Peruvian government stormed it and killed all of the 14 MRTA rebels inside on Apr. 22. The colonnaded home was built as a replica of the mansion in the US movie "Gone with the Wind." The demolition was expected to last three days; authorities of the San Isidro neighborhood want to turn the the 6,000 square meter lot into a peace park, but Tokyo has not yet said what it will do with the site, estimated to be worth at least $4 million. [Reuter 10/14/97] Some 500 teachers working in mining camps run by the state-run Centromin Peru company went on strike Oct. 14 to demand job security, salaries on a par with other teachers, and payment of bonuses owed to them since 1993. Centromin is refusing to discuss the matter, arguing that the schools have since been transferred to the authority of the Education Ministry. Parents and students in the mining camps are sharing food with the striking teachers and accompanied them to the outskirts of town on Oct. 21 as the teachers began a march to Lima. Some of the supportive parents include miners who helped dig tunnels that were used for the government's Apr. 22 siege on the rebel-held compound. "We answered the call of the government when they asked us to build tunnels to rescue the 72 hostages from the Japanese ambassador's residence, but now they are refusing to answer the just demands of the teachers of our children," said one miner who had worked on the secret project. [La Republica 10/22/97] *11. A MILLION WOMEN DEMAND CIA-CRACK PROBE A call for a serious investigation of links between the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and drug trafficking was the lead issue on the platform of the Million Woman March held in Philadelphia on Oct. 25. The march, organized largely by grassroots African-American women's groups, supported a platform of 12 issues; the first was "[n]ational support for Congresswoman Maxine Waters in the efforts to effectively bring about a probe into the CIA's participation [in] and its relationship to the influx of drugs into the African-American community." [Million Woman March web site, http://members.aol.com/lilbitz/platform.htm] Rep. Waters (D-CA) first called for the probe after an August 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose, California documented the role of the CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan contras in the Los Angeles crack trade in the early 1980s [see Update #347]. The US government and mainstream media insist, in the words of the New York Times, that "[n]o evidence has linked the agency to such activity." Philadelphia police estimated unofficially that 300,000 people attended the march, despite intermittent rain; organizers say as many as 1.5 million took part. [NYT 10/26/97] *12. IN OTHER NEWS... Elections were held on Oct. 19 in Cuba for 14,533 delegates to the country's 169 Municipal Assemblies of Popular Power. Runoff elections are being held Oct. 26 in 1,098 races where no candidate won more than 50% of the vote in the Oct. 19 balloting. On Oct. 24 the government announced that provincial and national elections will be held on Jan. 11, ten days before the scheduled visit of Pope John Paul II. This will be the second time that direct elections are held in Cuba to elect the national legislature. The first time was in 1993 after changes were made to the electoral code. After the new national parliament is elected, its deputies will elect the members of the Council of State. [El Universal (Caracas) 10/26/97]... Five alleged cattle thieves were burned alive by a lynch mob in the Guatemalan municipality of Comitancillo, San Marcos province, on Oct. 21. A crowd of about 1,000 people gathered in front of the town jail, where they seized the five prisoners and took them to a soccer field, then doused them with gasoline and set them on fire. [Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 10/22/97] A group of 500 people held a march on Oct. 20 in Almolonga municipality, Quetzaltenango, to protest the Oct. 12 lynching of students Jesus Galileo and Miguel Feruccio Macario Mazariegos by a mob who confused them with criminals. The demonstrators broke bus windows and yelled insults at a group of vendors they believed responsible for the lynching. [PL 10/21/97]... Some 15,000 people marched on Oct. 20 in Guatemala City to commemorate the 53rd anniversary of their country's 1944 revolution, and to criticize the economic policies of the current government. "No to privatization, yes to social justice," chanted participants in the five kilometer march to the government palace in the center of the capital. Participating in the march were a number of grassroots, labor and student organizations; for the first time the former guerrilla Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) also participated openly. [La Prensa (Honduras) 10/21/97 from AFP]... One year after 25 prisoners were killed in a fire at La Planta prison in Venezuela, some 1,600 prisoners at the facility ended five days of hunger strike on Oct. 21 after the government signed an agreement on their demands and fired four prison officials. The prisoners had demanded the removal of prison director Gustavo Blanco, saying that he and the guards maintained a regime of terror, punished prisoners unfairly and humiliated their relatives. [El Universal 10/22/97; El Colombiano 10/26/97] On Oct. 13, Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice responded to a 12-year old petition and eliminated the notorious "Vagrancy Act" as unconstitutional. Local human rights groups praised the law's demise as a step forward for human rights in Venezuela; criminologist Elio Gomez Grillo said the law was anachronistic and inhumane, granting police the power to arrest joggers, unemployed people, cyclists and drunks. The Network of Support for Justice and Peace (REDEPAZ) has recorded more than 119 cases of individuals killed at the hands of state security forces in different circumstances from January to August of this year. [El Universal 10/20/97, 10/24/97, 10/26/97]... On Oct. 21, the Honduran military handed over control of the country's Public Security Force (FSP) to civilian control. In the ceremony held at a military school, armed forces chief Gen. Mario Raul Hung Pacheco passed authority over the police forces to President Carlos Roberto Reina, who in turn handed the responsibility over to Hernan Corrales Padilla, head of the National Board of Transfer, a body set up to handle the changeover. [La Prensa (Honduras) 10/22/97] 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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