Wkly Update on the Americas #406 11/9/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #406, NOVEMBER 9, 1997 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Campesino Debtors March in El Salvador 2. Cuban Emigres Arrested for Anti-Castro Plot 3. US Citizen Tried in Cuba 4. Armed Attack on Mexican Liberation Bishop 5. Mexico: US "Drug War" in Acapulco, Sky Lord's Doctors Die 6. Colombian Indigenous Leaders Murdered 7. Brazil: Indigenous Lands Demarcated 8. Grassroots Organizer Murdered in Brazil 9. "No Brainer" Trade Bills in Trouble 10. "Free Trade": Spin Doctors Work on Sweatshops 11. Chilean President Rejects Army Promotion 12. In Other News: Haiti, Ibero-American Summit, Venezuela 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. CAMPESINO DEBTORS MARCH IN EL SALVADOR More than 5,000 campesinos demonstrated on Nov. 6 in El Salvador's capital to demand that President Armando Calderon Sol give his approval to a debt forgiveness law approved by the opposition-dominated Congress on Oct. 30. The law would benefit 45,000 small, medium and large-scale farmers with agricultural debts estimated to total more than $168 million. It forgives the debts of producers whose total amount owed is not greater than $57,339; those with larger debts can only cancel 7% over a 12- year period, with a two-year grace period and 6% annual interest. According to congressional deputies, the agrarian debt is keeping more than 100,000 Salvadoran families in poverty. "Our struggle is for justice, and this demonstration has as its only demand that the president not veto the law," campesino leader Marcos Salazar told Agence France-Presse. The march, called by the Salvadoran Agricultural Front (FAS), departed from near the Flor Blanca stadium in western San Salvador, and ended up in front of the main government building, where authorities met with campesino representatives. There were no incidents. The rightwing ruling Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) rejected the debt forgiveness initiative, arguing that the resulting reduction in resources will make it difficult to pay bonds to people affected by the agrarian reform of the early 1980s. Before leaving for the Central American presidential summit held in Santo Domingo Nov. 5-7, President Calderon told the press that he will make his decision after he returns and studies the decree. [La Prensa (Honduras) 11/7/97 from AFP] *2. CUBAN EMIGRES ARRESTED FOR ANTI-CASTRO PLOT On Oct. 28, the US Coast Guard detained a 46-foot boat registered in Florida off the coast of Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. A search of the vessel revealed a hidden compartment containing two Barrett 50-calibre semi-automatic assault rifles with telescopic sights and seven boxes of ammunition. The rifles are reportedly powerful enough to down a plane. Coast Guard officials arrested the boat's crew of four Cuban emigres: Angel Manuel Alfonso, Angel Hernandez Rojo, Juan Bautista Marquez and Francisco Secundino Cordova. Two of them live in Miami; at least one lives in New Jersey. During the arrest, Alfonso reportedly admitted that the four were on their way to the Venezuelan island of Margarita, where the weapons were supposed to be used to try to kill Cuban president Fidel Castro, who would be there for the 7th Iberoamerican Summit held Nov. 7-9 [see item #13]. The story broke in the Miami Herald on Oct. 31; the newspaper said it had obtained a copy of testimony presented by customs inspector Ismael Padilla to a federal judge on Oct. 30. According to Padilla's testimony, cited by the Miami Herald, Alfonso started to talk about the plot against Castro when another customs agent, Marco Rocco, began telling the detainees their rights as they were being arrested. The four men were detained after they were forced to seek help because of problems with the motors on the boat, "La Esperanza." The Coast Guard towed them to the Aguadilla police department's maritime station in northwest Puerto Rico. The Cuban-Americans claimed they were en route to St. Lucia to hand over the boat to a buyer, but a search by customs inspectors turned up the weapons. [El Universal (Venezuela) 11/1/97; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 11/1/97 from correspondent; Prensa Latina (Cuba), undated, probably 11/4/97] On Nov. 1, the Miami Herald reported that "La Esperanza" belongs to Juan Antonio Llama, a member of the board of directors of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) headed by Jorge Mas Canosa. According to maritime records, the boat is registered in the name of Nautical Sports, an export company for which Llama serves as director, president and treasurer. [La Jornada (Mexico) 11/2/97 from AFP, EFE, Reuter, DPA, PL] The US federal prosecutor's office in Puerto Rico is collecting evidence and considering whether to take the case to a federal grand jury, to charge the four detainees with conspiring to kill a person and with violation of weapons laws. Prosecutors office spokesperson Rosa Rodriguez explained that Section 956 of the US Criminal Code prohibits conspiracy to kill a person, even if the murder is to be committed outside US territory. Judge Jesus Castellanos of the US district court in San Juan evaluated the charges on Oct. 30 and found cause for the charges of weapons law violations, but asked the prosecutor's office to present more evidence to support the story of a plot to kill Castro. The judge's decision allows the prosecutor to present the case before the grand jury, which will determine if there is cause to try the accused on the charges. If charged and found guilty, the four Cuban-Americans could face five years in prison for violating weapons laws and life in prison for conspiring to commit a murder. However, the federal prosecutor's office said on Oct. 31 that for the moment it would not seek to charge the four with intent to murder. A judge set bail for the detainees at $50,000 and $30,000, on charges of illegal possession and trafficking of arms. The four Cuban-Americans were detained in Guaynabo federal prison; Alfonso and Hernandez got out after paying bail on the night of Oct. 31, but were quickly rearrested after the prosecutor revoked bail privileges. [EU 11/1/97; ED-LP 11/1/97 & 11/4/97 from correspondent; PL undated] The case has caused a scandal in Puerto Rico because of the secrecy surrounding the dealings of the US agents and the lack of information given to the media in the days immediately following the arrests. [EU 11/1/97; ED-LP 11/1/97 from correspondent] The Cuban state-run newspaper Granma picked up the story on Nov. 4, reporting that the four detainees are being investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Customs Service. [ED-LP 11/5/97 from Notimex] On Nov. 3 on Margarita Island, agents of Venezuela's political police (DISIP) arrested a group of anti-Castro Cuban emigres and dissidents and expelled them from the island. Those expelled were members of the "Cuban Democratic Platform," a group made up of the Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Coordinating Committee and the Cuban Christian Democratic Party; the individuals were author Carlos Alberto Montaner, Manuel Barba, Roberto Fontanillas, Julio Hernandez, Emilio Martinez-Venegas, Julio Mestre, Jose Ignacio Rasco and Rafael Sanchez. The DISIP troops, armed with rifles, used force to enter the apartment where the emigres were meeting, and confiscated all the documents the emigres planned to give to presidents meeting at the summit. Among the documents was a letter sent from Cuba by several dissidents still living in Cuba. [Press Release from Cuban Christian Democratic Party 11/4/97, posted by and distributed by CubaNet] *3. US CITIZEN TRIED IN CUBA US citizen Walter Van Der Veer has been tried in Cuba, charged with planning to instigate an armed revolt in Pinar del Rio province, in western Cuba, and to commit attacks against various targets in Cuba. The prosecution finally decided not to request the death penalty, and instead has requested a 20-year prison sentence, the maximum allowable in Cuba. Trials in Cuba generally end at a point called "ready for sentencing," which is followed by a period of hours or several days before the verdict and sentence are announced. A representative of the US Interests Section also attended the hearing and, for the first time, Cuban government authorities allowed Van Der Veer's US lawyer, Dominick Salfi, to be present at the trial as an observer. In an unusual communique from the US Interests Section in Havana, the US government expressed its concern about Van Der Veer's case, and complained that Cuban authorities have not let a US consular representative meet with Van Der Veer since Sept. 24. The communique pointed out that Van Der Veer's Cuban defense lawyer did not call any defense witnesses to testify and that he did not appear to consult with Van Der Veer during the trial. Van Der Veer was arrested on Aug. 21, 1996. The only weapon he was found with was a knife; it appears that he was primarily equipped for propaganda actions with materials like flags, and pamphlets signed by the "Cuban Liberation Front." [ED-LP 11/8/97 from AFP; Washington Post 11/7/97 from Reuter] In other news, a boat carrying 40 Cuban emigres and Cuban- Americans set off on Nov. 1 from Florida toward the edge of Cuban territorial waters, where they planned to use lasers to write the word "democracy" in the sky in the hopes of drawing the attention of the thousands of young people who spend their Saturday nights hanging out on the Malecon, the Havana waterfront. [LJ 11/2/97 from AFP, EFE, Reuter, DPA, PL] *4. ARMED ATTACK ON MEXICAN LIBERATION BISHOP In the early evening of Nov. 4 unknown assailants fired at a caravan carrying Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia and Adjunct Bishop Raul Vera Lopez, both of San Cristobal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas. The vehicle with the two bishops was not hit, but three members of the group of 60 campesinos and religious workers accompanying them were wounded. The bishops had celebrated mass at the community of Guadalupe Jolnapa, Tila municipality, in the northern part of the state, and were near the community of El Crucero, known as a center of activities for the rightwing paramilitary group known as "Peace and Justice." [La Jornada (Mexico) 11/5/97; National Commission for Mediation (CONAI) communique 11/4/97; Fray Bartolome Human Rights Center Communique 11/5/97] Local authorities quickly began circulating a story, supposedly from the caravan's police escort, that Ruiz had arranged for a fake assault. State attorney general Marco Antonio Bezares denied the rumor. Both the state and federal governments officially deplored the attack. Two days later, on Nov. 6, Ruiz's sister, Maria de la Luz Ruiz, was assaulted in the bishop's residence in San Cristobal by a young man, Miguel Mendez, described as the son of a friend of the family. Mendez hit Maria de la Luz Ruiz three times with a hammer; her skull was fractured and she is expected to be hospitalized for a week. The police quickly apprehended Mendez, who told the agents that Bishop Ruiz has been "stirring up the indigenous people" and that "[s]omeone has to pay." Hours later he attempted suicide in jail, trying to cut his throat with a mirror. [Clarin 11/7/97] Chiapas landowners and other conservative sectors connected with the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have opposed Ruiz for decades because of his support for the social struggles of the state's indigenous campesinos; since 1994 they have also accused him of commanding the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), which staged an insurrection on Jan. 1 of that year. The northern part of the state has for more than a year been the site of a virtual civil war between paramilitary groups and supporters of the EZLN and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). A caravan bringing aid from the US- based group Pastors for Peace was attacked in the same region in December 1996, with no injuries [see Update #359, 372, 394]. [Fray Bartolome Human Rights Center Communique 11/5/97] Over the past year at least 4,120 campesinos have fled northern Chiapas, according to church officials. "The region has turned into a kind of laboratory to experiment with paramilitarism," says anthropologist Andres Aubry, who called Peace and Justice supporters "mercenaries" suspected of being backed "by powerful interests, probably landowners, business people and some politicians. The government's attitude has been to ignore what's going on." [Dallas Morning News 11/6/97] Meanwhile, the Mexican government is under growing pressure on its human rights record. The Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), a non-governmental organization (NGO), has filed petitions with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) around two incidents, the killing of three campesinos by the army in the Morelia ejido (communal farm) in central Chiapas in January 1994 and the massacre of 17 campesinos by state police in at Aguas Blancas, Guerrero in June 1995. The CIDH is said to have prepared very critical reports on the government's response to the killings, and is also investigating another incident, the torture-murder of two people in Ixhuatlan de Madero, Veracruz. The final reports are to be issued by January 1998. [Proceso (Mexico) 11/2/97] On Nov. 1 the Mexican Immigration Institute (INM) expelled French citizen Guillemette Marie Faure from the country for "carrying out activities different from those authorized by her visa." Faure is a reporter for Radio France International (RFI) on a seven-month trip from Alaska to Chile. She was expelled after visiting civilian "peace encampments" near La Realidad, an EZLN stronghold in Las Margaritas municipality in central Chiapas. INM agents asked Faure where she got her information on La Realidad. "I told them it was very easy," she said in an interview. "Everyone in France knows La Realidad from what's published in the media and on the Internet." [LJ 11/2/97] *5. MEXICO: US "DRUG WAR" IN ACAPULCO, SKY LORD'S DOCTORS DIE Mexican foreign minister Jose Angel Gurria made an agreement with the US in late October allowing US Navy, Coast Guard and Customs ships and planes to enter Mexican territory while "in hot pursuit" of drug traffickers, according to reports published in Mexico City on Nov. 4. Gurria made the agreement while visiting the US between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24 as the head of the Mexican delegation to the "High-Level Group" on narcotics trading, columnist Carlos Ramirez reported in the Mexico City daily El Universal on Nov. 6. The left-leaning daily La Jornada and the business daily El Financiero charged that the US had already carried out a "hot pursuit" incursion into Mexican territory on Aug. 11, more than two months before the agreement was made. The newspapers say that documents leaked by the White House National Drug Control Policy Office show that two vessels and two planes from the US Coast Guard intercepted a boat carrying 2.7 tons of cocaine just south of the resort city of Acapulco, in the southwestern state of Guerrero. The Mexican and US governments both deny the charge. Gurria's office and the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) issued a joint statement saying that there was no incursion: a Coast Guard helicopter had spotted about 200 packets floating off the Mexican coast, and alerted Mexican authorities, who found that the packets contained cocaine. A Coast Guard vessel was present, the statement said, but in international waters. [LJ 11/4/97; Reuter 11/5/97; El Universal 11/6/97] Mexican analysts have been questioning the US role in fighting the Mexican drug trade, especially in relation to Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the alleged head of a Ciudad Juarez-based cartel who died mysteriously in Mexico City on July 4 after plastic surgery and liposuction [see Update #389]. Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, former head of Mexico's anti-drug campaign, has been in prison since February on charges of accepting bribes from Carrillo Fuentes, known in Mexico as the "lord of the skies" for his airborne drug transshipments [see Update #369]. The US weekly US News & World Report reported in October that a Juarez cartel representative met with four generals in January to make a $10 million down payment on a projected $100 million bribe. An unnamed former US official says that the US "Justice Department was apprised of this series of meetings in advance" but dismissed the information. The Mexican military says the generals didn't know they were meeting with a cartel representative. "They were very well aware of who he was," the former US official says. "He had no other job." [US News & World Report 10/13/97] The leftist weekly magazine Proceso published secret military documents in July revealing that US embassy personnel worked closely with the Mexican military around anti-drug operations [see Update #392]. According to the Washington Post, "[j]ust this week a major Chilean newspaper reported that [Carrillo Fuentes] is still alive and being held by the US Drug Enforcement Administration [DEA] in return for his cooperation in drug investigations." "There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Mr. Carrillo Fuentes is alive and in DEA custody," the DEA said in a statement on Nov. 6. "The rumor has as much credibility as the millions of sightings of the late Elvis Presley." [WP 11/7/97; New York Times 11/7/97] [The DEA had aroused suspicions in early July when the agency quickly identified the man found dead after plastic surgery as Carrillo Fuentes. The Mexican government waited several days before confirming the DEA's claim; see Update #389.] On the evening of Nov. 2 maintenance workers found three large oil drums along the Mexico City-Acapulco highway, near Iguala, Guerrero. According to the authorities, the workers called the Federal Roadway Police because of a bad smell coming from the drums, but an unnamed employee of a local funeral home said that the funeral home called the police after receiving an anonymous tip. The drums held three bodies encased in cement. The victims had had their fingernails pulled out and their chests had burn marks; two were strangled with cables and one had been shot in the head. As of Nov. 6, two had been positively identified as Dr. Jaime Godoy Singh (or "Snigth" according to La Jornada) and Ricardo Reyes Rincon, two of the doctors who operated on Carrillo Fuentes in July; authorities suspect that the third is Carlos Avila Melgem, the head doctor in the fatal surgery. [Reuter 11/5/97; LJ 11/7/97; NYT 11/7/97; WP 11/7/97] Although the doctors had reportedly disappeared right after the operation, family members said that Jaime Godoy, a ear-nose-and- throat specialist, had been living openly in Mexico City and had never been questioned by the authorities. Ruben Tamayo Viveros, his lawyer, says that "[a]ccording to the information some people gave Maria del Carmen Prado [Godoy's wife], it was judicial police agents who detained him after a meeting he had with Ricardo Reyes, Carlos Avila Melgem and Juan Jorge Mejia Monje [otherwise unidentified] on Oct. 17." Mariano Herran Salvatti, head of Mexico's anti-drug agency, denied "emphatically" that the authorities ever held the three doctors prisoner. The government mysteriously charged them with Carrillo's murder two weeks after their disappearance, shortly before the discovery of the bodies. [LJ 11/6/97, 11/7/97] *6. COLOMBIAN INDIGENOUS LEADERS MURDERED Bernabela Riondo Pacheco and Santiago Jose Polo Guevara, leaders of Colombia's indigenous Zenu community, were murdered on Nov. 2 in San Andres de Sotavento, Cordoba. On Nov. 3, the indigenous communities of Colombia's Cordoba department condemned the killings; representatives of the indigenous council charge that since the murders, members and leaders of the council have received constant anonymous threats warning them that they have eight days to leave the area. The fate of another Cordoba indigenous leader remains unknown: Virgilio Rafael Cardenas Feria, who was national director of the Colombian Indigenous Movement (MIC), has been missing since he was forcibly abducted by a group of armed men on the night of Oct. 31. Members of the San Andres de Sotavento reservation said that "heavily armed men who presented themselves as members of the army" [or possibly of the Dijin, a police intelligence organization] had taken Riondo and Polo from their homes. Riondo was an indigenous governor and leader of the reservation; Polo was an artisan and a healer. Until 1994 Riondo served as a member of the board of directors of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), and at the time of her death she was a member of the board of directors of the Regional Autonomous Corporation of the Valleys of Sinu and San Jorge. Indigenous senator Gabriel Muyuy said the same "dark forces" were responsible for Cardenas' disappearance and for the murder of Riondo and Polo. Muyuy said he will ask the government, the National Conciliation Commission and the International Committee of the Red Cross (CICR) to intervene to try to get Cardenas back alive. According to a Zenu communique, Nilson Zurita, elected on Oct. 26 as indigenous council member of San Andres de Sotavento, has left the reservation because the same armed men who killed Riondo and Polo went to his house to look for him. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 11/4/97, 11/5/97] Zurita and three other Zenu leaders elected on Oct. 26 in San Andres de Sotavento charged on Nov. 3 that they are receiving death threats from paramilitary groups. Zurita told RadioNet that the men who came to his house on the night of Nov. 1 "certainly were paramilitaries that wanted to kill me." "They came to look for me, and because they didn't find me, they attacked my brothers and my wife," said Zurita. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/4/97 from EFE] At least 70 members of the Zenu tribe have been murdered since 1975 in a wave of violence attributed to settlers seeking to take over Zenu land. The only person to serve jail time for any of the murders is William Alberto Tulena Tulena--a cousin of Senator Julio Cesar Guerra Tulena--who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the May 27, 1994 massacre of four Zenu in San Andres de Sotavento. [El Colombiano 11/5/97] *7. BRAZIL: INDIGENOUS LANDS DEMARCATED On Nov. 3, Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso signed decrees delimiting 23 indigenous lands covering 8.4 million hectares in the Amazon region--nearly 10% of Brazilian territory. With the definition of these new indigenous reservations, Cardoso has legalized 34% of the 83.5 million hectares of indigenous land in Brazil, according to Aureo Faleiros of the National Indigenous Foundation (FUNAI). Of the 556 indigenous communities of Brazil, 288 are still waiting for their lands to be officially demarcated. The new demarcations cost $4.5 million, paid for by the Brazilian government and the World Bank. The indigenous lands will be for the exclusive use of the indigenous people living on them. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/4/97 from AFP] Another 20 million hectares are to be set aside for indigenous people by April 19, 1998, the National Day of the Indian. "With this, we will be done with the conflicts between whites and Indians in the Amazon," Faleiros said. One of the reserves that was expected to have its status normalized in the decrees signed on Nov. 3 was Coroa Vermelha in northeast Brazil, home of the Pataxo people. Pataxo leader Galdino Jose dos Santos was burned alive by teenagers on Apr. 20 as he slept at a bus stop in Brasilia, where he had come to seek the reserve's formal status [see Updates #378, 394--note that dos Santos' first name was misspelled in Update #378]. [AFP 11/2/97] *8. GRASSROOTS ORGANIZER MURDERED IN BRAZIL On Oct. 16, Fulgencio Manoel da Silva, a leader of a grassroots movement in northeastern Brazil, was shot and killed by an unknown assailant in Santa Maria da Boa Vista, in the backlands of Pernambuco state. Da Silva was one of 40,000 people expelled from their homes in the dry northeast region to make way for the Itaparica dam. While the motive for his murder is still unclear, it is suspected that the killing was ordered by drug traffickers operating in the resettlement communities. Earlier this year, Da Silva played a major role in preparing a complaint by people affected by the Itaparica dam. The complaint was formally presented to the World Bank, one of the principal funders of the resettlement scheme. The Brazilian Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB), of which Fulgencio was a founder, blames his murder on the deplorable social conditions resulting from the failure of the electric company, CHESF, to adequately compensate people displaced by the dam. "This generated the conditions which led to this type of criminality, where families plant marijuana as a means of survival," said the MAB. "Money from the World Bank never reached families of small farmers, but instead was used to irrigate drug plantations." [International Rivers Network press release 10/17/97, received via SEJUP #292, 11/6/97] Meanwhile, thick smoke from fires burning in Brazil's Amazon region is choking residents of the region's largest city, Manaus. Amazon farmers are encouraged by the state government to burn land for pasture. [AP 11/2/97] *9. "NO BRAINER" TRADE BILLS IN TROUBLE On Nov. 4 the US Senate voted 69-31 to cut off debate on a bill giving "fast-track" authority to the president for negotiating trade agreements. [New York Times 11/5/97] The vote seemed to guarantee that the bill would pass through the Senate, although Republicans nearly sabotaged it on Nov. 6 by slipping in an amendment from Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) gutting new US clean-air standards. The anti-environmental amendment would almost certainly have doomed the trade legislation. The pro-fast track Republican leadership forced Inhofe to cancel the vote the next day. [Washington Post 11/8/97] The big problem for "free trade" advocates remained the House of Representatives, where Democratic president Bill Clinton seemed unable to get enough votes from his own party to win a majority-- despite assuring Democrats on Nov. 7 that support for the fast track is a "no brainer." The House vote, scheduled for Nov. 7, was postponed to Nov. 9 while Clinton tried to win more votes, throwing former presidents and most of the cabinet into the lobbying effort. [NYT 11/8/97] By Nov. 8 Clinton had "transformed...the White House into a sort of bazaar where everything, absolutely everything, could be negotiated in exchange for a vote in favor of the fast track," writes the DC correspondent of the left-leaning Buenos Aires daily Clarin. [Clarin 11/9/97] On the other side of the issue, a group of environmentalists disrupted a US government-sponsored "free trade" conference in Atlanta on Nov. 6, unfurling a banner and setting off alarm bells inside the conference room. The Nov. 5-7 "Infrastructure Opportunities in South America" conference was promoting $17.6 billion in new gas and oil production in Latin American countries. "Clinton's fast track leads to Amazon destruction and accelerates climate change," said Amazon Watch director Atossa Soltani. "What we need to fast-track is a transition to clean, renewable energy and the protection of forests like the Amazon." [Amazon Watch press release 11/6/97] As of 5 pm on Nov. 9 the measure had still not come to a vote. Clinton indicated that if he couldn't win, he might postpone again, possibly to 1998, when Congress reconvenes after the Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations. [National Public Radio 11/9/97] The House killed the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) parity bill (HR 2644) on Nov. 4 by a 234-182 vote. The bill would have restored tariff breaks Central American and Caribbean nations had for apparel, shoes and petroleum exports under a 1983 law, before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect in 1994. The tariff breaks would mostly benefit maquiladoras, assembly plants producing for the US market. Rep. John Lewis (D- GA), an African-American liberal, called the bill "bad news for American workers...More than 250,000 American apparel workers have lost their jobs to Mexico" because of trade agreements. But another African-American liberal, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), called the bill "the right thing." "We are talking about traditional friends that are going through some very hard times." [Associated Press 11/4/97] The bill's sponsors had refused to include worker rights provisions asked for by Central American unionists [see Update #405]. *10. "FREE TRADE": SPIN DOCTORS WORK ON SWEATSHOPS While trade legislation was being debated in the US Congress, its proponents were working to counter the public perception that "free trade" is intended to shift production from the US to low- wage sweatshops in the Third World. On Nov. 4 US labor secretary Alexis Herman held a conference in Washington with Central American labor ministers. Herman announced that the US will provide $3 million to help Central American governments deal with child labor and sweatshops in the apparel industry, along with $1 million to the International Labor Organization (ILO) Program for the Elimination of Child Labor. The meeting--the first ever of US and Central American labor ministers--included labor ministers from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize and Panama, along with the Dominican Republic, which has been included in recent Central American summits. The group also met with representatives of the Apparel Industry Partnership, composed of companies that say they will voluntarily end sweatshop practices by their sub-contractors. [Associated Press 11/4/97] On Oct. 7 a group of US and foreign businesses announced a similar anti-sweatshop effort but on a larger scale. The newly formed New York-based Council on Economic Priorities (CEP) announced Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000), a set of labor standards backed by Avon, Eileen Fisher, Sainsbury, Toys 'R' Us, Otto Versand (Eddie Bauer), some unnamed labor and human rights groups, and the KPMG-Peat Marwick and SGS-ICS accounting firms. The standards are to be enforced by accounting firms. "We're concerned that CEP's monitoring process will be used as a cover by companies to reassure the public without doing anything different," says Mark Levinson, chief economist at the Union of Needletrades, Industrial & Textile Employees (UNITE). [Business Week 10/20/97] Meanwhile, sweatshop practices seem if anything to be worsening. Mexico's Secretariat of Trade and Industry (SECOFI) has agreed to further deregulate the Mexican maquiladora sector by modifying three articles of a regulatory law. There are currently 3,718 maquildoras in Mexico, with 944,096 employees; about 67% operate along the Mexico-US border. [Mexico Update (Equipo Pueblo) #147, 11/5/97] In Haiti, the L.V. Myles corporation continues to fire workers who talked to a fact-finding team sent in October by the Walt Disney Company, which subcontracts apparel assembly with L.V. Myles and a number of other companies with Haitian assembly plants [see Update #405]. Management fired 15 workers on Oct. 25; more than 30 have been fired since the end of October. The Haitian labor group Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle) is calling for letters of protest to Disney president Michael Eisner at fax 818-846-7319 and L.V. Miles president Paul Miller at fax 212-725- 0922. [Disney/Haiti Justice Campaign 11/5/97] *11. CHILEAN PRESIDENT REJECTS ARMY PROMOTION On Nov. 4, Chilean defense minister Edmundo Perez Yoma announced that President Eduardo Frei would not approve the army's promotion of Brig. Jaime Enrique Lepe Orellana to the rank of general [see Update #405]. Perez explained that the president's decision was based on the premise that Lepe has a bad image and that his promotion would damage "harmonious relations" between the Chilean public and the armed forces. It was the first time ever that a rejection of a military promotion had been announced publicly. Lepe is a close collaborator of outgoing armed forces commander and former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet; he was part of the Mulchen Brigade of Pinochet's secret police (DINA) during the dictatorship, and has been implicated in a trial in Spain for the 1976 murder in Chile of Spanish citizen Carmelo Soria, an official of the United Nations (UN) Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL). In a Nov. 5 communique, the army expressed "concern" over the government's decision not to promote Lepe. [El Mercurio (Chile) 11/5/97; Clarin (Argentina) 11/4/97 from EFE, 11/6/97 from AFP, EFE, Reuter] On Nov. 9 Defense Minister Perez reiterated his support for Frei's decision, and confirmed that he plans to retire soon. Perez had earlier told the daily El Mercurio of his intention to retire, saying that "a period of four years is more than enough: long, tiring." [Notimex 11/9/97] *12. IN OTHER NEWS... Haitian president Rene Preval has nominated economist and former theater director Herve Denis to serve as prime minister; the post has been officially empty since June, when Rosny Smarth resigned. Denis was information and culture minister in the government of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The nomination will require approval by the Parliament. [New York Times 11/4/97 from Reuter]... Twenty-two heads of state from Latin America and Spain met Nov. 7-9 under tight security on Venezuela's Margarita Island in the seventh Ibero-American Conference. The summit was to finalize a declaration that among other things promotes a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean nations with the European Union in 1998. The draft didn't mention the scheduled March 1998 Summit of the Americas in Chile, promoted by the US to open negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA, or ALCA in Spanish). But the heads of state were expected to use the summit to pressure Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz on his country's socialist system. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/9/97 from AFP, EFE]... On Nov. 7, a group of hooded youths blocked traffic and burned a truck near the campus of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) in Caracas on the second day of protests prompted by anger over urban transport fares for students and over the government's economic policy in general. On Nov. 6 a dozen people were injured and more than 20 arrested in the protests, which have been concentrated mainly around the UCV and several Caracas high schools, as well as in the area of Los Teques, 25 km south of Caracas. [El Diario-La Prensa 11/8/97 from EFE] END ======================================================================= Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139 http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * wnu@igc.apc.org ======================================================================= ================================================================= 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-11.15.97-01:37:24-24226