Wkly Update on the Americas 6/6/99 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #488, JUNE 6, 1999 NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 1. Argentines March to Protest Arms Factory Explosion 2. Civic Strike in Bolivian Province 3. Chile: Socialist Wins Coalition Primary 4. Chilean Dictator OK'd Bomb Attacks 5. Thousands Rally Against Army School 6. Guatemala: Sentences Upheld for Attackers of US Students 7. New Salvadoran President Inaugurated 8. Colombia: Senator Freed, Church Kidnapping, Campesinos Flee 9. Venezuelan Prisoners on Hunger Strike 10. Court Orders Peru to Retry Chileans 11. Mexican Troops Occupy Rebel Town 12. Mexico: Cardinal's Murder Still Unsolved 13. Protests Shake Suriname's Presidency 14. Cuba Sues US for Damages, Charges NATO Head with War Crimes 15. In Other News: Haiti & Brazil 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 VOLUNTEERS ARE NEEDED to help research and write the Weekly News Update on the Americas via email (from anywhere). We need people to send us news sources and to write articles for the Update. If you're interested, send your inquiry to and we'll send you the details. CHECK OUT OUR WEB SITES: http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/nsnhome.html *1. ARGENTINES MARCH TO PROTEST ARMS FACTORY EXPLOSION Braving intense cold, more than 6,000 people (10,000 according to the alternative news service Pulsar) marched on June 3 in the city of Rio Tercero, in Argentina's Cordoba province, to demand "Truth, justice and reparations" some three and a half years after a military munitions factory blew up in this city of 47,000 people on Nov. 3, 1995. Marchers demanded reparations for "moral and economic damages" caused by the blast, which killed seven people and injured 300, and called for "laws that would allow the industrial reactivation" of the area. Following the explosion, the Rio Tercero arms factory laid off 424 of its workers--more than half the workforce. Homes that were damaged in the blast have not been properly repaired, according to local residents. Residents are also demanding to know whether the explosion was intentional--a federal prosecutor has argued that it was an attempt to hide evidence of illegal weapons shipments to Peru and Croatia [see Update #484]. The march was followed by a rally and religious service, closing with a three-minute electricity blackout during which people held up candles, flashlights and cigarette lighters, to "shine the light upon truth and justice." [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 6/4/99; Agencia Informativa Pulsar 6/4/99] *2. CIVIC STRIKE IN BOLIVIAN PROVINCE On June 4, residents of the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz ended four days of highway blockades and a 12-hour civic strike that shut down the airports and principal access roads linking the province to the rest of the country. The actions were designed to pressure the government to grant $10 million to producers to pay off micro-loans with banks and agricultural cooperatives; and raise tariffs on Brazilian sugar imports to 40%. Alfonso Moreno, president of the Committee for Santa Cruz, said the strike and roadblocks covered the entire department--the country's largest in land area--although he admitted that it was weaker than he had hoped. He attributed this to the short lead time in organizing the action, divisions in the civic and labor movement--transport workers did not participate, for example--and the militarization of the highways. The roadblocks began on May 31, and were called off at noon on June 4 after the government threatened to use force to reopen the highways. The one-day civic strike by producers included a mass march and rally on June 4 in the departmental capital, Santa Cruz, by agricultural producers, civic and business leaders, students and others. The Civic Committee has called a 15-day truce while it determines its next steps in the pressure campaign. [El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/5/99 from AFP; La Razon (La Paz) 6/5/99; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba) 6/5/99] The Bolivian Workers Central (COB), the country's main union federation, has called a national general strike for June 9 to pressure the government to take worker demands into account. The decision to call the strike was made at a June 1 assembly of union delegates, where participants expressed anger that government authorities had not attended dialogue sessions set up between the unions and government. The government has rejected a series of demands which the COB presented in negotiations at the beginning of May. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 6/2/99] *3. CHILE: SOCIALIST WINS COALITION PRIMARY Socialist Party leader Ricardo Lagos won the internal elections of Chile's ruling Concertation of Parties for Democracy on May 30 with an overwhelming 71.34% of the vote, compared with 28.66% for Senate president Andres Zaldivar of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), the party of current president Eduardo Frei. "I will be the candidate of all the Concertacion, to be the president of all Chileans," said Lagos as he accepted his nomination as the center-left coalition's presidential candidate. In presidential elections on Dec. 12, Lagos will face candidate Joaquin Lavin of the rightwing Independent Democratic Union (UDI), who is running on a coalition ticket with the National Renewal (RN) party. [Reuters 5/30/99 on El Mercurio (Santiago) web site; El Nuevo Herald 6/1/99 from Reuters] The leadership of the PDC presented its resignation the day after the elections, accepting responsibility for Zaldivar's defeat and the failure of its political strategy of seeking rightwing votes by drawing closer to former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, currently under house arrest in Britain for torture and terrorism. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 6/1/99] *4. CHILEAN DICTATOR OK'D BOMB ATTACKS As Spain continues its efforts to extradite former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte to face trial for incidents of murder and torture committed under his rule, a US prosecutor has declared that Pinochet personally approved orders for a 1974 attack against exiled Gen. Carlos Prats, a opponent of his regime, according to a report published by the Argentine daily La Nacion. Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert were killed in a car- bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in September 1974. US prosecutor Eugene Propper uncovered evidence of Pinochet's role in the killing when he was in charge of investigating the 1976 car-bombing murder in Washington of another Pinochet opponent-- Chilean former foreign minister Orlando Letelier, who was killed along with his US aide, Ronni Karpen Moffitt. The US government "didn't have authority or jurisdiction" over the Prats case, said Propper, but in the course of the Letelier investigation "we learned how it had happened." "Contreras wanted to do it and Pinochet approved it," said Propper. Gen. Manuel Contreras was the top chief of the National Intelligence Department (DINA), Pinochet's secret police. He is currently serving a seven-year sentence in a Chilean prison for the Letelier murder. Argentine judge Maria Servini de Cubria and prosecutor Jorge Alvarez Berlanda, who are investigating the Prats case, interviewed Propper during a recent visit to Washington. Propper said the US Justice Department has offered Argentine authorities information that could be used for the Prats case. A key witness is Michael Townley, a former DINA agent that Servini has asked to question. Townley has been living in the US under the witness protection program since he confessed his role in the Letelier murder and cooperated with its investigation. Other former DINA agents and Chilean military officers are also being protected in the US. In Washington, Servini and Berlanda signed a confidentiality pact with US authorities to guarantee discretion in the investigation. In his statements, Propper was skeptical about any significant declassification of US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents related to the 1973 coup in Chile, in which Pinochet ousted democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende. "They'll never do it, for any case," said Propper. "If they do it, it will end with the intelligence agencies... The US government would never ask the CIA to declassify its documents." On May 13, the US House of Representatives approved an amendment introduced by Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), which requires the intelligence agencies to hand over to Congress their documents about the coup. "These documents must be brought to light, and their publication will substantially reinforce the trial and the extradition request for Pinochet," says the amendment. Hinchey says his goal is to find answers to "important questions about the involvement of the CIA, the State Department and then- secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the overthrow of President Salvador Allende." [El Pais (Spain) 5/25/99] On May 18 about 25 people demonstrated outside a hotel in Toronto against Henry Kissinger, who now heads his own consulting firm. Hoping to make a citizens' arrest of Kissinger under the Canadian War Crimes Act, the protesters spent an hour trying to gain entrance to the exclusive luncheon where he was the guest speaker for a crowd of 1,000 business executives. "If...Pinochet can be arrested and face trial for crimes against humanity, then the men who placed Pinochet in power and kept him there, including Henry Kissinger, should be held accountable as well," said Brent Patterson of Toronto Action for Social Change (TASC). Another protester, Matthew Behrens, said Kissinger is "guilty of ethnic cleansing in countries around the world: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Greece, Argentina, Brazil." After hotel security complained, police threw out the protesters and charged four people with trespassing. [Toronto Star 5/19/99] *5. THOUSANDS RALLY AGAINST ARMY SCHOOL Thousands of activists protested the US Army's School of the Americas (SOA) during a four-day series of events and protests in Washington, DC May 1-4. SOA Watch, the sponsor of the event, is demanding the closing of the 53-year old school, whose graduates include some of Latin America's most notorious human rights abusers. About 3,000 people joined a rally on May 1 that featured folk singer Pete Seeger. On May 3, more than 2,000 people encircled the Pentagon, carrying crosses and a giant puppet--of a skull wearing a graduation cap--to represent SOA; 55 people were arrested in a civil disobedience action. At an Apr. 29 press conference, Reps. Joe Moakley (D-MA), Joe Scarborough (R-FL), John Lewis (D-GA), James McGovern (D-MA), Bruce Vento (D-MN) and Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) called for closing the SOA. Moakley is sponsoring a bill, HR 732, that would shut the school down. Scarborough, a conservative, said the US support for Latin American militaries had made its "fight for freedom and democracy around the world [appear] hypocritical." [SOA Watch press release 5/3/99; Inter Press Service 4/29/99; Peace Newsletter (Syracuse Peace Council) June 1999] *6. GUATEMALA: SENTENCES UPHELD FOR ATTACKERS OF US STUDENTS On June 2, Guatemala's 12th Circuit Appeals Court upheld the 28- year prison sentences of two of the three Guatemalans convicted of attacking a group of US citizens in Escuintla department on Jan. 16, 1998. The group of 13 students and three faculty members from St. Mary's College in Maryland was returning from a visit to Mayan ruins during a college study tour in Guatemala when their bus was stopped by seven heavily armed men. All 16 were robbed, and five of the students were raped [see Update #417]. Cosby Gamaliel Ortiz, Rony Leonel Polanco Sil and Reyes Guch Ventura were identified by their victims when the trial began at a court in Escuintla on Jan. 22; on Feb. 8 they were convicted and sentenced to 18 years for rape and 10 years for robbery, with no possibility of parole. The appeal on behalf of Gamaliel and Guch was denied. Defense attorneys can still appeal to the Supreme Court. [Miami Herald 6/3/99; Guatemala Hoy 6/3/99; La Nacion (Costa Rica) 2/9/99 from AP; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 2/9/99; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 2/9/99 from AFP, 2/10/99] Defense lawyer Salvador Herrera said on Feb. 9 that the court's verdict was the result of "pressures exercised by the US Embassy" in Guatemala. A fourth suspect, Jose Alfredo Hernandez Torres, is in custody and will be tried separately. Three suspects remain at large. [LN 2/9/99 from AP; PL 2/9/99; ENH 2/9/99 from AFP, 2/10/99] *7. NEW SALVADORAN PRESIDENT INAUGURATED Francisco Flores of the rightwing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) was sworn in as president of El Salvador on June 1, along with his vice president, Carlos Quintanilla. Flores replaces ARENA's Armando Calderon Sol; he will serve until 2004. This is ARENA's third consecutive term controlling the presidency. "The first and most urgent task of our government consists in promoting jobs and encouraging all businesses to create employment as the only alternative against marginalization and poverty," Flores said in his inauguration speech. He also said he would work to stabilize the nation's currency and eliminate the possibility of the government arbitrarily carrying out a devaluation. Many criticized the inauguration speech, including San Salvador archbishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez, who noted that Flores failed to clearly address the issue of structural violence in Salvadoran society. [La Nacion (Costa Rica) 6/2/99 from AP, AFP; El Nuevo Herald 6/2/99 from AP] On May 31, the night before the inauguration, the bodies of four young men were discovered at the Buenos Aires farm some 15 kilometers north of San Salvador. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were shot execution style in the head--the trademarks of rightwing death squad killings. Police said they will investigate but they believe the killings were common crimes. The four victims were from the village of El Progreso; they worked bringing campesinos to the San Salvador volcano and none of them had any criminal record. The bodies were found at the same site where the body of murdered radio journalist Lorena Saravia was found in August 1997 [see Update #396]. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 5/31/99, 6/1/99] *8. COLOMBIA: SENATOR FREED, CHURCH KIDNAPPING, CAMPESINOS FLEE Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba was freed unharmed on June 4 in the municipality of Necocli, Antioquia department, by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the rightwing paramilitary group which had abducted her on May 21 in Medellin [see Update #486]. Cordoba immediately offered to serve as a mediator between the government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), to obtain the release of dozens of worshippers the ELN kidnapped from a church mass in Cali on May 30. "From here [I want] to ask the National Liberation Army to free the people they have kidnapped," said Cordoba in her first comments to Caracol television after being released. [CNN en Espanol 6/4/99 with info from AP] Cordoba also stated that the paramilitaries have a genuine interest in peace. "The country has to consider this other actor in the conflict," said Cordoba, referring to the paramilitaries. [El Nuevo Herald 6/5/99 from AP] Gen. Jaime Canal, commander of the Army's Third Brigade, said that the ELN worked together with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to kidnap the 143 worshippers from the church. [El Universal (Caracas) 6/4/99] Shortly after the kidnapping, 79 of the victims were released as the rebels tried to evade pursuit by army and police troops. Cali mayor Ricardo Cobo told Agence France Presse that the captives included "persons that are very influential in our society," without identifying them. The kidnapping has been widely condemned both inside Colombia and by the international community. The ELN continues to hold 25 of the 46 passengers its troops abducted from a small passenger plan hijacked on Apr. 12 in northern Colombia [see Update #484]. The rebels said the hijacking was aimed at pressuring the government into initiating a dialogue with the group, as it has with the FARC. The ELN is demanding a demilitarized zone similar to the area accorded to FARC rebels as a precondition for peace talks. President Andres Pastrana Arango has so far rejected the ELN's demand, and the kidnapping of the churchgoers only appeared to irritate him further. Speaking to Colombian reporters accompanying him on a visit to Canada, Pastrana called the mass abduction of the churchgoers an "act of war" by the ELN. [AFP 5/31/99] The ELN freed five of the hostage churchgoers on June 5 for "humanitarian" reasons; it continued to hold 54 others. [ENH 6/6/99 from Reuters] Meanwhile, Pastrana signed a decree on June 6 extending the FARC's control of the southern demilitarized zone for six months, from June 7 until Dec. 7. An announcement by peace negotiator Victor Ricardo that the zone would be extended for an indefinite period had provoked the resignation of the country's defense minister [see Update #487]. [ENH 6/6/99 from Reuters] Meanwhile, some 2,000 Colombian campesinos fleeing paramilitary violence crossed the border into Venezuela from June 3 to 5. Venezuela classified the group as refugees and negotiated with Colombia to return them to the Colombian town of Puerto Santander. [ENH 6/6/99 from AFP; EU 6/4/99, 6/5/99] *9. VENEZUELAN PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE A group of 56 prisoners at El Dorado prison in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar began a hunger strike on May 31 to demand that they be returned from this remote jungle facility to the urban jails where they had been held previously. Another 300 prisoners joined the hunger strike on June 3. If authorities don't meet their demands, the prisoners are threatening to carry out what they call a "blood strike," in which they will commit mass suicide. Newly appointed interior minister Ignacio Arcaya confirmed to journalists that the hunger strike was taking place, and said he would visit the prison soon. Most of the prisoners had been transferred to El Dorado from Yare prison in Miranda state, next to Caracas. Prisoners at Yare also complain of human rights violations. Most of Venezuela's 26,000 prisoners have not been sentenced, and the prison facilities are seriously overcrowded and plagued with violence. [El Nuevo Herald 6/4/99 from AFP] After being sworn in on June 1, Arcaya acknowledged that the human rights of prisoners are being violated daily, and said he is committed to finding short, medium and long-term solutions to the situation. "We can't solve the crime problem by taking the repressive and executive route," said Arcaya, emphasizing that a solution will require the participation of the church, neighborhood associations and the general public. [El Universal (Caracas) 6/2/99] The Support Network for Justice and Peace, Venezuela's main independent human rights group, staged a silent demonstration in front of the Congress building in Caracas on June 1 to draw attention to a proposal that the Constitution expressly classify torture as a human rights violation and that it include mechanisms to prevent violence and abuse of authority. Protesters held photographs of the victims of police and military abuse. Support Network member Soraya el Achkar explained that a coalition effort called Forum for Life has been created by more than 16 Venezuelan non-governmental human rights groups in order to push for the classification of torture as a human rights violation within the Constitution and the Penal Code. El Achkar said that although the current Constitution is good, it could be improved with the inclusion of the right to conscientious objection, and provisions on the subject of public safety and police authority. [EU 6/2/99] *10. COURT ORDERS PERU TO RETRY CHILEANS On June 1, the Inter-American Human Rights Court (CIDH) of the Organization of American States (OAS) ordered the Peruvian government to grant a new trial to four Chilean nationals serving prison sentences in Peru on charges of "terrorism" and "treason to the homeland." The Court ruled that the Chileans' trial was "not valid" because it violated nine articles of the American Convention on Human Rights. The CIDH, based in Costa Rica, also ordered the Peruvian government to pay $10,000 to the relatives of the four. Jaime Francisco Sebastian Castillo Petruzzi, Maria Concepcion Pincheira Saez, Lautaro Enrique Mellado Saavedra and Alejandro Luis Astorga Valdez, were convicted for their alleged involvement with the leftist rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). There are 4,000 people serving sentences in Peru for "terrorism" or "treason to the homeland." The CIDH decision clarified that Peru's legal definition of treason does not carry implications of loyalty based on nationality; the Court explicitly recognized Peru's right to try foreigners for the crime of "treason to the homeland," as long as due process is respected. In Lima, Fujimori immediately rejected the CIDH ruling, reiterating that "the Peruvian government is not going to free terrorists." "This sentence goes against the Peruvian Constitution, which establishes that once there has been a trial there can't be a second trial, and it goes against Peruvian sovereignty and the internal security of the country," said Fujimori. [CNN en Espanol 6/3/99 with info from Reuters; La Republica (Lima) 6/5/99] On June 4 Attorney General Miguel Aljovin Swayne and National Terrorism Court president Marcos Ibazeta both indicated that Peru should respect the CIDH ruling. Aljovin noted that the CIDH decision did not ask that the four Chileans be freed, only that they be given a new civilian trial where their lawyers can defend them without restrictions. Izabeta emphasized that the civilian court system can conduct a trial for any crime, so there would be no problem with having civilian judges try the four Chileans. Members of Peru's Supreme Court also told the opposition daily La Republica on June 4 that the government should comply with the CIDH ruling to avoid any consequences, and emphasized that "with a little intelligence and common sense" it would be possible to do this without freeing anyone or paying any money. The Supreme Court members, who asked that their names not be identified, said the Chileans could be tried publicly in a civilian court, "where they would also receive a life sentence," according to La Republica. The Supreme Court members noted that a year ago they had requested that the four Chileans and US national Lori Berenson-- who is serving a life sentence in Peru for supporting the MRTA-- be publicly tried by civilian judges, because it was predictable that the CIDH would rule against Peru. The Supreme Court members said the government rejected their proposal for political reasons. "The only thing we managed to get was the transfer of Lori Berenson from the Yanamayo-Puno prison to the one at Socabaya-Arequipa, one day before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission was to look at her case," which has similar characteristics to that of the Chileans, they said. They added that Berenson's transfer prevented a possible precautionary ruling in her favor by the Commission. The Supreme Court and the judicial branch of government have maintained an official silence on the subject, "because it's too politicized," said the sources cited by La Republica. [LR 6/5/99] *11. MEXICAN TROOPS OCCUPY REBEL TOWN Some 300 residents of the indigenous community of Nazaret in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas fled to nearby mountains after about 1,000 soldiers and police agents entered the village the night of June 4, according to witnesses. Nazaret is considered a base of support for the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). "Instead of dialogue, the government sends soldiers," one of the residents told a reporter, referring to the suspension of peace talks which began shortly after the EZLN rose up in January 1994. "We don't have anything to eat or to cover ourselves with, we don't have clothes or food," said another resident. The general in charge of the military operation, who asked to be identified as "F. Rivas," said the troops would remain in the village "until I receive orders from my superiors." According to Armando Cruz Hernandez, an official from the state attorney general's office, "[t]he operation is to verify the situation, and we had reports that there was a [rebel] roadblock on the road in the area of El Paraiso, about 2 km from here. But we haven't found anything." Nazaret residents say that similar invasions by the police and military have taken place over the past month at the nearby communities of Censo, Betania and San Geronimo Tulija. [CNN en Espanol 6/5/99, some from Reuters] EZLN supporters had set up roadblocks in the area the weekend of May 29; authorities from the pro-EZLN autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magon said the roadblocks were intended to stop the entry of drugs and alcohol, and materials which the government was sending to communities willing "to be part of the counterinsurgency." On June 1, some 200-300 supporters of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary (PRI) set up their own roadblock at the Pinales crossroads on the border between Ocosingo and Chilon municipalities, stopping people they considered rebel sympathizers. They detained a Catholic priest and three lay religious workers: Father Jeronimo Alberto Hernandez Lopez; Manuel Perez Constantino, leader of the Xi'Nich movement and a member of the National Indigenous Congress; Jesus Hernandez Gutierrez; and Florentino Perez Tovilla. The PRI supporters apparently released Hernandez Perez and Perez Tovilla. They turned the other two over to the authorities in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas. Perez Constantino was reportedly beaten by both PRI supporters and police agents. [La Jornada (Mexico) 6/3/99] The Fray Bartolome de Las Casas Human Rights Center in San Cristobal condemned "the free use of violence on the part of PRI sympathizers with the acquiescence of the authorities...and the inhumane treatment of the detained people while they were being transferred." [Fray Bartolome Center urgent action 6/3/99] *12. MEXICO: CARDINAL'S MURDER STILL UNSOLVED A commission of representatives from the Mexican federal government, the government of the western state of Jalisco and the Catholic Church marked the sixth anniversary of the May 24, 1993 murder of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo by releasing a new report on the case. "With the existing evidence at this time it isn't possible to believe in the existence of a plot to assassinate Cardinal Posadas Ocampo," Jalisco state government secretary Fernando Guzman read from the report at a press conference. Posadas Ocampo was shot 14 times at close range as he sat in his car in the parking lot at the Guadalajara international airport. The government of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari claimed that he was killed in the crossfire during a battle between two rival drug gangs that left six others dead [see "The Mexican Murder Mysteries, Part 1," Weekly News Update supplement 9/2/95]. The new report dismissed the crossfire theory, suggesting instead that the cardinal was killed due to confusion during the fighting. But one commission member, current Guadalajara archbishop Juan Sandoval Iniguez, expressed dissatisfaction with the report. In an interview with Televisa television network and various radio stations, Sandoval charged that "big fish" were "impeding the investigation," and that former attorney general Jorge Carpizo had suppressed videos connected with the case. [Associated Press 5/24/99; La Jornada (Mexico) 5/25/99; Reuters 5/26/99] Carpizo angrily replied that he had suppressed no evidence, and compared Sandoval to a prosecutor in the Spanish Inquisition. "Do the people of Mexico want another Torquemada?" he asked, suggesting that he and Sandoval both take a lie detector test, "from which very interesting things will emerge." [LJ 5/26/99] Sandoval has also charged that some of the witnesses in the case are being protected by the US and that others are being protected by the Mexican government. [El Diario-La Prensa 5/26/99 from AFP] A poll published on May 24 by the Mexico City daily Reforma showed 83% of a sampling of 400 people in Guadalajara refusing to believe the cardinal was shot accidentally. [AP 5/24/99] In a poll published by the archdiocese of Guadalajara, 6% of respondents said they believed the official version. [LJ 5/25/99] *13. PROTESTS SHAKE SURINAME'S PRESIDENCY Confusing press reports from Suriname indicate that President Jules Wijdenbosch is being pressured to step down amid growing street protests and a general strike against the deteriorating economy in this former Dutch colony wedged between Guyana, French Guiana and Brazil. On June 1, Wijdenbosch offered to call early elections, but opposition parties are demanding his immediate resignation. (The Miami Herald reported that Suriname's National Assembly censured Wijdenbosch but said he could remain president for the five or six months it would take to organize early elections.) The president is less than three years into his five- year term. In an attempt to end the protests, Wijdenbosch dismissed his entire cabinet of 16 ministers on May 28 and promised urgent measures to improve the economy and form a new government. The Financial Times reports that the cabinet was sacked after it told Widjenbosch to resign. Desi Bouterse, chair of the main party in the National Assembly and a former military ruler of Suriname who helped Wijdenbosch win the presidency, has also told Wijdenbosch to step down. CNN's Spanish language web site reported that on June 1 several pro-government legislators joined with opposition parties in calling for Wijdenbosch's immediate replacement with a new president chosen by the Assembly. (Agencia Informativa Pulsar, an alternative radio news service, reported on June 2 that the Assembly had dismissed Wijdenbosch and his entire cabinet, had named an interim government and now needed a two-thirds vote of the Assembly to elect a new president.) Some 20,000 people--in a country of 400,000--demonstrated in the streets on May 25, demanding that Widjenbosch resign. Opposition parties, unions and religious organizations began the protests after the Suriname guilder plunged from 700 to 2,000 to the dollar in less than a week, provoking a drastic jump in the prices of food and other basic goods. Surinamese were already struggling with a new sales tax and a 30% gas price hike. [MH 6/3/99; FT 6/2/99; CNN en Espanol 6/1/99 with info from Reuters; Pulsar 6/2/99] *14. CUBA SUES US FOR DAMAGES, CHARGES NATO HEAD WITH WAR CRIMES On June 1 eight Cuban popular organizations filed a suit in a Havana court demanding $181.1 billion from the US in compensation for the victims of attacks planned by the US or US-based groups since 1959. The suit seeks $30 million for each of 3,476 people allegedly killed in the attacks, $15 million for each of the 2,099 allegedly left disabled and $45 billion for "general hardship." The plaintiffs include the Workers Federation of Cuba, the Federation of Cuban Women, the University Student Federation, the Committees of the Defense of the Revolution, and the Jose Marti Pioneers Organization, a youth group. "The hostile and aggressive actions carried out by the US government against Cuba, from the very triumph of the revolution to the present, have caused enormous material and human losses," according to an eight-page document the plaintiffs filed. The list of victims starts with several people killed and dozens wounded on Oct. 21, 1959, when an unidentified plane strafed Havana, and extends to the killing of an Italian tourist in 1997. The suit includes 176 killed and 300 wounded in the Bay of Pigs invasion by US-sponsored rightwing forces and 73 passengers killed in the midair bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976; the suit says that there were 637 attempts to assassinate Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz and charges that the US was responsible for a 1981 epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158 people, including 101 children. The suit noted that the demand for compensation for each victim was lower than the $187 million US District Judge James Lawrence King awarded to the relatives of three of the four pilots killed in 1996 when they were shot down by Cuban military jets over or near Cuban waters [see Update #457]. [Miami Herald 6/2/99; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 6/2/99 from services; Reuters 6/1/99] Also on June 2, Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque asked for Spanish socialist Javier Solana, the general secretary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), "to be tried as a war criminal before an international tribunal in representation of all the guilty parties." At his first press conference since being appointed foreign minister on May 28, Perez Roque said that "[t]he war against Yugoslavia already constitutes a veritable genocide, and genocide should be given exemplary punishment." Cuba "condemns with all its energy the monstrous crime against the Serbian people at the same time that [Cuba] supports the right of the Albanian-Kosovars to be fully guaranteed their national, cultural and religious identity," Perez Roque said. He also used the press conference to confirm that Cuban is sending 1,000 doctors "absolutely free" to help ethnic Albanian refugees from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. [ENH 6/2/99 from AFP] Diplomats in Havana suggest that the charges against the US and NATO are Cuba's response to a condemnation of Cuba issued by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva in April. A year earlier, the Commission had rejected an effort by the US to condemn Cuba's human rights record. The change this year reflected concern by a number of nations over Cuba's arrests of dissidents and the National Assembly's passage in February of laws increasing penalties for a number of crimes and providing stiff sentences for passing information to the US government [see Update #473]. "It's as if they wanted to say, `Look who's denouncing human rights violations [in Cuba] when they're committing atrocities in Yugoslavia,'" an unnamed diplomatic source commented. [ENH 6/3/99 from AFP] *15. IN OTHER NEWS... Haitian justice minister Camille Leblanc announced on May 31 the start of an investigation into the shooting of 11 people by a special police unit the night of May 28 in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour Feuilles. Police say the agents were defending themselves from street gangs, while some residents charged that the police butchered the 11 people as revenge for the murder of an agent's brother. [El Diario-La Prensa 3/1/99 from AFP; Washington Post 6/3/99] Earlier on May 28, police agents had beaten and arrested journalists during an outbreak of violence that ended a Haitian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIH) demonstration "against crime and anarchy." Counterdemonstrators threw rocks and other objects at the organizers; many Haitians hold that the CCIH leaders were major backers of the bloody 1991 rightwing coup against then-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. [Haiti Progres (NY) 6/2/99]... The British daily Financial Times reported on May 19 that Brazil's agricultural ministry has authorized the US "life sciences" corporation Monsanto to sell five types of its "Roundup Ready" genetically altered soybeans for commercial planting. The move has been opposed by environmentalists and even some government agencies in Brazil, the world's second largest exporter of soybeans. Greenpeace has begun legal action to demand an environmental impact study; IBAMA, an agency of the environmental ministry, cosponsored a similar Greenpeace suit in the past. The southeastern state of Rio Grande do Sul, one of the main soya- producing states, has passed a law requiring an impact study and is considering a five-year moratorium on all genetically altered crops. The state is governed by the leftist Workers Party (PT). [FT 5/19/99] 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). ======================================================================= 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-06.08.99-02:04:11-30045