Latin American Protests for Palestine Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit Weekly Update on the Americas, April 14, 2002 LATIN AMERICA: PROTESTS FOR PALESTINE More than 1,000 Brazilians marched on Apr. 4 to the US consulate in Sao Paulo to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemn the Israeli military assault in Palestinian territories. Seventy-year old Tomas de Aquino Campos was killed and two other people were hospitalized when one of the sound trucks at the back of the march lost its brakes on a steep incline and plowed into a group of participants. The demonstration was supported by the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST); MST member Mario Lill has been sending frequent reports from Palestine, where he is with a delegation from Via Campesina, a worldwide alliance of farmworker organizations [see Update #635]. [La Jornada (Mexico) 4/5/02 from AFP; Brazil Indymedia 4/4/02] As of Apr. 3, Lill remained at the compound of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat in Ramallah. Honduran campesina activist Doris Gutierrez [identified as Doris Hernandez in Update #635], who went to Palestine with the same Via Campesina delegation, is not at the compound; she traveled to Bethlehem and Gaza instead of Ramallah. [Statement by Consejo Nacional Campesino & Coordinador Nacional Agrario (Colombia) 4/3/02 posted on colombia.indymedia] In Brasilia, Via Campesina members led an overnight vigil and encampment on the night of Apr. 3 in front of the Israeli embassy; on Apr. 4 the group marched to the US embassy and the Brazilian foreign ministry. [Email message from Via Campesina posted on brasil.indymedia.org] Nearly 500 people took part in a similar demonstration on Apr. 4 in front of the Israeli consulate in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. [Message on brasil.indymedia posted 4/5/02, from Jornal O Globo] On Apr. 5 some 1,000 people, most of them of Palestinian descent, marched through the neighboring cities of Rivera, in Uruguay, and Santana do Livramento, across the border in Brazil. [LJ 4/6/02 from Prensa Latina, AFP, DPA] Some 1,000 Chileans gathered on Apr. 6 in front of government headquarters in Santiago to condemn the Israeli assault. The crowd included many Chileans of Palestinian descent; Chile's Palestinian community is considered among the largest in Latin America. [CNN en Espanol 4/6/02 from AP] In Quito, Ecuador, some 100 people--students, indigenous people, environmental activists and pacifists--protested in front of the Israeli embassy on Apr. 4. The protest was headed by the Latin American Human Rights Association (ALDHU). [LJ 4/5/02 from AFP; Hoy (Quito) 4/5/02] In Lima, Peru, about 100 Palestinians demonstrated peacefully on Apr. 4 outside the Palestinian embassy, according to a report from the French news agency Agence France Presse. [LJ 4/5/02 from AFP] In Nicaragua, some 2,000 people marched on Apr. 5 to the UN office in Managua to present written demands calling for the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Palestinian territories. The march was called by the Palestinian community in Nicaragua and was supported by the Civil Coordinating Council (CCC), a broad coalition of grassroots organizations; participants included many Nicaraguans of Palestinian and Arab origin and members of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), among others. [LJ 4/6/02 from Prensa Latina, AFP, DPA; Nicaragua News Service Vol. 10, #14, 4/1-7/02] Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, sent a letter on Apr. 5 to the Inter-Parlamentary Union (UIP) asking it to act "urgently" to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. [LJ 4/6/02 from Prensa Latina, AFP, DPA] The rightwing government of El Salvador said it would officially ask Israel to allow delivery of basic necessities to nearly 300 Palestinians who are Salvadoran citizens--including Bethlehem mayor Hamma Nasser--and who are trapped under an Israeli siege and curfew in Bethlehem and neighboring cities. [LJ 4/6/02 from PL, AFP, DPA] In an Apr. 5 vote at the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) in Geneva, the Guatemalan and Canadian governments stood alone in opposing a resolution to send Commissioner Mary Robinson on an investigative mission to the Occupied Territories. The Guatemalan government has longstanding close ties to the state of Israel. In contrast, the leftist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinating Committee (CONIC) issued statements in solidarity with the Palestinians. [Guatemala Hoy 4/6/02] The Mexican delegation to the UNHRC issued a statement condemning suicide bomb attacks by Palestinians and urging Israel to end its military assault on Palestine. [LJ 4/6/02 from PL, AFP, DPA] ======================================================================= 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/~nicadlw/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 ================================================================= nytact-04.16.02-22:27:17-23050