Newsbriefs
Haitian Putchist Hits Florida Jackpot MIAMI, AUGUST 4, 1997 olonel Carl Dorelien, a high-ranking officer of Haiti's bloody military junta from 1991 to 1994, struck it rich on July 28 when he...
...yelled a woman in a ruffled apron, shaking her fist at the election official dressed in a suit...
...If I don't get my voting card stamped, the principal of my daughter's school won't let me register her," a panicked woman told an election official, who, a half hour after the official closing time of 6 PM, had arbitrarily cut the snaking line of expectant voters in half and told the tail end to go home...
...Catherine Orenstein Samper Raises Peace Talk Hopes in Colombia B(X;OTA, AUGUST 1, 1997 (Jn July 23rd, General Harold "Bedoya, the Commander of the Colombian Armed Forces, was removed from his position by President Ernesto Samper, putting an end to a growing rift between the chief executive and the general that reached its peak a month earlier when guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released 70 soldiers who were held hostage for 288 days...
...The crisis has ignited speculation about whether Fujimori has lost control to the military-his allies since he became president, and especially after the April 1992 "selfcoup...
...asylum law's requirement of a wellfounded fear of persecution ought to be read as a wellfounded fear of prosecution...
...The team was given 60 days to report back to the President regarding when, and Vo XI, No 2 SI'Ic 19971rrr~~ Vol XXXI, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1997 1NEWSBRIEFS under what conditions, a national dialogue could begin...
...As authorities realized that the protests were not dissipating, they shifted their strategy and successfully attempted to weaken the movement by creating divisions within it...
...Students, angered at the deterioration of university conditions, built barricades, burned vehicles and fought police with molotov cocktails and homemade mortars...
...These protests constitute the largest student mobilizations since the end of the dictatorship...
...Some believe the removal of Bedoya is directly related to the public relations disasters suffered by the military at the hands of the armed insurgency, the most striking being the capture and release of the 70 soldiers...
...They were protesting President Arnoldo Alemin's veto of the National Assembly's budget that included a constitutionally mandated 6% for the universities...
...The students also protested recent initiatives to "modernize" the University of Chile, which have resulted in soaring fees for students, a two-tier system for academic employees, and skyrocketing deficits which have only been ameliorated by the liquidation of university assets...
...Mario Murillo is Public Affairs Director for WBAI in New York and a member of the NACLA Editorial Board...
...Members of Peru's business elite-Fujimori's junior partners-have grown increasingly jittery over these abuses and the resulting political instability...
...3160 in this working class extension of Mexico City, expressed fears that if their voting cards did not bear the stamp indicating that they had voted in this year's legislative elections, they would suffer repercussions at their work places, schools, even banks...
...Marcial Godoy-Anativia Protests Build, Dialogue Wanes in Nicaragua MANAGUA, JULY 25, 1997 F or two and a half weeks this July, thousands of students clashed with riot police in the university centers of Managua, Leon and Matagalpa...
...Jeanette Jara, president of the Student Federation of the University of Santiago (FEUSACh), accused the compliant student leaders of violating a national decision made by the CONFECh not to accept anything less than $60 million for the universities and indicated that mobilizations would continue...
...Senate voted to exclude any Haitian "credibly alleged" to be connected with extrajudicial and political killings in Haiti from entering the United States...
...I work an hourand-a-half from here...
...government...
...Leaders from 11 of the 26 universities in the Federation immediately stated that they would not sign the agreement...
...In July alone, over 30 soldiers were killed and many more wounded in direct attacks by the guerillas...
...Dreaded Police Chief Michel Frangois is in Honduras, where his extradition to the United States on drug charges has been inexplicably delayed for months...
...Emmanuel Constant, leader of the Haitian FRAPH death squad, and erstwhile agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, resides in Queens, New York, thanks to a secret sweetheart deal he struck with the U.S...
...In fact CEA was down- sized but not dissolved...
...Everyone in my family works except my youngest son, and I was not going to leave my business in his hands...
...Street protests against the government, rare in past years, have come to life not only in Lima but in provincial cities as well...
...Despite signs at every voting station that read, "Your vote is free and secret," such indirect intimidation by union leaders has a coercive effect...
...One of Constant's neighbors in Queens is his friend and former right-hand hitman "Gwo Fan Fan," the former Port-au-Prince FRAPH underboss...
...4 third term-has been massive...
...During the three years of the military regime, 50,000 Haitian refugees braved the oceans and arrived on the Florida beaches seeking political asylum, only to be sent back home...
...As students stepped up the pressure on both the Ministry of Education and the administrations of individual universities through building takeovers and street demonstrations, authorities adopted a strategy of stalling while negotiating, with the hope that the movement would fizzle...
...On July 15, they took over Managua International Airport for two hours...
...The offensive strikes, as well as the greater visibility of their high command, reflect a strategy to strengthen their hand at the negotiating table, if they ever get there...
...Students sharply criticized the legacy of the military government, especially the policy of "self-financing," which forces these state institutions closer to the private sector by mandating financial self-sufficiency...
...With this irreparable breach, the national student movement lost its ability to negotiate with the government in a concerted manner, and individual student federations had to resume negotiations with their own university administrations...
...On July 1, clashes between students and police forces during a march to the National Congress in Valparaiso resulted in over 100 arrests and nine injuries...
...While many Peruvians supported the military intervention at the ambassador's residence, which sent Fujimori's sagging popularity rating soaring to over 60%, today Fujimori faces the lowest popularity rating-under 30%-of his sevenyear tenure...
...The government received an emergency shipment of tear gas and rubber bullets from El Salvador to replace its own dwindling supplies...
...Ivcher, who owns the television station Frecuencia Latina and apparently had business dealings with the army, had invoked the government's wrath by airing a series of stories uncovering serious abuses of authority by the intelligence services...
...Jo-Marie Burt Errata In the introduction to the interview with the Cuban researcher Juan Valdes Paz (July/August, 1997), he is described as having been affiliated with CEA, "the re- cently dissolved Center for the Study of the Americas...
...Under the banner of the Confederation of Chilean University Students (CONFECh), 26 student federations from throughout the country came together to demand an end to the Concertaci6n government's neoliberal fiscal policies towards higher education...
...Bedoya announced that he would run for the presidency in 1998, and lashed out at Samper and Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri for removing him without any justification...
...The opposition newspaper, La Repaiblica, reported that Montesinos had sent an intermediary to convince Ivcher not to air these stories...
...That afternoon, the resolution repealing Ivcher's citizenship appeared in the official newspaper, El Peruano...
...Building occupations, street demonstrations and face-offs with the police continued, resulting in over a thousand arrests and many injuries...
...The removal of Bedoya, among the strongest opponents of peace negotiations with the guerillas, and described by some analysts as the mastermind behind the current paramilitary counterinsurgency strategy in Colombia, set the stage for the appointment of General Manuel Jos6 Bonett as the new Commander of the Armed Forces...
...At the political level, however, the opposition remains weak and divided...
...In close to two months of intense activity and with support from academics and staff, tens of thousands of students participated in teach-ins, building occupations and street demonstrations demanding a political and financial commitment from the government to resolve the current crisis of public higher education...
...By law, workers do not have to show their voting cards to a union functionary...
...in the United States he is the target of a $32 million civil lawsuit brought by New Jersey resident Alerte Belance, who was bludgeoned and nearly beheaded by Constant's thugs back in Haiti...
...On July 8, a tentative agreement was arrived at between some of the student federations in the CONFECh and government authorities...
...indeed, the trinity of power is as ensconced as ever...
...But the problem is not Fujimori's power vis-a-vis the military...
...Bayardo Gonzalez is NACLA's Circulation Manager...
...Colombian and international NGOs have accused the military of working directly with the paramilitaries in the counterinsurgency war, targeting communities perceived to be sympathetic to the guerillas and conducting major sweeps, which General Manuel Jose Bonett, newly appointed Commander of the Colombian Arm with the Archbishop of Uraba at an army parade in Uraba Province...
...It is still in opera- tion in Havana...
...In reality, they know that failure to do so may result in merciless scrutiny of their job performance or other punitve measures...
...Undeterred, Ivcher gave the green light to air yet another story on the morning of July 13 about an elaborate surveillance scheme, in which the intelligence services had tapped the telephones of nearly 200 people, ranging from opposition leaders to foreign journalists...
...Constant is accused of ordering the killing of thousands of Haitians...
...Embassy staffers live in them now...
...Jo-Marie Burt is Associate Editor (on leave) of NACLA Report on the Americas and a doctoral candidate in political science at Columbia University...
...The clashes left over 250 students injured, and another 250 arrested...
...It could prove to be the main roadblock to any future dialogue since the guerrillas have repeatedly stated their demand of dismantling the paramilitaries before beginning any talks...
...While the first mobilizations only elicited disciplinary threats, the government ceded to students' demands for negotiations once the movement grew in numbers and became national in scope...
...government that has allowed him to escape trial and even to apply for political asylum...
...Clearly unaware of Dorelien's background, The Miami Herald ran a story on the Lotto winner with the headline: "Struggling Refugee Wins $3.2 Million...
...Ironically, this June the U.S...
...SANTIAGO, AUGUST 1, 1997 On July 15, instruction resumed in Chile's public universities after more than seven weeks of nationwide student protests that began on May 23...
...It followed with a story about the inexplicably high income-tax return of Vladimiro Montesinos, de-facto head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) and one of the three men-including Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Nicolis Hermoza and President Fujimori-said to comprise Peru's trinity of power...
...NEWSBRIEFS (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4) Chilean Students Take on the "Neoliberal University...
...shouted another...
...More recently, the FARC and ELN have resumed joint operations in some parts of the country, hitting military and police targets almost daily in order to demonstrate that they are a major military force...
...3160, located right in front of a police station...
...Likewise, union leaders who pledge their constituents' support to the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), have insisted that members show their officially stamped voting cards after an electoral race...
...He is not only being berated by the usual suspects like opposition journalists, members of Congress, students and workers...
...Over the last few months, the war in Colombia has intensified...
...Perhaps the most complicated aspect of beginning a peace process in Colombia involves the growth and strength of the paramilitary forces...
...We work on Sundays...
...They were particularly critical of the ways in which the neoliberal model implemented during the dictatorship and embraced by the postdictatorship governments has undermined the autonomy of Chile's once prestigious universities by imposing undemocratic structures of decision making and by placing both research funds and capital improvements at the mercy of private enterprise...
...Dorelien, who says he is seeking political asylum, joins a growing population of Haitian putchists in exile...
...Letters can be sent by e-mail to: NACLA @igc.apc.org...
...In the end, the students gained some key procedural reforms in decisionmaking structures and budgetary increases of various proportions-all much more modest than their original demands...
...At the time, Bedoya referred to the release of the soldiers as a "circus filled with clowns," indirectly criticizing Samper for agreeing to the terms set out by the guerrillas in exchange for freeing the soldiers...
...In April, Frecuencia Latina aired two blistering stories about the torture of one intelligence-service agent and the grisly murder of another that suggested an intelligence community gone awry...
...Witnesses before the Haitian Supreme Court accused Gwo Fan Fan of gunning down the Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary in 1993--a crime which a CIA memo, recently declassified in connection with the Belance lawsuit, has also linked to Constant...
...Haitian Putchist Hits Florida Jackpot MIAMI, AUGUST 4, 1997 olonel Carl Dorelien, a high-ranking officer of Haiti's bloody military junta from 1991 to 1994, struck it rich on July 28 when he won the Florida State Lottery...
...Mario Murillo Fujimori's Heavy Hand Meets Resistance in Peru LIMA, AUGUrST 6. 1997 f Alberto Fujimori thought that his military "victory" in the recent hostage crisis would bring him some respite from his political woes, he was sorely mistaken...
...The fracture of the movement was officialized at a meeting of CONFECh leaders in Valparaiso, where 15 student federations, primarily from the provinces, chose to accept to negotiate the $60 million figure while 11 federations, mostly from the capital and representing a majority of students in the CONFECh refused...
...Three months earlier, peasants had blocked roads throughout the country for four days to protest the government's plans to repossess over 14,000 farms for non-payment of debts to state banks...
...Under pressure from international lending institutions, Alemdn had vetoed the budget because the 6% allocated to the universities would have been funded by international donations and loans...
...In late June, President Samper named a twoperson team to renew contacts with the FARC and the National Liberation Army (ELN), in order to establish a framework for possible peace negotiations with the guerrillas...
...In the midst of the current crisis, the largest opposition party, Javier P6rez de Cuellar's Unity for Peru (UPP), has been mired in internal squabbles between the "liberal" wing, which supports Fujimori's economic plan but not his authoritarian style, and the "left" wing, which rejects Fujimori's economics as well as his politics...
...Bayardo Gonzdlez The Right or Requirement to Vote...
...The paramilitaries insist they have to be part of any Colombian peace process-a position rejected by many human rights activists...
...Marcial Godoy-Anativia is Associate Editor of NACLA Report on the Americas, and a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Columbia University...
...In the same issue, the photo of Benedita da Silva was taken by AntOnio Guerreiro...
...According to Florida State Lottery spokespeopie, Dorelien will receive his prize in annual installments of $159,000 for the next 20 years...
...Perhaps the most important gain however, is the experience of concerted political struggle for a new generation of students that has come of age amidst the low-intensity democracy of the postdictatorship era...
...The fear of a prolonged peasant strike led the government to enter into talks with the FSLN...
...Coup leader General Raoul Cedras is in Panama, where he, his second-incommand Colonel Philippe Biamby, and their families took up an entire floor of a luxury hotel for many months-paid for indirectly by the United States which rents Cedras' three Portau-Prince apartments for $15,000 a month...
...After 30 days, talks broke down, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach an agreement...
...In Mexico, the photo-identification voting card is often required as the only acceptable identification for a number of important transactions, including payment of water bills and property taxes, registration of oneself or one's children in school, and the execution of banking transactions such as taking out loans or opening accounts...
...Now he is also being criticized by his oldtime supporters: members of the business elite, formerly staunch pro-regime newspapers, and even the U.S...
...Alison Gardy Sources Catherine Orenstein is a New York-based independent journalist who investigated human rights crimes for the United Nations and for the government of Haiti in 1995 and 1996...
...have left hundreds of civilians dead and thousands displaced...
...NEZAHUALC6YOTL, MExico, JULY 7, 1997 A hundred or so voters, who were turned away when they arrived too late at Voting Station No...
...It indicates increasingly open public expression of all kinds of grievances, despite the intimidating presence of unidentified men who videotaped the woman and the other protesters at Voting Station No...
...Both Cedras and Franqois were reportedly on the CIA payroll...
...Even as the President made his announcment, the FARC and the ELN carried out a series of highprofile attacks that have left the military reeling...
...President Alemin has threatened to use funds from whatever university budget is eventually passed to pay for the damages caused by the protests...
...The legislation ignores the fact that Haiti's biggest suspects are already here, rewarded for their bloodbath with green cards, political asylum and Lotto winnings...
...The General's departure is one of several recent developments raising both expectations and concerns about the prospects for peace in Colombia...
...The intermediary threatened to cut off Ivcher's profitable business relations with the military unless he cooperated...
...The government then called for a "national dialogue" with minor opposition parties, the Church and other groups...
...Paramilitary forces continue to flex their muscles in the northwestern region of Urabi, in the Middle Magdalena region, as well as in the central plains and the southern provinces of Cauca, Tolima and Narino...
...The Haitian officer, who refused to shake Jimmy Carter's hand during negotiations to end the illegal regime-because, he said, Carter's hand had touched President JeanBertrand Aristide's-fled to Florida after the junta fell...
...The inflexible positions taken by Minister of Education Jos6 Pablo Arellano during several rounds of negotiations were interpreted as a clear indicator of this strategy by student leaders...
...At the same time, the sight of a citizen in an apron confronting an election official in a suit in defense of her vote is a heartening one...
...Brian Concannon, an American human rights lawyer contracted by the Government of Haiti to investigate crimes committed by the junta, jokes that the U.S...
...If a powerful businessman like Ivcher, once an ally of the military, is vulnerable, then the rule of law-always a questionable concept for most Peruvians-is unlikely to be able to protect anyone who clashes with the sinister forces that hold Peru hostage...
...The final figure offered by the government was in the vicinity of $35 million...
...The public outcry against these and other abuses of authority-such as the May dismissal of three magistrates of the Constitutional Tribunal who declared unconstitutional the law passed by Congress permitting Fujimori to run for a Readers are invited to address letters to The Editors, NACLA Report on the Americas, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 454, New York, NY 10115...
...This wave of criticism was sparked by a government resolution repealing the citizenship of Baruch Ivcher, a native Israeli who become a Peruvian citizen in 1984...
...In late July, 30 peasants were massacred by paramilitaries in the town of Mapiripan in the province of Meta...
...Alison Gardy is a freelance journalist who frequently covers Mexico...
...The dialogue has also broken down, though there are reports that the government and the FSLN are engaged in secret talks to resolve the land issue...
...Rather, the government's problems lie with its attempts to control all expressions of opposition, which are beginning to provoke outrage from all sectors of society...
Vol. 31 • September 1997 • No. 2
