Newsbriefs
Guatemalan Church Faults Government Inquiry GUATEMALA CITY-Since his brutal murder in April 1998, Guatemalan authorities have insisted that Bishop Juan Jos6 Gerardi had been the victim of...
...While his opponents categorized Chavez as a demagogue and a "dictator-in-waiting," Venezuela's poor majority flocked to the polls to support him...
...Grahame Russell is a human rights lawyer and a member of Guatemala Partners...
...Steve Ellner is director of the Research Center for Administrative and Economic Sciences of the Universidad del Oriente in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela...
...In this sense, the pledge to forgive 80% of Honduran and Nicaraguan debt made by IMF head Michel Camdessus may be a Trojan horse...
...Despite this seemingly gross injustice, polls taken by nongovernmental organizations show widespread support for the presence of more police to curb rising crime...
...Conversation, Grammar, Culture, History & Homestays with Spanish-speaking families...
...LA HERMANDAD EDUCATIVA includes Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco and Educaci6n Para Todos in Quetzaltenango, Proyecto Linguistico de EspaiiollMam in Todos Santos and Escuela de la Montaiia near Nuevo San Jos6...
...For subscription information: 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012...
...Families are welcome...
...Steven Dudley is a freelance writer currently based in Rio de Janeiro...
...Six policemen charged in the Vigario Geral massacre were released before going to court for lack of evidence...
...But the intellectual authors of these crimes, including high-ranking military officials, remain unpunished...
...In Nicaragua, outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria and leptospirosis-which forced the Ministry of Health to declare an epidemic emergency--were linked to the devastation ASUNCIC of public health due to inally co spending cuts imposed child ask by the International remarkin Monetary Fud IMF) hood, lo onetary Fund (IMF) either mi last March...
...According to Walter Valencia of the Human Rights Legal Action Center (CALDH), the case will remain open in order to bring the masterminds behind both massacres to justice...
...They subsequently arrested Father Mario Orantes, a priest living on the premises, a housekeeper, and Father Orantes' dog, suggesting alternately that the killing had been a crime of passion or that the dog had attacked and killed Gerardi...
...The 36year conflict left 145,000 people dead and 40,000 disappeared...
...Chdvez immediately announced his choice of the highly regarded Radl Salazar, Venezuela's military attach in Washington, to be minister of defense...
...InterPress Service/Weekly News Update Mitch Devastates The Poor CENTRAL AMERICA- In late October and early November, Hurricane Mitch moved through Central America, dumping as much as six feet of rain on some regions...
...No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 43 I M E I CS Celebrating its 9th successful year ! A Spanish language program in colonial Guanajuato, Mexico for a select group of highly motivated high-school students...
...Weekly News Update of the Americas is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...cooperation with the Colombian military, held at arm's length in recent years, is also on the horizon...
...The move backfired, however, compromising Salas by association...
...No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 43 Vol XXXII...
...After a pre-electoral embrace with Revoluhat orig- tionary Armed Forces r of the of Colombia (FARC) a baby commander Manuel eighbor- "Sure Shot" Mamrlanda, ss, were a child...
...Many believe the massacre was an act of revenge for the deaths of four policemen who were ambushed the night before by a gang of drug traffickers...
...The mothe ed the photographer if he was trying to buy g that the only foreigners who entered the n cated directly behind the Paraguayan Congre ssionaries or people interested in purchasing Alemin's effort to dissolve the country's National Emergency Committee in late November was broadly criticized...
...19.95 paper, 423 pp The Transformation of Rural Mexico edited by Wayne A. Cornelius & David Myhre This volume provides a first look at how Mexico's rural reforms are unfolding and what impact they are having on the prospects for development and democratization in the Mexican countryside...
...I can't celebrate because there are still abandoned children in the streets and people who won't even eat breakfast today...
...The proposal also calls for international assistance to be channeled to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that finance small and medium agricultural producers which took heavy losses in the aftermath of Mitch...
...For more information write or call: PO Box 452 Manson, WA 98831 Phone (800) 963-9899 Visit our web site: www.infoserve.net/ hermandad/hermand.htm LIA DI 11VNAl1 ED11]KIVnAni NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 57 I1 NEWSBRIEFS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45 of the population live in poverty and 40% live in dire poverty...
...On the campaign trail, Chdvez was frequently accompanied by Pablo Medina, leader of the leftist party, Homeland for All (PPT...
...Winifred Tate Cops Acquitted of Murder in Brazil RIO DE JANEIRO-On November 28, a criminal court in Rio de Janeiro acquitted ten policemen charged with killing 20 people in the Vigario Geral favela in the northern part of the city in 1993...
...AID mission in Bogota, once scheduled to be closed in the year 2000, has instead been given an expanded mandate...
...This marks the first time in the history of Guatemala that a court of justice has brought a guilty verdict against persons responsible for mass killings...
...The court found three indigenous peasants, Carlos Chen, Pedro GonzAlez G6mez and Fermin Lajuj Xil, responsible for the deaths of more than 270 men, women and children in these communities of the northern departments of Baja Verapaz and Quich6...
...National Liberation Army (ELN) representatives met with civil-society leaders in Germany and again in Colombia to discuss a national convention which could initiate a national reform process...
...21.95 paper, 431 pp To order (shipping: $3.50 for first book, $1 each additional): Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies 9500 Gilman Dr., Dept...
...Human rights advocates in both Washington and Bogoti have criticized the agreement for expanding the Colombian military's role in domestic law-enforcement functions, and for potentially involving the United States in further counterinsurgency operations...
...of California, San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093-0510 fax 619/534-6447 e-mail usmpubs@weber.ucsd.edu Vol XXXII...
...Analysts talked of the excluded 80% sending a message of rejection to the ruling elite for its policies of exclusion...
...Some of its national leaders complained in private that the campaign had a radicalizing effect on the party's rank and file...
...Viewed from this perspective, the Vigario Geral trial's verdict was not surprising...
...But in their quest to regain control over these areas, the police have used extreme force and have acted with virtual impunity...
...These same supporters of more police often employ off-duty policemen as private security guards...
...By early December, some 19,000 people were still unaccounted for...
...AID, calculated that lost future production will cost another $4.5 to $5 billion...
...Earn College Credit while making a contribution to solving problems in Central America...
...This is truly a new beginning for Colombia and a new opportunity for our nations to renew our bonds," President Clinton said, as he announced a multimillion-dollar aid package...
...Some policemen and guards also moonlight as vigilantes or members of death squads who eliminate suspected traffickers and people who live or work on the street...
...And only two of the 52 originally charged were convicted in separate trials last year...
...Chdvez took about 56% of the vote, with Salas taking 39...
...policy...
...Of the 11 other candidates, Chdvez's only serious challenger was Yale-educated Henrique Salas Romer, the choice of the political establishment...
...NEWSBRIEFS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 42 officials, and the creation, with U.S...
...Bishop Gerardi had been a moving force behind the project...
...Bishop Gerardi was bludgeoned to death at his home two days after he had presided over the presentation of the Church's report into the atrocities carried out during more than three decades of Guatemala's civil conflict...
...Steven Dudley Populist Coup Leader Wins Presidency of Venezuela CARACAS-Hugo Chavez Frfas, the former lieutenant colonel who tried unsuccessfully to topple the Venezuelan government in 1992, won an impressive victory in the December 6 presidential election...
...support for the Fund for Peace, the keystone of Pastrana's "Marshall Plan" for conflictive and illicit-crop producing areas, is also on the table...
...Sandinista Party leader Daniel Ortega responded with an FSLN proposal for "sustainable" reconstruction that called for $3 to $5 billion in reconstruction assistance, far above the government's $1.5 billion estimate...
...Increased U.S...
...Defense Secretary William Cohen and Colombian Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda announced the signing of a new cooperation accord between the militaries...
...Chee How Yap, Sophomore Dana Catharine, Director Atlantic Gardens, 527 B Atlantic Ave...
...perceptions toward Mexico and outlines how changing views in the United States have affected events in Mexico and the bilateral relationship itself...
...As the campaign progressed, he moderated his rhetoric in response to the scare campaign carried out by his opponents, which played on fear of violence and "Cuba-style dictatorship...
...ICADS Offers Monthly Intensive Spanish Programs in Costa Rica and semester or academic year abroad programs in Costa Rica, Nicaragua or Belize Working on behalf of: Grassroots Organizations Women The Environment Human Rights Campesino Agriculture ICADS offers a rigorous academic program including structured internships in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Belize in the following areas: Women's Studies, Environmental/Ecology, Public Health, Education and Human Rights...
...There is no place for big celebrations because the tragedy hitting the people is so big," he said in his first public address as president-elect...
...On the contrary, it was a foregone conclusion...
...The bean and maize harvests will also be badly affected this year, leading to shortages of basic foodstuffs...
...The race sharply divided Venezuela along class lines...
...Box 025216 or Sabanilla, 2070 Miami, FL 33102 San Jos6, Costa Rica Study Spanish in Guatemala A not-for-profit sisterhood of four collectively-run schools offers one-on-one instruction, family living, field trips and cultural activities...
...He even ceased making campaign appearances in military attire and began dressing in tailored business suits...
...In Nicaragua, about 30% of the season's coffee crop was lost...
...800) 472-0888...
...Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet conferences: ips.english and ips.espanol...
...Based on a three-year study of over 55,000 reported human rights violations, the Church's Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) project concluded that some 79% of abuses had been carried out by the security forces...
...An initial autopsy reportedly found that the Bishop had died of dog bites, but when his remains were exhumed for re-examination by two independent foreign forensic pathologists, they found otherwise...
...The worst economic damage was to Honduras' banana plantations...
...AID is currently considering how to support alternative development and human rights programs...
...He pointed out that the authorities have failed to initiate inquiries into what he considers the most logical explanation: that military or former military personnel were involved in the Bishop's murder in order to prevent the identification and prosecution of those responsible for abuses perpetrated during Guatemala's dirty war...
...The two traditional, and now widely discredited political parties-Democratic Action (AD) and the social Christian COPEI-which have alternated in power during the past 40 years withdrew support for their nominees in the final week of the campaign to put their wellfinanced political machinery behind Salas in a last-ditch effort to defeat Chavez...
...Not only did my Spanish improve dramatically, but it also showed me a life so different from my own, yet just as fun and fulfilling...
...The volume also includes six country studies...
...Upwards of 9,000 people were killed and 3 million were left homeless, mainly in Honduras and Nicaragua...
...The PACs, groups established by the military during the long civil war, recruited peasant civilians to help control the guerrillas...
...He has also promised to keep in place the structural-adjustment program, despite the calls by opposition Sandinistas and NGOs for increases in public spending and structural changes to alleviate poverty...
...In Honduras, most of the hurricane's victims were the poor, who live in impoverished and precarious conditions on the edges of banana plantations in floodplain shantytowns or on hillsides that are of little economic value...
...The level of devastation has accelerated demands for reducing the Vol XXXII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 I Vol XXXII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1999 INEWSBRIEFS region's foreign debt, to which several countries have responded positively...
...International lending institutions estimated the immediate economic damage in the two countries at $5 billion, about half their combined gross national products...
...The industry, employing 25,000 workers on the Atlantic coast, is not expected to export any fruit at all next year and could take two years to recover...
...On December 1, U.S...
...Chivez's anti-neoliberalism included rejection of the privatization of the social-security and education systems [see "The Assault on Benefits in Venezuela," p.18], and support for protectionist measures in favor of national industry...
...Mark Schneider, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean for U.S...
...Winifred Tate is a graduate student in the Anthropology Department of New York University...
...Such debt forgiveness would occur under the terms of the onerous Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, which would subject the region to still more years of the structuraladjustment prescriptions that have decimated social programs and accelerated the rate of environmental destruction...
...Nicanet Hotline is a weekly news analysis drawn from the three major Nicaraguan newspapers and published by the Nicaragua Network in Washington, D.C...
...It was also thought that the Clinton Administration, long at odds with Pastrana's predecessor, the drug cartel-linked Ernesto Samper, might expand its support beyond the issue of counternarcotics, long the only focus of U.S...
...The authorities argue that those killed were criminals, but evidence shows that of the 1,361 deaths and injuries caused by the police during these years, only six 44 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 44 NACILA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NEWSBRIEFS of those killed or injured had criminal records prior to their encounter with the police...
...The damage done by the hurricane has been estimated by government and independent authorities to have set the development of Honduras and Nicaragua back 20 to 30 years...
...The more moderate Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) also supported Chdvez...
...and Colombian defense Continued on page 44 NEES TITLS fro th CetrfrUS-eia tde Unierit o ClifrnaSa Deg Electoral Observation and Democratic Transitions in Latin America edited by Kevin J. Middlebrook Contributors examine the evolution of electoral observation strategies and the contributions that observers can make to free and fair elections and to the democratization process more generally...
...During a joint press conference held on the White House lawn, President Clinton stood beside President Pastrana, offered his support for the peace process and expressed his intent to broaden U.S.-Colombian relations to address a range of issues, including human rights, judicial reform and trade...
...Nothing in my life prepared me for the experience...
...For the first time in many years, peace was at the forefront of debate...
...Indeed, the U.S...
...For subscription information: Latin American Data Base, Latin American Institute, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131...
...826, ICADS, Apartado 3, P.O...
...Organized drug-trafficking gangs have a strong presence in the favelas, employing the local population to guard their centers of operation from rival gangs and police...
...Guatemalan Church Faults Government Inquiry GUATEMALA CITY-Since his brutal murder in April 1998, Guatemalan authorities have insisted that Bishop Juan Jos6 Gerardi had been the victim of a common crime or a crime of passion...
...Most Venezuelans blame the two traditional parties for squandering the country's huge oil reserves, the largest outside the Middle East, and for the political corruption widely blamed for declining living standards and the widening gap between rich and poor...
...The verdict made one policeman fall to his knees in joy and left the victims' families-some of whom had to be removed from the courtroom during the five-day trial because of their fury toward the defense attorneys-in shock...
...The agreement includes the establishment of a bilateral "working group" of U.S...
...The victims included two children and eight members of one family...
...The government promised a full inquiry into Gerardi's murder, but investigator Valladares has concluded, as have other Guatemalan human rights groups, that the official investigation of the killing is gravely flawed...
...Write us for more information, including a list of past ICADS students...
...Steve Ellner/Notisur SOURCES InterPress Service is an international news service based in Italy...
...Notisur is available as a closed Peacenet conference: carnet.ladb...
...But in a report made known last week, Acisclo Valladares, a former attorney general of Guatemala who was commissioned by the Guatemalan Catholic Church to examine the government inquiry into the Bishop's murder, concluded that he was most probably murdered by persons linked to the military and that the priest arrested for his murder has been wrongly accused...
...212) 674-9499...
...Brooklyn, NY 11217-1913 (718) 625-7780 ranacalli@aol.com - _pst...
...This optimism infused Pastrana's state visit to Washington on October 28, the first official visit of a Colombian president in 25 years...
...In a related case, three former members of the Civilian SelfDefense Patrols (PACs) were sentenced to death in November for their participation in two 1982 massacres in the villages of Rio Negro and Agua Fria...
...But it turns out that the vast majority of the $289-million aid package is in fact military hardware and training for the war on drugs...
...The bulk of the money will be spent on Blackhawk helicopters, weapons and surveillance systems...
...14.95 paper, 245 pp Myths and [Mis]Perceptions: Changing U.S...
...He promised to withdraw Colombian military forces from five municipalities in southern Colombia to begin talks with the FARC, the oldest and largest guerrilla force...
...The move was undoubtedly designed to calm fears 46 NEWSBRIEFS that he would appoint an officer directly involved in the two abortive coup attempts of 1992, the first of which was led by Chdvez himself...
...Father Orantes, however, remains in custody...
...The U.S.-owned Tela Railroad Company has laid off its 7,200 workers for three months...
...President Arnoldo )N, PARAGUAY-A child bathes in a bucket t ntained Shell transmission fluid...
...Continued on page 43 2 NMTIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS NEWSBRIEFS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 Pastrana swept into office promising to bring the warring factions to the table and end more than 30 years of civil war...
...Elite Visions of Mexico Sergio Aguayo Quezada This meticulously crafted study traces the evolution of U.S...
...Alemin has since renewed his campaign to take control of international aid by heavily taxing the NGO sector...
...The court based its verdict on eyewitness accounts of survivors who identified the three men as participants in these massacres...
...Authorities announced in July that Bishop Gerardi's murder was an "inside job" carried out by other residents of the Bishop's home...
...Witnesses recounted the brutal details of the acts carried out by the PAC members, including the hanging of women and the beating of children against rocks and trees...
...While the devastation has received widespread international coverage, few observers have considered the degree to which the death and destruction were the result of the pre-existing poverty in these countries, which has been exacerbated in recent years by neoliberal adjustment measures...
...In Nicaragua, the government has sought to downplay the magnitude of the crisis while centralizing control over international assistance...
...He is the first president in Venezuela's 40 years of democracy to come from outside the traditional party elite...
...Grahame Russell/Nicanet HotlinelWeekly News Update Washington Boosts Colombia's Military WASHINGTON, D.C.-The new president of Colombia, Andrds Pastrana, awakened great expectations when he came into office with a mandate to end the country's long internal conflict...
...0510 Univ...
...support, of a 1,000-man army battalion dedicated exclusively to counternarcotics activities...
...Almost 80% Vol XXXII, No 4 JANIFEB 1999 __ 45 i fl Want a progressive educational experience...
...One of the worst incidents was a mudslide on the slopes of Nicaragua's Casita volcano on October 30, in which more than 2,000 people died...
...Between 1993 and 1996, Rio's police force killed 942 civilians, over half in favelas...
...e-mail address: icads@netbox.com Fax: (506) 234-1337 (Costa Rica) ICADS, Dept...
...those verdicts are in question following an appeal by the policemen...
...Chdvez campaigned against the neoliberal economic model and for what he called "capitalism with a human face...
Vol. 32 • January 1999 • No. 4
