In Brief
Mob Justice in Guatemala GUATEMALA CITY-On Feb. 8, residents of Sayaxch6, 373 miles north of Guatemala City on the Rio Pasion, not trusting local authorities to catch armed robbers operating...
...that is the most important...
...After ten days of struggle, the Red Cross reported four dead (others say seven), 80 injured, 900 arrested and huge losses in trade...
...When there is a problem in Simon Bolivar or Miraflores, the police do nothing...
...Study Spanish in Guatemala A not-for profit sisterhood of three collectively-run schools offers one-on-one instruction, family living, field trips and cultural activities...
...President Fujimori's first victory in 1989-1990 was due in great part to his novelty value, and the voters might once again change their minds at the last minute...
...He has reported on Peru regularly for the past three years...
...In sharp contrast, there is no sign of police, weapons or communications equipment in the guerrilla neighborhoods of La Esperanza and Boston...
...The two have historically been at odds, but according to Mateo: "Because the situation here is so difficult, we have to work together...
...Some 64% of lynchings take place in rural, indigenous communities, but despite popular perception that the phenomenon comes from Mayan culture, lynching is not a part of indigenous law...
...The frontrunner continues to be Alejandro Toledo, who is widely thought to have defeated Fujimori in last year's rigged contest...
...and some landowners and logging companies have even demanded that it call out the army...
...have an indigenous content and a political content for all Ecuadorans," explains CONAIE Director Blanca Chancoso...
...communities say it's a last resort," he said...
...At the Lizama blockade 22 miles from Barranca it was evident that the 3,000 campesinos were very well organized, with large water trucks arriving daily to refill the protester's water containers...
...This is a struggle of total unity at the national level, and we have not given in...
...Postal 1-201, C. P. 62000 Cuemrnavaca, Morelos, MEXICO Tel: (52-7) 317-0850 / 313-5450 Fax: (52-7) 313-2637 inforgcetIalic.org.mx www.cetlallc.org.mx According to R6gulo Madero Femrnndez, president of the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights' (CREDHOS) Barranca office: "Last year there were 567 selective homicides for political reasons...
...we have not defrauded the people...
...Complicity between the public forces and the paramilitaries is a fact...
...Communities lynch to deter future criminals, and according to Kobrak, it apparently works...
...One young FARC guerrilla named Mateo said "The reason the situation is so difficult in Barranca is because the paramilitaries receive a lot of support from the public forces...
...On their backs, multicolored fabrics bound infants, tools and pots...
...It was possibly the most significant of three uprisings in the last decade...
...The uprising was led by the National Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador (CONAIE...
...Hemin Moreno, said, "It is the National Police who deal with public order problems, not the army...
...According to Madero of CREDHOS: "Here the life of the people is of no value...
...The moment we go in to save the police we will have to shoot the protesters and it's not constitutional to shoot the people...
...Unless, that is, another Vladivideo comes out and destroys the hopes of either of them...
...His persistent refusal to accept the results then, his support from both the interior of Peru and the international community and his high-profile foreign wife, have all meant he continues as favorite to win the April 8 contest...
...Police killed another indigenous man in Tungurahua...
...Brandishing spears, blowing panpipes and waving their indigenous emblem, the rainbowstriped Wipalo, thousands agreed...
...The dismantling of military leadership after the war created an authority vacuum that democracy has been slow to replace said one UN official...
...Angry demonstrators then burned an air control tower...
...Miguel Sub Ico, 38, and his sons Mario and Carlos Sub Caal, 17 and 16, were killed by neighbors armed with guns and machetes who discovered the men assaulting motorists, reported a UN official present at the crime scene...
...Garry M. Leech is the publisher of Colombia Report, a web-based magazine that provides analysis of the Colombian conflict: <www.colombiareport.org> Research funded in part by the Dick Goldensohn Fund: <www.dickgoldensohn.org> Inter Press Service is an alternative source of insightful news and analysis from a Third World per- spective: <www.globalinfo.org> Phillip Bannowsky is Chair of the Delaware Alliance for Restorative Justice, and author of a novel about Ecuador, The Mother Earth Inn...
...The territorial gains made by the paramilitaries have forced the FARC and the ELN to cooperate...
...Most of these neighborhoods have been under the control of the ELN, with a few in the hands of the FARC, since the 1960s...
...Vargas had been one of three who held power one night last January, after a similar revolt brought down then-President, Jamil Mahuad...
...Only young guerrillas clad in civilian clothes nervously standing lookout on street corners...
...That we have obtained our objectives is most important...
...Police embargoed food, water and medicine from 5,000 indigenous activists camping in Quito's Salesian Polytechnic University...
...A right-wing politician whose views often are close to those of President Fujimori, she is seen as one of the few honest politicians around: The general consensus appears to be summed up by the phrase "women rob less anyway...
...IN BRIEF What has most shocked the Peruvian public is the way that Montesinos deliberately made videos-dubbed Vladivideos by the press-of all the people coming to see him for favors, advice or deals...
...Sociologist Paul Kobrak says vigilante justice is more likely to result in death in towns further from the capital and authorities...
...At times the fighting has been street to street, with the army and police rarely intervening...
...As COPMAGUA representative Juan Loarca said, "Until the state improves the justice system and indigenous law is widely recognized, nothing will change...
...Megan Feldman The Battle for Barranca BARRANCABERMEJA-In poor barrios of Barrancabermeja, urban guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been desperately trying to stave off an offensive by right-wing paramilitaries...
...But now people are being displaced from Barranca to other places...
...For more information write or call: PO Box 452 Manson, WA 98831 Phone (800) 963-9889 Visit our web site: www.infoserve.net/hermandad/ hermandad.htm Apdo...
...Inter Press Service Indigenous Uprising in Ecuador QUITO-By dented trucks, buses and old footpaths called Ilaqui-uian, 10,000 Ecuadoran indigenous people converged on Quito in late January...
...Although each takeover of land has been followed by an eviction even more violent than the last, the indigenous families have returned again and again, vowing to continue the occupations...
...Instead, the novelty factor this time might go for the only female presidential candidate, Lourdes Flores Nano...
...When asked about the possible consequences of this decision, the commander of Barranca's Nueva Granada Battalion and School of the Americas graduate Lt...
...The UN official said the community was frustrated by the police's failure to act and killed the men before they could escape again...
...Phillip Bannowsky Politics, Lies and Videotape in Peru LIMA-At the start of April, Peruvians are due to vote to elect their first president and congress of the post-Fujimori era...
...Its president, Antonio Vargas, united all major indigenous groups with the Social Movement Coordinating Committee (CMS), an alliance of intellectuals, ecologists, small business, human rights activists, barrio organizations and the liberation church...
...8, residents of Sayaxch6, 373 miles north of Guatemala City on the Rio Pasion, not trusting local authorities to catch armed robbers operating in their jungle community, took justice into their own hands...
...The army instilled a culture of violence and eroded indigenous law...
...But over the past two years, the United SelfDefense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have gained control of almost half of the guerrilla-controlled territory in Barranca...
...However, "the state of law, in the case of the Mapuche people, is only relative," according to Aucdn Huilcamdn, leader of the Council of All Lands...
...LA HERMANDAD EDUCATIVA includes Proyecto Lingu(stico Quetzalteco in Quetzaltenango, Proyecto Linguistico de Espariol/Mam in Todos Santos and Escuela de la Montaiia near Nuevo San Jos6...
...Three days into the protest President Pastrana ordered the army to clear the blockades and to reopen the highways...
...Families are welcome...
...But a year is a long time in Peruvian politics, and already in the last couple of months, there have been signs that the voters feel Toledo has little new to offer...
...Our demands are as Ecuadoran citizens in a plurinational country, and...
...We have 30,000 displaced in Barranca...
...Traditionally, robbers are freed after jail or community service, according to a publication on Mayan law by the National Coordinator of Mayan People's Organizations (COPMAGUA...
...It seems unlikely they will turn instead to Alan Garcfa, who ruled from 1984-1989, as memories of the disastrous economic situation during his years in power are still strong in the memory of Peruvians...
...In the videos, time and again Montesinos is seen apparently handing over bundles of dollars to buy congressmen's votes, ensure the silence of generals regarding drug trafficking, guarantee the complicity of state officials in rigging elections and win the support of bankers for shady arms deals...
...Garry M. Leech Mapuche Struggle Heats Up SANTIAGO-Over the past few months, Mapuches in southern Chile have stepped up their struggle to regain what they claim as their "ancestral lands" by staging inva- sions of property, which have been cracked down on harshly by the Carabineros police...
...CONAIE and CMS leaders believe the immediate economic gains show they speak for all Ecuadorans, not just the indigenous...
...Participants scheduled future anti-neoliberal protests...
...In Puerto Napo, police fired on CONAIE and FP demonstrators, killing three...
...And this has generated an anarchic situation," states Madero...
...But in Barranca the paramilitary offensive continues...
...Nor does it seem that Fernando Olivera, whose electoral symbol is a broom to sweep the country clean, will win much over 10% of the vote...
...The next afternoon the protesters peacefully terminated the blockade after the government agreed to discuss the implementation of the demilitarized zone with community leaders...
...Noboa suspended constitutional rights and arrested Vargas, left-labor Popular Front (FP) President Luis Villacis and other leaders...
...Police repression of the land occupations has left people injured on both sides...
...Some 300 people had threatened to lynch the alleged robbers two days earlier...
...Most Ecuadorans backed Vargas this time, but not as far as a coup...
...They turned two suspects over to the police, but Sub Ic6 and his sons escaped...
...In 2000, there were 52 incidents of vigilante justice, resulting in 32 deaths...
...Nick Caistor is a Senior Producer at the BBC Latin American Service...
...The paramilitaries have been responsible for many of the killings as they infiltrate guerrilla neighborhoods...
...The blockades were a protest against the government's intended implementation of a demilitarized zone for the ELN in which to hold peace talks...
...Kinsfolk back home blocked every major road and fought more clubs and tear gas than anyone remembered...
...The revelations of the extent of the corruption during the Fujimori years has made it hard for the presidential candidates to focus on issues...
...In the first 49 days of this year there have been 105 selective homicides...
...The Judiciary is conducting lynching-prevention workshops in municipalities, but given the misery into which most of the country has sunk, and the breakdown of legal institutions, it is an uphill task...
...Last week, President Andr6s Pastrana accused the paramilitaries of organizing peasant blockades of highways that effectively cut the country in two...
...The few police present in the paramilitary-controlled neighborhoods of Simon Bolivar and Miraflores make no attempt to confront members of the AUC who openly patrol the streets with their cellular phones, walkie-talkies and 9mm pistols tucked into their waistbands...
...Lynching is better understood as a legacy of the civil war, in which indigenous communities were hardest hit by violence and militarized by the army's counterinsurgency campaign against leftist guerrillas...
...After a march to Quito's Parque El Arbolito, Vargas emphasized that they had won more than economic gains: "The government did not want to concede anything, but they did concede...
...This March, CONAIE and CMS will face officials in working committees to push compliance with remaining provisions: recovering billions lost in bank frauds and bailouts, fighting corruption, resolving land and water disputes, providing rural development funds, disengaging from Plan Colombia and permitting indigenous participation in planning...
...The deal also frees and drops charges against 500 activists still jailed, indemnifies the killed and injured, and blasts Ecuador's role in Plan Colombia...
...It has also been claimed that of the $9.2 billion officially netted by selling off some 80 of Peru's major state concerns, as little as $500 million actually shows up on the government books...
...But the weeks leading up to the polls have been dominated by the details emerging day after day of the extent of corruption in the previous regime, especially that involving the president's unofficial national security advisor, Vladimiro Montesinos...
...Crime routinely goes way down after a lynching...
...The activist said Chile's indigenous people-who currently number roughly one million out of a total population of 15 million--continued to be subjugated by force and violence...
...They beat, gassed and arrested supporters outside...
...Vigilante justice has increased at an alarming rate since the 1996 Peace Accords ended 36 years of civil war...
...Several indigenous activists have been arrested and put under the jurisdiction of the mili- tary courts, which since the Pinochet dictatorship have the power to try civilians under the Law on Internal National Security...
...The Mapuche families have defended themselves with sticks, stones and lassos with balls from the Carabineros' tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons...
...Over 10,000 delegates representing groups ranging from the French peasant movement to Brazil's Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) united to strategize on how to counter the negative impact of globalization...
...The Waisman commission that is investigating his illicit deals has calculated he may have stolen up to a billion dollars from Peru's public purse...
...This belief could mean that it will be her and Toledo who go through to a second round of voting...
...But if there is a problem in a guerrilla neighborhood, they launch an operation...
...But President Ricardo Lagos has resisted the pressure and called on both sides to respect the state of law...
...Nick Caistor Sources Megan Feldman is an editor and writer for Central America Report, based in Guatemala City...
...Those who hold title deeds to the occupied land have urged the gov- ernment to take a stronger stance, PORTO ALEGRE-Thousands gathered from January 25 to 30 in Porto Alegre, Brazil for the First World Social Forum...
...President Gustavo Noboa conceded and signed a 23-point accord on February 7. The deal reduces the price of domestic gas, freezes gasoline prices, gives transportation discounts to students, elderly, and disabled and suggests that Ecuador's indigenous population (40% of the total) could engender a qualitative shift...
...The UN Mission to Guatemala (MINUGUA) reported 337 lynchings or attempted lynchings in the last five years, usually administered by setting the victims on fire...
Vol. 34 • March 2001 • No. 5
