In Brief
Anti-privatization Protests Erupt in Peru AREQUIPA-Five days of protests against the Peruvian government's decision to privatize state-run electric companies in the southern department...
...These two never went to the scene of the crime, less than two blocks away...
...The disturbances erupted on June 14 in Arequipa, capital of the department of the same name, located 650 miles south of Lima, when the government announced that the Belgian company Tractebel had purchased the local electric companies in a bidding process-in which it was the only participant-for $167 million...
...To meet the rest of the repayments, the government has to get $240 million from the IMF because this will unlock a further $280 million from other multilaterals...
...The Fund, apparently supported by the Bush administration, may indeed feel that more economic destruction will make the recovery simpler and faster...
...Although the Argentine government has met most of the IMF's conditions for opening negotiations, it has not met all of them, most crucially, the tightening of its monetary policy...
...Unknown is how the IMF would respond if Brazil were to run into balance of payments problems either in the run-up to, or after, its elections...
...This precedent would affect many countries in the debt-ridden hemisphere...
...Honduran agrarian reform laws essentially state that land that is not being used for a socially viable purpose is up for grabs, and if a group starts to farm it then they can file for legal title with the National Agrarian Institute (INA...
...Brazil is currently positioned as the most influential economy in MERCOSUR, the regional common market that includes Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay and Uruguay...
...The Guatemalan government must now investigate and demonstrate that it is not directly involved in the crime, as many Guatemalans suspect...
...They were later captured at two different hospitals, thanks to photographs taken by journalists who, by chance, were covering a case near the site of the crime...
...People ran in all directions, many taking cover in a nearby creek as bullets flew...
...Even though the concession had been ended, Standard Fruit reportedly sold the land to subsidiary Standard Fruit of Honduras, which continued to act as owner of the land and hired 24-hour armed guards...
...They resulted in the deaths of two students at the hands of the police...
...The campesinos were evicted and several of them briefly arrested...
...Interests Section building seen in the background, President Fidel Castro leads what has been called the largest march in Cuba's revolutionary history on June 12 to protest President George Bush's policies toward Cuba and to defy calls to scrap the socialist system...
...The murder could be interpreted as yet another act of violence in a rampant Guatemalan crime wave except for other aspects that surround the crime...
...On June 1, the U.N...
...The two assassins, who were wounded by another restaurant client during the shooting, escaped on foot but were soon picked up by a car...
...He received an approval rating of just 22% in recent opinion polls...
...The street protests had continued in spite of a military presence in the city and had spread to other southern cities, including Puno, Cusco, Tacna and Moquegua...
...The plebiscite will take on a variety of forms in all countries including the United States...
...Kari Lydersen is an independent journalist living in Chicago...
...Guatemala that there existed "a climate of fear...due to...threats, intimidations, disappearance and even killings...
...She is a reporter at The Washington Post midwest bureau and writes for a variety of publications including In These Times, The Chicago Reader and The Progressive...
...As a condition of the truce, Toledo administration representatives promised to halt privatizations until the courts rule on a petition filed last week by the municipality of Arequipa...
...For free samples and subscription information: Dept...
...President Eduardo Duhalde has said that he will not make all the changes the IMF wants...
...Historically, the most sophisticated extrajudicial executions in Guatemala, including the politically motivated assassinations of anthropologist Myrna Mack in 1990 and Bishop Juan Gerardi in 1998, have been masked as "common crimes...
...The IMF has long been a supporter of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and his economic strategy...
...Interior Minister Fernando Rospigliosi resigned the same day, however, because he disagreed with the Arequipa settlement...
...Dawn Plummer -Carleen Pickard IMF Politics Keep Latin America On Edge The determination of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not to bail Argentina out of its financial crisis is creating problems for other indebted countries in the region, most immediately Ecuador and Paraguay...
...Some 150 people were injured...
...This deliberate snub of the increasingly desperate Argentine government is setting a standard for other negotiations...
...The perpetrators of these attacks are reportedly illegal clandestine groups...
...These journalists also witnessed, within five minutes of the crime, two people on motorcycles who asked about the assassins and identified themselves as members of the National Police Criminal Investigation Service (SIC...
...Farmers, meanwhile, are preparing to mobilize to demand tariff protections and access to loans...
...The truce in Arequipa has not quelled protests in other cities...
...Dole spokesperson Freya Maneki said that the company "is saddened by the unfortunate events," and that they are cooperating with the government's investigation...
...FRMT considers this crime an attack against the foundation as such, with Ovalle de Le6n the most accessible target...
...Carleen Pickard is Mexico Program Director at Global Exchange in San Francisco...
...It cleared $181 million of this in the first quarter...
...First, there was a very high level of organization: FRMT staff perceived surveillance of the foundation's premises several days before the crime, and it intensified the day of the crime...
...Several witnesses saw two cars, both with three or four armed men, at different times and places very close to the foundation within four hours of the attack...
...The government had been counting on the privatization to produce the money it needed to pump-prime the economy...
...The strikes and demonstrations show further erosion of the popularity of President Toledo, who took office July 28, 2001 with strong support from many of those who now protest his administration's actions...
...The crime also coincided with important new developments in two legal cases led by the FRMT, the case of the October 1995 Xamin massacre perpetrated by the army and the case charging former dicator General Efrafn Rios Montt and others with genocide...
...The Hemispheric Social Alliance, composed of thousands of social groups from 32 countries, will launch the People's Consultation in September, asking people to vote on whether the FTAA should be ratified by their country...
...Brazil has been the heart of FTAA resistance, not only among large movements of farmers, such as the Landless Workers Movement (MST) with an impressive 1.5 million members, but also the Workers' Party (PT), environmentalists and churches, and even free-traders angry about U.S...
...If the IMF refuses to help Argentina, it will be setting a principle that countries with continual debt problems cannot expect to be given ongoing help...
...What might it do if the leftist, Luiz Inicio Lula presidency...
...Like Argentina, the Ecuadorean government has failed to meet the fiscal balance targets set by the IMF over the past 10 years...
...Foundation members believe that others would have been attacked if they had happened to go to the restaurant that day...
...While many anti-FTAA hopes are pinned on Brazil, Lula has made uncharacteristic election-year alliances with other parties that may compromise his ability to oppose free trade measures...
...Toledo faces three crucial issues: the future of the privatization process, the governability of the country, and the management of social upheaval, like that which erupted in Arequipa, according to a report in the local El Comercio newspaper...
...We are just fighting for a little bit of land so we can feed our families and educate our children," he said, noting that at least 39 campesinos from the CNTC alone have been killed over land issues since 1985...
...SecretaryGeneral's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, stated after a visit to HAVANA-With the U.S...
...The march was followed by a popular referendum held June 15-19 in which 98.9%-or 8 million people-of Cuba's registered voters, supported a constitutional amendment declaring socialism "irrevocable...
...At the April 2001 meeting in Quebec, ministers agreed to work towards signing an agreement by 2005...
...The petition had been approved by a lower court...
...Radl Molina Mejia Honduran Campesinos Murdered by Dole Subsidiary Guards HONDURAS-The tradition of bloodshed for bananas that earned Honduras the nickname "Banana Republic" almost a century ago continued on March 28, when guards hired by Standard Fruit of Honduras, a subsidiary of Dole Foods, murdered four campesinos from the Empresa Campesina 1 de Octubre organization in the Belfate municipality of Col6n province.Witnesses said 17 guards opened fire with AK47s on about 40 campesinos as they walked along a trail to work...
...Rosalio Murcia Portillo, president of the National Rural Workers' Central (CNTC), said the tension over land struggles has gotten even worse since President Ricardo Maduro took office this year...
...That position is threatened by the prospect of an economic pact with its aggressive northern neighbor...
...Allegedly, some of them have links with state institutions, in particular the police and the army...
...The amendment was passed on June 27 by a unanimous vote in a special session of the National Assembly...
...The guards did come back, but with guns rather than paper and a plan to kill as many of the farmers as they could...
...Like Ecuador, Paraguay is also in a pre-election financial jam, following the failure of the attempt to privatize the state telecommunication company...
...In June a communique was issued by a death squad calling itself "True Guatemalans" threatening various human rights defenders and journalists with death as "enemies of the Fatherland...
...Now it hopes the IMF will come up with a $70 million loan...
...In an interesting twist, the Brazilian government has threatened to abandon its participation in the FTAA negotiations if the United States refuses to lower tariffs on Brazilian imports and stop protecting U.S...
...Latin America Weekly Report is published weekly by Latin America Newsletters...
...Anti-privatization Protests Erupt in Peru AREQUIPA-Five days of protests against the Peruvian government's decision to privatize state-run electric companies in the southern department of Arequipa ended June 19 when an official mission sent by President Alejandro Toledo struck a truce with local authorities and protest leaders...
...The Arequipa authorities argue in the lawsuit that the Egasa and Egesur electric companies are property of the region, not of the Peruvian state...
...The attraction of an IMF deal for the government is that, with tax revenues improving and oil prices surprisingly strong, it would be able to start spending to improve its support in the run-up to next year's elections...
...On March 20, 76 campesinos again occupied the plantation...
...Several guards were jailed for the killings, but were released a week later...
...The Lis Lis land has been the subject of an ongoing dispute...
...In June, the IMF initially refused to set a date for the arrival of an IMF negotiating team...
...results will be announced next April...
...Without the imminent prospect of an IMF deal, the Argentine economy is likely to lurch back into the abyss...
...It was originally ceded to Delaware-based Standard Fruit Co...
...Standard filed criminal proceedings against the campesinos who occupied the Lis Lis site...
...The PT has noted that "sectors that could compete, such as steel, orange juice and textiles are exactly the industries that are being protected by the U.S...
...A transportation strike began in Lima on June 20 to protest a government decree that forces companies in that sector to buy insurance to protect passengers...
...The logistics of Ovalle de Le6n's murder strongly suggest a death squad operation...
...The people of Arequipa have triumphed, but there is still a long road to travel, which we will follow until we reestablish governability and reaffirm democracy, within the framework of respect for human dignity and the popular will," said Arequipa Mayor Juan Manuel Guill6n...
...The day before the killings, "during a discussion with some of the farmers the guards claimed they would be back the next day with documented proof that the land was privately owned by Standard Fruit of Honduras," Pigeon wrote...
...96All, 61 Old Street, London EC 1V 9HW, England...
...With PT presidential candidate Lula da Silva leading in opinion polls, Brazil's October elections may complicate matters...
...The campesinos first occupied the Lis Lis land on October 1 in one of the "land demands" that are common in Honduras...
...by the Honduran government, then that concession was ended as part of agrarian reform in 1975...
...InterPress Service Another Human Rights Worker Murdered in Guatemala GUATEMALA CITY-On April 29 Guillermo Ovalle de Le6n, an accountant in the Rigoberta Menchti Tumrn Foundation (FRMT) was shot to death during an alleged armed robbery in a small restaurant less than a block away from the foundation's office...
...http://www.globalinfo.org Radl Molina Mejia is executive director of the Rigoberta Menchii Tum Foundation in New York and adjunct professor of human rights at New York University...
...Following a popular referendum in September 2000, in which 6 million Brazilians cast their vote against making foreign debt payments, Brazil is now leading the People's Consultation, a popular referendum to bring the FTAA into public debate across the Americas...
...Finally, a few minutes after the assassination, four succesive calls were received at the foundation with no one speaking, only laughter and funeral music could be heard...
...How the IMF deals with Ecuador, and perhaps Paraguay, will show whether Argentina is being singled out or whether the IMF's hard-nosed line will be the norm for Latin American economies...
...de Silva, wins the -Latin American Weekly Report -NA CLA Sources InterPress Service is an alternative source of news and analysis from a Third World perspective...
...General strikes were called in Puno and in Cusco on June 20 in solidarity with the anti-privatization movement and to demand an end to the state of emergency and the military control the federal government had imposed in Arequipa earlier this week...
...Another farmer later died from his injuries...
...Ovalle de Le6n's killing occurred in the context of increased intimidation against those struggling against impunity and gross human rights violations...
...A government commission is investigating the massacre...
...markets...
...tariffs...
...In theory Ecuador has to repay $755 million in debt this year...
...At 7:30 that morning, the guards surprised the farmers as they emerged into a clearing," wrote human rights activist Marguerite Pigeon in a report from the scene...
...While the United States is looking for ways to discourage debate and "fast-track" trade policy, the People's Consultation represents the first time civil society is uniting across the hemisphere to encourage citizens to vote "No to the FTAA...
...IPS is a nongovernmental organization structured as a non-profit International Association of Journalists...
...Now the government is desperate for IMF support...
...Kari Lydersen MST Leads People's Consultation to Say "No" to the FTAA BRAZIL-Next October economic ministers of all the countries of the Americas, with the exception of Cuba, will meet in Quito, Ecuador for the next round of negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the U.S.-backed trade agreement that would extend NAFTA-like free trade policies from Canada to the tip of Tierra de Fuego...
...In return for clearing the debt it received fresh inflows of credit of $225 million in the first couple of months...
...Raiil Diez Canseco, first vice-president and a member of the government mission, apologized to the people of the region and read aloud what was dubbed the Arequipa Declaration, signed by Toledo's envoys and the local authorities...
...The campesinos had been farming an abandoned coconut plantation in a coastal area called Lis Lis on and off since last fall...
...He was replaced" by Deputy Interior Minister Gino Costa, who said he planned to continue with the privatization process...
...Amidst the chaos, the bus that brought the government envoys to Arequipa was subjected to a barrage of stones thrown by the protesters...
...In Tacna, located on the extreme southern border with Chile, the clashes between protesters and the police continued, and in Moquegua peasant farmers gathered to block the railroad tracks leading to the area's mines...
...Dawn Plummer is Program Coordinator of the Friends of the MST in San Francisco...
Vol. 36 • July 2002 • No. 1
