In Brief
The Crisis in Uruguay: The Long View MONTEVIDEO--July 2002 will be remembered as the month the Uruguayan crisis exploded. It is a triple crisis-economic, political, and social-that has been...
...Some 1,000 campesinos took government officials hostage and prepared to fight police and military units if they tried to enter San Salvador Atenco...
...They impose rigorous regimens of social behavior, dictate what women can or must wear, and establish punishment for "bad conduct...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Costa Rican Town Caught in Border Dispute MEXICO DE UPALA - A century-old mistake made by Costa Rican border surveyors threatened to end in a complicated arbitration case with Nicaragua, or the eviction of the entire town of M6xico de Upala, a 250-year-old agricultural hamlet that is home to 2,500 Costa Rican campesinos...
...When the economic crisis that hit Brazil in 1998 and Argentina in 2000 struck Uruguay this year, the country lacked the resources to stop the downward trend, since it had already destroyed its productive system...
...But they left the resistance, and now they want all the lands which we recovered together," a young man from the village of Patria Nueva, in the Zapatista autonomous municipality Primero de Enero, described the political shift that has taken place since the new governor took office...
...In a surprise announcement, the SCT said the government, headed by center-right president Vicente Fox, would study "appropriate options" for supplementing Mexico City's overcrowded Benito Juirez International Airport...
...Today, half of Uruguayans must survive outside the formal economy and 20% of Montevideans live in precarious illegal settlements...
...Whereas under the PRI, some independent indigenous organizations aligned themselves with Zapatista communities, now most have agreed to work with Salazar's government...
...In total, more than half of youth are unemployed and have no hope of finding jobs...
...The government attempted to blame his death on his pre-existing diabetic condition, but the hospital confirmed that Espinoza JuBrez died from the blows he received on July 11...
...M6xico de Upala, they claim, is actually 4 miles south of Nicaragua-well outside the protected border...
...In 2001, the Attorney General's office ruled that the 2,500 residents of M6xico de Upala are living on the stateprotected borderland, and ordered residents to demolish their houses, school and health clinic and evacuate the town...
...almost 30% of the active labor force was underemployed or working informally...
...that figure has currently been reduced to 25...
...The crisis toppled Mercosur, which was never consolidated as a real regional common market, leaving each country's economy unarmed in confronting the onslaught of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA...
...Young female combatants are forced to use contraception or have abortions...
...the government was offering to pay as little as 70 cents a square meter for the land...
...Prostitutes and women accused of adultery are forced to ride naked in trucks around their towns with a note hanging from their necks accusing them of destroying families...
...The border is wrong, and Costa Rica has accepted this for the last 100 years," said Francisco Villalobos, Attorney General for International Affairs...
...In other regions of the state, primarily in Ocosingo and Altamirano, conflicts between indigenous campesino organizations, and Zapatista support bases make up the largest percentage of violent occurrences reported...
...Campesinos in local communities had protested the government's October 22 expropriation of 11,380 hectares for the airport...
...In a few years, the industrial sector that had developed during the period of import substitution was dismantled...
...Not all the growing violence involves priista paramilitaries...
...Women and youth were the most affected sectors...
...The apparent reactivation of paramilitary groups as part of a long-term counterinsurgency campaign comes amidst heightened conflicts among indigenous campesino organizations...
...A growing number of Costa Ricans, including former President Rodrigo Carazo, are convinced the border is wrong and are demanding the government fix the problem...
...For more information write or call: PO Box 452 Manson, WA 98831 Phone (800) 963-9889 Visit our web site: www.hermandad.com historic error, and Costa Rica wants its land back...
...In the marginal neighborhoods, half of households are headed by single mothers, often victims of domestic abuse and social and occupational discrimination...
...Many of these lands, such as Patria Nueva, were previously farmed by both peasant organizations and the Zapatistas...
...Private development on this land is prohibited...
...But the campesinos stuck by their pledge not to sell...
...However, border stone "13-A" was incorrectly put into the ground at a distance of 5.6 miles south of the lake, a mistake which the National Geographical Institute now admits to...
...In 1995 Julio Maria Sanguinetti of the Colorado Party returned to the presidency and his government and later ones put their faith in an economy based on financial services and tourism...
...Although the government and the IMF hold that the crisis is due to "contagion" from the Argentine crisis, its roots lie in structural adjustment policies applied in Uruguay since 1990...
...observers say the most likely alternative is Tizayuca, Hidalgo, some 23 miles from the capital...
...The Zapatistas had long decided to refuse any governmental assistance and to cut off all ties with official institutions, and so the decision of the independent organizations to cooperate with the reform government of Salazar has heightened the tension in the state...
...Mariana Mora Colombian Women March against War BOGOTA-On July 25, two weeks before the inauguration of President Alvaro Uribe, over 20,000 women from all over Colombia gathered in the "taking of Bogotd," the latest National Women's Mobilization against War...
...The misplaced stone gave Nicaragua almost 100,000 acres of Costa Rican land, which was protected by former President Arnoldo Alemin as Los Guatuzos National Park in 1997...
...and defender of the FTAA, was set on denying the seriousness of the crisis and blaming the popular sectors and the left...
...Drawn by promises of democratic government and drained after eight years of low intensity warfare, members of these organizations have accepted government agricultural projects and are soliciting titles for lands taken over after the 1994 Zapatista uprising...
...Elected in 1989, Luis Alberto Lacalle's National Party government implemented hardline adjustment policies aimed at reducing the fiscal deficit, devaluing the Uruguayan peso, opening the economy and promoting rapid modernization...
...Translated from the Spanish by NACLA...
...Protected by a law that guarantees banking secrecy, the Uruguayan financial system was transformed into a refuge for speculative capital, often originating from Argentine capital flight, and became part of the global money-laundering circuit for drug dollars and other profits from illicit ventures...
...Victoria Maldonado is an independent filmmaker and cofounder of the Colombia Media Project...
...The Broad Front coalition of leftist parties got 40% of the votes in the last election and is favored to win the November 2004 presidential election...
...Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Commission's Special Relator of Violence against Women investigated the consequences and impact of the conflict on women in November 2001...
...Community leaders, however, insist the border was erroneously marked too far inside Costa Rican territory, according to border specifications spelled out in the 1858 Cafias-Jerez Treaty...
...But the bank closings paralyzed an economy that had already deteriorated and the poorest Uruguayans, who live off the formal economy's leftovers (street vendors, those who watch parked cars, cleaning people) suffered hunger and anguish...
...Since that moment, the Uruguayan government, led by Jorge Batlle, a man linked to investment capital, friend of George Bush Sr...
...Poverty led directly to social disintegration, delinquency statistics shot up and transformed poor neighborhoods into ghettos that do not even receive minimal services...
...But Justice Minister Jos6 Miguel Villalobos' August 7 decision to override the demolition order issued last year by the Attorney General's office, saved the town from destruction...
...Las redes sociales en la gestaci6n de una cultura alternativa (Nordan, 1997) and La mirada horizontal...
...According to the report, women are often threatened and abused because they show solidarity with their partners or their husbands, or because they have chosen to protect their children from forced recruitment...
...This is an Study Spanish in Guatemala A not-for profit sisterhood of two collectively-run schools offers one-on-one instruction, family living, field trips and cultural activities...
...In other cases, after women are raped, they are sexually mutilated and then assassinated...
...The two sides released their prisoners on July 14-15 and began negotiations, with the government offering a higher price for the land...
...Under Costa Rican law, all territory that falls within 1.2 miles of the country's border is considered state-owned and protected land...
...She found that even though men are the most frequent victims of summary executions and massacres, violence against women, especially sexual violence by the armed groups is common...
...But to date, only one lone voice in government admits to the mistake...
...A group has even petitioned the government to recall all Costa Rican maps, claiming they are reinforcing a mistake and misleading school children...
...For subscription information: Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 334 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 674-9499...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...Women, as carriers of life and the main caretakers, are the most affected," explained Marfa Eugenia Sanchez of Peaceful Route of Women, one of the organizations involved in the planning and execution of these mobilizations...
...Mariana Mora is a PhD student in anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin doing research on indigenous rights in Chiapas...
...The government had to close banks for four days to prevent depositors from emptying them, since the climate of uncertainty was increasing...
...In addition, Coomaraswamy received information that guerrillas have kidnapped young women to serve as sexual partners to the commanders...
...Before 1998, 50% of Uruguayan exports were directed to Brazil and Argentina...
...The government's only response was to surround the poor neighborhoods with an enormous deployment of police, with helicopters patrolling day and night to prevent residents from leaving their ghettos...
...Los desaftos del zapatismo (Nordan, 1995), La revueltajuvenil de los 90...
...According to the treaty, the border should parallel the southern coast of Lake Nicaragua at a distance of 2 miles...
...But the regional economic crisis turned into a political crisis when the Argentine people revolted on December 19 and 20 and overturned the government of Fernando de la Rtia...
...They are training, it seems that they are being paramilitarized...
...ambassador to Uruguay, Martin Silverstein, celebrated the decision.But the crisis is not over and the image of hundreds of very poor people raiding supermarkets for food destroyed the myth of a socially integrated, peaceful and educated country known as the "Switzerland of Latin America...
...The UN Relator reported that many women died while trying to escape from the armed groups in order to protect their pregnancies...
...but if that doesn't work, we would have to seek arbitration...
...Families are welcome...
...Victoria Maldonado Sources Radl Zibechi is editor of the international section of the Uruguayan weekly Brecha, and author of Los arroyos cuando bajan...
...Patricia Buriticd, spokesperson for the Coordinating Body of the National Women's Mobilization against War, told the Bogota daily El Tiempo that the July march was called to pressure the new government to change policies, especially the arming of one million civilians, that would lead to the escalation of the war...
...The last chapter began on August 4. In the midst of a climate of intimidation, Parliament approved a law to "strengthen the financial system" that was to the detriment of the state bankseven though they hold 75% of deposits-and favored the four private foreign banks that will from now on dominate the financial system...
...E-mail: wnu@igc.org Tim Rogers is a reporter for The Tico Times newspaper in Costa Rica...
...Since January 2002, the central bank lost 75% of the country's reserves and the deposits in the financial system were reduced by half without anyone doing anything to stop it...
...Before, the ORCAO [Ocosingo-based coffee growers' organization] people and the Zapatistas worked together...
...In a short time the Lacalle government took apart the welfare state that the military dictatorship (1973-1985) had not managed to dismantle...
...Raids on supermarkets were the only way out for them, since state and municipal soup kitchens were overwhelmed...
...The most adequate way to do this would be to arrive at a friendly agreement with Nicaragua...
...The report also states that the paramilitaries in particular have begun exercising other forms of domination in their areas of control: They impose curfews and states of siege, and disobedience is punished through rape and assassination...
...A resident of San Pedro, in the Zapatista autonomous municipality Ricardo Flores Mag6n, observed: "Recently, the priistas of Nueva Palestina have been coming to the edge of the community at night and firing shots into the air...
...The future president, however, may have to face an ungovernable country...
...As soon as the parliamentary session ended, the IMF approved a loan in the extraordinary amount of $1.5 billion and the U.S...
...Since then, Uruguay's GDP has dropped more than 20...
...But after Pablo Salazar, representing a coalition of small parties and the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), became governor in 2000, rumors of paramilitary reactivation began to circulate...
...According to the Colombian government ombudsman, the majority of the young former guerrilla combatants in the northeastern municipality of Surata in the department of Santander were forced to use intra-uterine devices (IUD), and 70% had sexually transmitted diseases...
...In many cases, they are tied up and raped while their families are forced to watch: This is done as part of a systematic strategy to terrorize whole communities...
...It is a triple crisis-economic, political, and social-that has been brewing for years in a society that didn't want to pay attention to facts that pointed to an imminent financial disaster...
...unemployment reached 15...
...Radl Zibechi Victory for Mexico Airport Protesters MEXICO CITY-After a lengthy face off between militant protesters and police on August 1, Mexico's federal Communications and Transport Secretariat (SCT) ended the government's 10-month campaign to build a new Mexico City airport on expropriated land in Texcoco and San Salvador Atenco municipalities, about 19 miles northeast of the capital...
...If the government were to enforce the demolition and eviction of M6xico de Upala, it would have to kick out everyone living along the border," Villalobos said, "The government is not interested in doing this...
...This year alone, more than 50 confrontations have been documented in Ocosingo...
...LA HERMANDAD EDUCATIVA includes Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco in Quetzaltenango and Escuela de la Montaria near Nuevo San Jos6...
...Their resolve was hardened by the death on July 24 of Jos6 Enrique Espinoza Judrez, one of the protesters injured in the July 11 confrontation...
...The survivors describe in detail how armed groups sexually assault women during attacks...
...Such conflicts highlight the degree to which the social fabric is further disintegrating in Chiapas...
...The women's march was a means to publicize the serious abuses documented in a March report by the UN Human Rights Commission on the condition of women in Colombia...
...Since the beginning of 2002, military training among indigenous groups has most often been documented in the Lacand6n jungle, near the biosphere of Montes Azules...
...The report includes testimonies of survivors of massacres by both guerrillas and paramilitaries...
...The protests turned into a virtual revolt after riot police attacked a group of protesters on July 11, injuring 30 and arresting 14...
...Movimientos sociales y emancipaci6n (Nordan, 1999...
...This march was one of many actions by a growing women's movement comprised of numerous regional and national women's organizations and motivated by the belief that "war only brings more war...
...Tim Rogers Paramilitary Resurgence in Chiapas CHIAPAS-Paramilitary activity organized by groups loyal to the once-dominant Institional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has been relatively subdued in Chiapas since 1998...
...By the end of the decade, one of every seven Uruguayans had abandoned the country...
...Although Lacalle did not privatize state enterprises, thanks to the staunch opposition of the left and a powerful labor movement, the economic opening resulted in the almost total closing of large industries: textile, metallurgical and leather tanning industries, and the entire sector that served the domestic market...
...We were the same...
...half of all children were being born into homes in which basic necessities are not met...
...The country's economic vulnerability had dire social consequences...
...On July 31, in the village of La Culebra, also in Ricardo Flores Mag6n, 40 armed paramilitaries attempted to kidnap a leader of the autonomous government and, after failing to do so, attacked male community members with machetes, injuring seven...
...The report states that armed men sometimes kidnap women and retain them to serve as sexual slaves, forcing them to perform domestic chores as well...
Vol. 36 • September 2002 • No. 2
