Newsbriefs
U.S. Embassy Officials Detained in War Zone CHIAPAS-Two U.S. army officers linked to the U.S. Embassy, Assistant Army Attach6 Thomas Gillen and First Sergeant Elizabeth Krug, were detained...
...212) 674-9499...
...The move was seen as a victory for the guerrillas, who have been demanding the demilitarization of this vast territory for over 18 months as a prerequisite for the peace talks...
...Despite these positive developments, human rights groups have expressed concern that a new wave of paramilitary violence against the civilian population is likely in retaliation for the FARC offensive and in defiance of the army pullback in the south...
...In recent months, the company has terminated more than 25 workers, seven of whom were fired for suspected union activities...
...Indian Law Resource Center SOURCES: Latin American Weekly Report is published weekly by Latin American Newsletters...
...Anahuac, Mexico, D.F...
...A third convict in the case, Daniel Canales, was freed one day later...
...firms, has begun firing workers suspected of union organizing in their shops...
...Ending the Liberal Party's 12year hold on the nation's highest office, Pastrana pledged to fight government corruption through political reform and to implement a structural-adjustment program to "put Colombia's economic house in order...
...96A11, 61 Old Street, London EC1V 9HX, England, E-mail: WR@latin.ftech.co.uk...
...The offensive resulted in at least 69 casualties for the army and the National Police...
...company...
...The accusations were made public by opposition deputy Jos6 Mujica, a former member of the MLN who was imprisoned between 1972 and 1985...
...Army War College and an employee of the Strategic Studies Institute, declared that several U.S.-leased counternarcotics helicopters have been used in the war in Chiapas...
...According to Batay Ouvriye, Megatex also has a history of firing workers prior to the conclusion of their three-month probation period in order to avoid paying severance and other legally mandated benefits...
...He also announced that the government would continue to investigate the military's complicity and collaboration with rightwing paramilitary forces...
...The Mexican government has repeatedly denied any U.S...
...Newly appointed army chief General Fernando Tapias said he would comply with Pastrana's orders...
...The Council hopes that its petition before the Inter-American Commission will convince the government of Belize to recognize Maya land rights in the Toledo district...
...companies and they would lose their jobs...
...role in its counterinsurgency operations in southern Mexico...
...Mario Murillo Uruguayan Navy Officer Implicates U.S...
...The loss of forest habitat, moreover, is placing great pressure on many of the game animals on which the Maya depend for food...
...In recent years, moreover, the number of Mexican generals, soldiers and pilots receiving counterinsurgency training at the U.S...
...In what was seen as the latest and perhaps most humiliating defeat in recent months, over 100 soldiers and anti-narcotics police were captured by the FARC, raising the total number of state security personnel currently being held by the guerrillas to 220...
...Mario Murillo is the director of the weekly WBAI radio newsprogram Our Americas and a member of NACLA's editorial board...
...Claiming diplomatic immunity, the two U.S...
...Megatex has refused to disclose who sent the monitors, despite the fact that the team was fully authorized by the company to speak to workers...
...The Zedillo Administration's attacks on pro-Zapatista U.S...
...If the logging continues according to the current terms of the concessions, the Maya will be forced to face the choice of defending their homes and their way of life or losing their lands and cultural identity...
...Army Southern Command at the School of the Americas, which was located in Panama from 1946 to 1984...
...For free samples and subscription information: Latin American Newsletters, Dept...
...The advice received from the United States," Moll said, "was that once information had been extracted from the captured guerrillas, there was no reason to keep them alive...
...monitoring team...
...lay worker Jean Donovan...
...111320, (213) 747-7547...
...Churchwomen SAN SALVADOR-Sergeant Luis Colindres Alemdin and Jos6 Roberto Moreno Canjura, both former members of the Salvadoran National Guard, were released on parole on July 21 after serving 17 years of a 30-year prison sentence for the December 1980 abduction, rape and murder of U.S...
...Canales told the press on July 22 that he would be willing to collaborate with the U.S...
...Gillen and Krug were freed once Chiapas state officials intervened, but not before the incident made headlines in the Mexican press, prompting a meeting between Mexican Foreign Relations Vice Minister Carlos de Icaza and Charge d'Affaires of the U.S...
...The two other national guardsmen who were convicted in the case, Francisco Orlando Contreras and Carlos Joaquin Contreras Palacios, were not released due to subsequent criminal convictions while they were in prison...
...While Pastrana's announcements were received with optimism, his "program for peace" was overshadowed by a massive guerrilla offensive in 14 of the country's 31 departments in the days leading up to the transfer of power...
...I'm willing to collaborate," he stated, "because my country and the whole world have the right to know the truth, and because I paid for a crime I never committed...
...Two workers were suspended on July 21 for ten days without explanation following a visit by a U.S...
...Moll first made the accusations on July 20 while testifying in secret proceedings before a commission of the Uruguayan Chamber of Deputies...
...officers declined to disclose the reasons for their presence in the area...
...The Port-auPrince firm, which is owned by Haitian businessman Michel Liautaud, assembles clothes for the Waterbury Garment Corporation, which has been contracted by the Disney Corporation to produce its Winnie the Pooh line...
...Moll reiterated his charges in his July 23 letter in response to Ambassador Ashby's dismissals, stating that he has documents to prove his claims...
...For information: El Financiero, Lago Bolsena 176 Co...
...Ironically, the incident came in the midst of a governmentsponsored public-opinion campaign attacking U.S...
...nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clark and Dorothy Kazel and U.S...
...The assassination of Amparo Jim6nez, a journalist who worked with the Permanent Assembly for Peace in the department of C6sar, on August 11--the same day Pastrana announced the demilitarization of Meta and Caqueti-does not bode well for peace in Colombia...
...Canales claimed that he has feared for his life since the New York Times reported earlier this year that the former guardsmen told the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights that they were ordered by superiors to kill the churchwomen...
...Mauricio Rosencoff, a former member of the Tupamaros who was also imprisoned during the dictatorship, emphasized that the role of the United States in Uruguay's dirty war should not be forgotten...
...Megatex management, however, had warned workers that if they spoke negatively about the company, the factory would lose its contracts with U.S...
...The heaviest guerrilla attack occurred in the southeastern municipality of Miraflores in the department of Guaviare-the heart of Colombia's coca-growing Vol XXXII, No 2 SEPT/Ocr 1998 1 Vol XXXII, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1998 1NEWSBRIEFS region...
...agency had made the recommendations...
...For more information on the Indian Law Resource Center: 601 E Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003...
...The Council has filed the petition on behalf of the Mopan and Ke'kchi Maya in southern Belize in an effort to stop all logging and oil exploration on their lands...
...Latin American Weekly Report/ El Financiero International Guerrilla Offensive Rocks Colombia as New President Promises Peace BOGOTyA-Conservative Party leader Andr6s Pastrana was sworn in on August 7 as Colombia's thirty-seventh President amidst rising expectations that he will bring an end to the country's 40-year civil war...
...In the August 3 offensive, some 300 FARC combatants ambushed a joint army-police antinarcotics base, killing 30 soldiers and police officers and completely destroying the base...
...nationals for intervening in Mexico's internal affairs...
...Among the new initiatives was the creation of a National Fund for Peace to meet the immense costs of carrying out comprehensive peace negotiations...
...If a "friendly settlement" cannot be reached, the Council has requested that the Commission prepare a report declaring Belize in violation of the rights outlined in the American Declaration of Rights and Duties of Man, and that it recommend that the government of Belize suspend all logging, oil exploration and other natural resource development on lands traditionally used and occupied by Maya people in the Toledo district...
...government in a new investigation of the murders if he were given immunity...
...The President claimed that the fund would be paid for by resources freed up by the government's austerity program, support from the international community, and a special "peace tax," which would have to be approved by the Colombian Congress...
...The clause permits the release of any prisoner who has served at least half of his or her sentence and demonstrated good behavior while in custody...
...Special Forces (Green Berets) base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina has risen dramatically...
...El Financiero International is a weekly newspaper based in Mexico City, Mexico...
...They were also told to say that they were paid $36 a day instead of their actual daily rate of $2.20...
...These are things we already knew," said Mujica, "but the fact that a rear admiral is saying them gives them much more weight...
...Ambassador to Uruguay Christopher Ashby called the charges "ridiculous...
...It can be put to use just as easily in counterinsurgency operations...
...202) 547-2800...
...solidarity activists has led to dozens of expulsions over the past months-the most recent being that of San Diego schoolteacher Peter Brown, who was arrested on July 24 and expelled the following day for participating in a schoolbuilding project in the proZapatista community of Oventic in the municipality of San Andrds Larriinzar...
...The Colombian media were quick to denounce the guerrilla offensive, describing it as a "cowardly terrorist act" that ran counter to the recent peace efforts...
...Website: http://www.financiero.com...
...Since 1993, Belize's Ministry of Natural Resources has allowed logging on over 500,000 acres in Toledo and granted concessions of over 170,000 acres of rain forest to two Malaysian logging companies...
...A press bulletin issued by the Ministry of Foreign Relations soon after the meeting demanded that U.S...
...Embassy, Assistant Army Attach6 Thomas Gillen and First Sergeant Elizabeth Krug, were detained on July 26 for over four hours by a group of Tzotzil Indians from the town of Los Plitanos in the municipality of El Bosque, Chiapas after they refused to allow the villagers to inspect their van...
...All five men were imprisoned in 1981 and sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1984...
...military personnel inform the Mexican government of their travel plans...
...Government in Rights Violations MONTEVIDEO-Retired Uruguayan rear admiral and former intelligence chief Eladio Moll stated in a letter that was made public on July 23 that the Uruguayan security forces received instructions from the United States to kill imprisoned members of the National Liberation Movement (MLN)-better known as the Tupamaros-during Uruguay's dirty war...
...In 1997, moreover, the Ministry of Energy, Science, Technology and Transportation granted a permit to AB Energy, Inc., a foreign oil and gas exploration company, to explore for oil reserves on some 750,000 acres of land in the district...
...In recent statements made to Mexico City weekly El Financiero Internacional, however, Donald Schultz, an expert on Latin America at the U.S...
...Since 1994, the United States has sold and donated over $235 million worth of arms and equipment to Mexico, including 103 UHIH "Huey" helicopters, four surveillance planes, as well as night-vision, electronic-control and satellite equipment...
...While initially characterizing it as a "farewell send-off" to outgoing President Ernesto Samper, Pastrana did not allow the offensive to derail his plan to demilitarize five municipalities in the southern departments of Meta and Caqueti in order to lay the groundwork for an eventual dialogue with the FARC...
...In recent years, Miraflores has been the focus of a U.S.-backed coca-eradication campaign...
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...According to human rights organizations, more than 900 Uruguayan military officers received training from the U.S...
...Colindres, Moreno and Canales were freed under a new clause of the penal code which was introduced to alleviate prison overcrowding...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Disney Union Busting in Haiti PORT-AU-PRINCE-According the Haitian labor organization Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle), Megatex S.A., a Haitian-owned company that assembles apparel for major U.S...
...Most importantly, the new President said he would personally take a leading role in eventual peace negotiations with the country's two largest guerrilla organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN...
...Weekly News Update of the Americas is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...In 1970, the Tupamaros murdered Dan Mitrione, a CIA agent who had given courses on torture techniques to Uruguayan officers...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas NGO Files Petition Against Logging and Oil Concessions in Belize TOLEDO-On August 10, the Toledo Maya Cultural Council (TMCC) filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS) challenging the legality of logging and oil concessions granted by the government of Belize in the district of Toledo...
...The tax would also require a financial commitment from the country's business elite to a settlement of the conflict...
...The President said that the military withdrawal from the region would take place within 90 days, during which the two sides would establish a framework for negotiations...
...As a guerrilla stronghold, this municipality has seen a dramatic increase in paramilitary violence against the civilian population...
...It remains to be seen whether the business community will agree to underwriting the cost of peace and whether neoliberal austerity can, in the long run, contribute to the pacification of the country...
...Embassy, Charles Brayshaw...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas El Salvador Frees Three Who Killed U.S...
...Pastrana warned the guerrillas that the CHIAPAS-Villa9 Oventic, a town demilitarization July when San D should not be ment in school-b taken as a cover to engage in what he called their business dealings with drug traffickers...
...Soil erosion and the pollution of streams have notably increased near Maya communities as a result of logging and oil exploration...
...Pastrana outlined a number of steps aimed at achieving peace and national reconciliation...
...One cannot limit the uses to which the Mexican government puts our counternarcotics training," said Schultz...
...Moll did not disclose which U.S...
...The commission was investigating charges of fraud related to a scheme involving fishing permits filed against his son, Ricardo Moll, by a U.S...
Vol. 32 • September 1998 • No. 2
