In Brief
Salazar's Victory Raises Hopes in Chiapas TUXTLA GUTIERREZ-Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, the candidate of the eight-party coalition called Alliance for Chiapas, won a historic victory on August...
...In both countries, youth activists organized to expose the identities of human rights abusers-Daughters and Sons for Identity and Justice and against Forgetting and Silence (HIJOS) in Argentina and a group known simply as the FUNA in Chile-have been under attack by reactionary factions...
...Conflicts within the right's military and political structures are also growing...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas SOURCES Jason Stein works at the information desk of International Service for Peace (SIPAZ...
...Students also organize frequent protests against the regime...
...Publicizing this news on the day the talks were scheduled to begin highlighted the government's willingness to go to extremes to distract local and international attention from the OAS discussions...
...7-Brazil's independence day-against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the government's economic policies...
...Most guerrilla combatant to be killed Venezuelans hope that Chdvez's since the end of the armed conpeaceful revolution will now focus flict...
...In many regions of the state-especially where the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) had established a presence-voting took place in a climate of fear...
...This move led to the discharge of several army officers-most of them close to Rios Montt-including the third in the line of command...
...Further, twice in June and July, CERIGUA, a news agency that operated from exile before the signing of the peace accords, received death threats against its staff and director...
...Regime supporters immediately accused the opposition of inciting violence...
...Perhaps the best-represented contingent was the students, from state-run and private universities in Lima, such as San Marcos and the Catholic University, as well as from provincial universities such as the University of Huancayo, in the central highlands...
...Members had recently filed a suit charging former dictator General Romeo Lucas Garcia and two other high-ranking officers with genocide...
...Margot Olavarrfa is a doctoral candi- date in political science at the New School University and Associate Editor at NACLA...
...Women's groups have also taken to the streets, and begun organizing weekly protests in front of the Palace of Justice to denounce what they say is the absence of the rule of law and the monopolization of power by Fujimori and his cronies...
...With both Salazar and President-elect Vicente Fox entering office, there are cautious hopes that a solution to the armed conflict in Chiapas may be within reach...
...On May 14, armed individuals entered the community of Santa Maria Tzeja, Quich6, and burned the cooperative store to the ground...
...RaOl Molina Meiia is a consultant for the Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA, a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University's Institute for Latin American Studies and the international representative of FORUM, a Guatemalan political organization...
...Cavallo was an operative of the Army School of Mechanics (ESMA), the infamous torture and detention center during the Argentine dictatorship...
...Project Venezuela will have eight seats and COPEI will have five...
...For subscription information: Nicaraqgua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayefte Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 674-9499...
...The judiciary is also under threat...
...Jo-Marie Burt Human Rights Activists Under Attack in Chile and Argentina overshadows recent gains in the struggle against impunity in Latin America...
...The press conference held by Fujimori and-in a rare public appearance-Montesinos announced the dismantling of an arms ring that was smuggling weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC...
...The Sao Paulo protest was one of some 1,200 demonstrations held in 23 Brazilian states as part of a national campaign organized by the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), the Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST), unions and grassroots organizations under the name "The Cry of the Excluded," to protest the social exclusion of a large segment of Brazil's population...
...Maximiano Errdzuriz, a right-wing National Renovation (RN) deputy, filed criminal charges for "illicit association" against the FUNA on August 22...
...As a member of the ESMA Task Force, Cavallo is implicated in the disappearance of an estimated 5,000 persons...
...Salazar, who was backed by both the conservative National Action Party (PAN) and the left-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), defeated Sami David David of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), earning 53% of the vote to David's 47...
...Presidentelect Fox has also promised to resolve the conflict by fulfilling the San Andr6s accords and drawing troops out of the conflict zone...
...For many officers, the institution and individuals within it can be saved only if the army has no further involvement in human rights violations...
...It also signaled to the opposition and OAS that one of their principal demands-the removal of Montesinos from any position of public power and the restructuring of the SIN-is not up for debate...
...As governor, he has promised to support the implementation of the San Andrds Peace Accords signed by the EZLN and the Mexican government, promote demilitarization, aid refugees and disarm paramilitary groups...
...He urged the losing candidates to take their complaints to the appropriate authorities if they had proof of wrongdoing, but added that "democracy consists of recognizing when one has lost...
...But attitudes about political violence vary...
...When violence broke out among supporters of the opposing candidates, Chivez sent the National Guard to restore order...
...HIJOS claims that the center is being razed to destroy evidence of the torture, baby kidnapping and executions committed there, and where only 16 of approximately 3,800 prisoners survived...
...At the same time, citizen initiatives to uphold justice are mushrooming, and social and political organizations are courageously confronting the powerful sectors that keep criminals unaccountable...
...Divila refused to accept defeat, alleging fraud...
...While helping a motorist stalled on a country road on July 9-three days before he was due to present closing arguments in the case-a pick-up truck charged toward Contreras and his wife, running her over and causing critical injuries...
...It remains to be seen whether the opposition can muster the force and the unity needed to challenge the authoritarian powers-that-be...
...The Berenson announcement was similarly seen as a smokescreen, but this time to deflect attention from charges that it was highranking Peruvian military officials who were in fact the ones smuggling guns to the FARC...
...Venezuelans elected 774 other public officials, including state governors, mayors, regional lawmakers, the mayor and 13 city councilors for the newly created Federal District of Caracas...
...Again, terror is the main tool for preserving impunity...
...On May 19, after she indicted three military officers for Bishop Gerardi's murder, Judge Flor de Maria Garcia and her assistant noticed continued surveillance by unknown men...
...If Chdvez could forge an alliance with the PPT and some other small parties or independent deputies, he would have the two-thirds majority necessary NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS to ensure MVR initiatives on Supreme Court appointments, constitutional amendments, and other legislation necessary for his peaceful revolution...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...I relate this to the constant threats we have suffered in the midst of the immunity hearings," Contreras told the Associated Press...
...There are currently 165 criminal charges filed against Pinochet in Chile...
...By the end of the day, three buildings had been set ablaze, including the National Bank, resulting in the death of six guards who had been inside the building...
...The August 6 arrest in Italy of retired Argentine major Jorge Olivera, who is being labeled "Pinochet II," signals another important step in the antiimpunity struggle...
...As a result, the Supreme Court postponed hearing final arguments in the Pinochet case until July 19...
...In this case, the courts interpreted kidnapping as a crime still in progress-and thus not covered by the amnesty law-given that the bodies of 19 of the victims were never recovered...
...People from all over the country ventured to Lima to participate in the marches: Caravans came from remote Andean villages in Huancavelica and Cuzco as well as the jungle regions of Iquitos and Madre de Dios...
...RaWil Molina Mejia "Cry of The Excluded" Sweeps Brazil SAO PAULO-Nearly, 85,000 people protested in Sdo Paulo on Sept...
...More than a million people in some 3,000 municipalities took part in the plebiscite...
...In one of the most significant advances in the fight against impunity, the Chilean Supreme Court stripped Pinochet of his immunity on July 25, upholding a June 5 decision by Santiago's Appellate Court...
...The decision to strip Pinochet's immunity comes five months after his return to Chile after having spent 16 months in detention in London...
...But July 28 was marked by violent police repression of protesters...
...Chivez and his administration now face enormous challenges in the oil-rich nation where 80% of the people are poor and where the gross domestic product (GDP) plunged 7.2% last year...
...Democratic Action (AD), with 33 deputies, will be the principal opposition party in the legislature...
...In Chile, one of the prosecuting attorneys in the case against former dictator Augusto Pinochet (19731990), Eduardo Contreras, had been receiving anonymous death threats for months...
...He said his office had received complaints of ballot tampering, voting machine errors and campaigning on election day...
...Salazar strongly supported the peace process through his work on the Congressional Commission for Agreement and Pacification (COCOPA...
...The PRI-dominated State Electoral Council (CEE) also drew criticism for its failure to respond to many requests for special voting booths for the more than 10,000 displaced persons in Chiapas...
...Olivera is one of 98 Argentine military officers who have been charged by Judge Baltazar Garz6n in the disappearance of Spanish citizens during Argentina's dictatorship (1976-1983...
...On July 21, the attorney for HIJOS in that city, Matilde Bruera, received a package containErrata: Sebastian Brett's "Impunity on Trial in Chile" [July/August 2000] stated that by early 1999, all the Pinochet-appointed justices in the Chilean Supreme Court had retired, when in fact, there were four left...
...Margot Olavarria Venezuelans Still Like Ch6vez CARACAS - Venezuela's President Hugo Chivez won reelection on July 30, taking an impressive 59.5% of the vote...
...Nine people were injured in the disturbances...
...nied by violence...
...Jason Stein/SIPAZ The Reawakening of Civil Society in Peru LIMA-Every Friday at one p.m., dozens and sometimes hundreds of Peruvians gather at the Plaza de Armas located in front of the presidential palace to "wash" the Peruvian flag...
...But once the ceremony was over, police withdrew from sections of downtown Lima, allowing small groups of vandals to engage in disparate acts of violence, principally against public property...
...Since the death of Roberto Davila in January 2000 there are now three Pinochet justices left...
...One survivor has testified that while being held at The Cylinder she saw at least one pregnant woman among the mutilated prisoners...
...It has entered into talks with the government that are being overseen by the Organization of American States (OAS), but holds little faith that anything substantial will come of these discussions...
...The FRG accepted people whom President Portillo had invited to serve in his government-individuals who previously were involved in truth-seeking efforts...
...Various candidates demanded that the National Electoral Council (CNE) conduct a manual recount of the ballots...
...That same week in Buenos Aires, HIJOS members were brutally beaten by thugs allegedly hired by Buenos Aires Vice-Governor Felipe Solk while protesting the demolition of a former torture and detention center known as The Cylinder...
...All factions within the army want to maintain impunity, which explains the FRG's recent initiative to present a bill granting amnesty to those involved in subversive and counter-subversive operations during the armed conflict...
...The day also marked the culmination of a grass roots plebiscite on the foreign debt, organized by the same groups...
...The protest marches on July 26 and 27 were peaceful, with no significant violence or police repression...
...However, it is increasingly clear that that challenge will not take place at the negotiating table-where the opposition has clear disadvantages-but on the streets, where it can clearly show that most citizens see the person sitting in the presidential palace as a usurper of power, and not as the legitimate leader of Peru...
...Opponent Francisco Arias Cirdenas came in second with 37.6% and Claudio Fermin received 3...
...In addition, PRI supporters were accused of buying votes and coercing voters across the state by manipulating public aid...
...The President's decision indicated his failure to provide security in Guatemala even to his closest relatives...
...William Divila by less than 1% of the vote...
...Observers had feared that impunity would be consolidated by the present administration, given the triumph of General Rios Montt's party, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), in the 1999 elections...
...And on July 30 in C6rdoba, three hooded men kidnapped Elizabeth Cevallos and tortured her, throwing red paint on her genitals and cutting her chest with broken glass...
...The remainder of the seats are divided among smaller parties and independents...
...Although Chivez won by a wide margin, the closeness of some gubernatorial and mayoral elections set off heated protests and demonstrations in several states, resulting in one death...
...On July 11, Carlos L6pez Buchi, auxiliary prosecutor in Poptun, Petdn, who was dealing with drug-trafficking and murder cases, was shot to death on a highway...
...Rigoberta Menchd, the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, also received e-mailed threats recently...
...Police determined it was a bomb, ready to detonate and powerful enough to blow up two apartments...
...The atmosphere The body of Oswaldo Monz6n, a of intimidation has intensified union leader, was found on June since the inauguration of President 23 after his abduction the day Portillo last January...
...citizen Lori Berenson, who was sentenced by a secret military tribunal in 1996 to life imprisonment for her alleged involvement with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA...
...Box 2415, Santa Cruz, CA 95603...
...Threats and harassment have become common...
...Tensions ran particularly high in the southwestern state of Mdrida, where the latest official results showed MVR candidate Florencio Porras edging out incumbent AD Gov...
...Olivera is being detained pending an extradition request from France for his involvement in the 1976 torture and disappearance of FrenchArgentine citizen, Marianne Erize...
...In May, shortly before El Peri6dico was to publish an investigation on intelligence structures, reporters and editors were followed and received threatening calls, as did journalists from two other media organizations a few days later...
...Also on Garz6n's list is ex-military officer Ricardo Miguel Cavallo, who was arrested in Cancdn, Mexico on August 24 by order of the Spanish High Court for terrorism, genocide and torture...
...The three-day protests, called by their organizers the "March of the Four Suyos," a reference to the four regions of Tahuantinsuyo, the ancient Incan Empire, mark a radical departure from the passiveness and silence of the past...
...ror is yet to come...
...I rule out absolutely nothing, given the extraordinarily suspicious circumstances surrounding this crime...
...A week later, the government announced a new civilian trial for U.S...
...On April 7, These events clearly constitute Mayra Guti6rrez, a psychology blackmail: The message is that professor at the National until amnesty and impunity are University, was victim of the first granted to army officers, more terforced disappearance since 1995...
...Chivez's Movement of the Fifth Republic (MVR) won 13 of the 23 governorships and also won the post of Federal District mayor...
...On election day, observers in various regions noted the presence of men who kept watch over the voting stations, violating the secrecy of the vote...
...The MVR won 92 of the 165 seats in the unicameral legislature, and Chavez is also expected to have the support of six deputies from the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS...
...The protests have been held each year on Brazil's independence day since 1995...
...Although the presidentelect has been criticized for underestimating the difficulties of achieving peace in Chiapas, his statements have led to a cautious optimism on the part of many observers...
...Threats against representatives of the Alliance for Chiapas were also reported...
...The flag washing ceremonies are just one of several new forms of protest that have emerged in Peru...
...People attempting to use the courts are also being terrorized...
...Washing the flag, say the event's organizers-a group called, simply, the Civil Society Collective-is a way of symbolically protesting the fraudulent process in which President Alberto Fujimori was "elected" to what is widely considered an illegitimate third term in office...
...That report, presented in February 1999, blamed the state for 93% of the 200,000 victims and acknowledged that genocide was committed...
...Almost four years after the EZLN suspended dialogue with the Mexican government, there is hope that these new leaders will be able to renew talks with the guerrillas by placing the peace process in Chiapas back on Mexico's political agenda...
...Government officials and the media repudiate young human rights activists as undemocratic, while defenders of impunity resort to terrorism--this time, without the protection of state institutions...
...During the campaign, Chdvez broke with the Homeland for All (PPT), which withdrew its support for the president...
...Two weeks later, Juan tributed to it, first by ordering the Gabriel P6rez became the first ex- army to take over the streets in support of the National Civil Police-a measure resisted by the Guatemalan Revolutionary National Unity (URNG), the former guerrilla organization, and civil society-and second, by sending his mother and sister to Canada on June 22, to avert an alleged death threat...
...According to the Lima opposition daily, La Reptiblica, 35,000 police troops were deployed in the historic center of Lima on July 28, and 12 tons of tear gas were used to disperse the crowds and prevent any disruption of the inauguration ceremony at the Congress building...
...For example, Edgar Gutidrrez, the head of the civilian intelligence agency, recently released a secret army database containing the names of 650,428 citizens under surveillance...
...This dynamic is primarily a consequence of the peace accords, which set a landmark by denying blanket amnesty to armed and security forces, prohibiting impunity for crimes against humanity, and mandating the Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) to produce a report on political violence during the internal armed conflict...
...Red and yellow plastic tubs filled with soapy water are placed throughout the Plaza, and participants take turns washing the red and white flags and hanging them to dry on make-shift clothing lines...
...A former PRI Senator from Chiapas, Salazar resigned from the Party in May 1999...
...Email: wnu@igc.org...
...Public Prosecutor Javier Elechiguerra said results were being challenged in six states as well as in Caracas...
...This opens the way for Pinochet to be tried for 19 counts of kidnapping in the infamous Caravan of Death case, in which a military unit traveled the country by helicopter after the 1973 coup, rounding up 72 leftist prisoners and executing them...
...For subscription information: P.O...
...This encouraged human rights organizations and relatives of victims to step up their efforts for truth and justice...
...Salazar's Victory Raises Hopes in Chiapas TUXTLA GUTIERREZ-Pablo Salazar Mendiguchia, the candidate of the eight-party coalition called Alliance for Chiapas, won a historic victory on August 20 in the gubernatorial elections in the Mexican state of Chiapas...
...He has conbefore...
...For subscrip- tions, visit LADB'sweb site or call 1- 800-472-0888...
...This massive reawakening of Peruvian civil society was evident during the three consecutive days of protests preceding Fujimori's inauguration on July 28...
...The traditional factors of power are no longer unified, and the government is also divided...
...As advances are made in the continuing struggle for human rights internationally, reconciliation in Chile and Argentina, where amnesty laws guard the impunity of human rights criminals, appears beyond reach...
...He will be the first Venezuelan president eligible to run for a consecutive term in office, which he has already said he will do because his plans to overcome poverty will require at least ten years...
...But skeptics suspected the dark hand of Vladimiro Montesinos, the head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), Fujimori's top advisor-and, according to some observers, the real power behind the throne--of orchestrating the violence to discredit the opposition...
...These attacks come as progress is being made to bring human rights abusers to justice...
...On July 20, assailants on the serious socioeconomic dressed in camouflage and ski problems, especially unemploy- masks assassinated Alfredo Quino ment and poverty, and Elena Mejia, leaders of the -Notisur peasant organization Solold...
...SIPAZ publishes a tri- monthly report on the conflict in Chiapas that is available at www.sipaz.org...
...However, the FRG regrets this decision today because those officials have shown a willingness to promote openness...
...Now that Fujimori is firmly in power, the Peruvian opposition is reassessing its tactics...
...Others believe that self-preservation is assured only by guaranteeing impunity at any cost, even through terror...
...In the weeks before the elections, for example, human rights organizations reported that paramilitaries had threatened or attacked a number of indigenous communities...
...Meanwhile, attacks against HIJOS have been mounting in Argentina...
...Hundreds were wounded, over 150 people were arrested, and six people were tragically killed in a suspicious fire...
...The HIJOS organization in the city of Rosario was the first to be hit...
...NotiSur is a weekly publication of the Latin America Data Base, an on-line news service available at http://ladb.unm.edu...
...Jo-Marie Burt teaches Latin American politics at George Mason University and is a member of NACLA's Editorial Board...
...Chdvez's decisive victory gives him a new six-year term, after serving a year and a half under the old Constitution...
...The recent rise in intimidation can thus be interpreted as a decision by a powerful sector of the army to use all available means to prevent investigation and prosecution...
...ing a very heavy book with a card that read "Rest in Peace...
...They told her it was a warning to her husband that he should no longer participate in escraches, the HIJOS' public denunciations of perpetrators of human rights crimes...
...On the same day, the so-called "ProArmy Patriots" issued a commuTerror Again in Guatemala niqu6, warning all who criticize the army that the Patriots "will GUATEMALA CITY-A rash of unmask the international conspirthreats and harassment has erupted acy that attempts to destroy our recently in Guatemala, accompa- Fatherland...
Vol. 34 • September 2000 • No. 2
