In Brief
Who Killed Frei Montalva? SANTIAGO-A former secret policeman has revealed that the clinic in which Chile's former President Eduardo Frei Montalva died in 1982 was used by the Pinochet...
...troops to enter its territory to conduct training maneuvers to "defend the country and combat narcotrafficking...
...Everyone knows them, what they do and where they live," Martinez said...
...And according to an August 2000 World Bank report about Latin America and the Caribbean, the region "probably has the most inequitable income distribution of any region in the world," with 35% living in poverty...
...The IMF's and World Bank's official meetings came to an end one day early...
...Konrad Fisher Sources Latin America Weekly Report is published weekly by the Latin American Newsletters...
...military...
...There was no agreement, however, on the central issue of coca production...
...Critics maintain that this has placed Latin American nations at the whim of volatile international commodity prices, created a dependence on imported goods and exacerbated the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources...
...While the cocaleros are also part of this rural Bolivia, the fact that their demands are so incompatible with U.S...
...Despite this, the Brigade's commander, Colonel Gabriel Diaz, is not under investigation by Colombian authorities and is instead being promoted to General...
...Arguably Bolivia's largest social upheaval since the 1952 Revolution, the "September Crisis" represented a major victory for indigenous-peasant groups and an undeniable defeat for former military dictator and current President Hugo Bdnzer...
...history against the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, thousands of activists descended on Prague in September during the IMF's and World Bank's annual meetings...
...Agreements signed by the government and CSUTCB leaders on October 7 brought an end to roadblocks in the non-coca producing areas...
...The 24th Brigade is even held in suspicion by the United States, and has been denied funding because of its links to paramilitaries and human rights violations...
...Although many people were denied entry to the Czech Republic, activists from Latin America and around the world coordinated an extensive opposition to the world's most powerful multilateral lending institutions...
...Email: wnu@igc.org...
...Guatemalan human rights groups are also alarmed by the policies of the recently appointed Interior Minister, Byron Barrientos, an ex-military officer who participated in massive human rights violations during the 1970s and 1980s...
...The crisis began on September 13 when the national union of urban teachers declared a strike for a 50% wage increase...
...But the disappearances, tortures and massacres continue with the complicity of the local police...
...Bdnzer has insisted that, "stopping coca eradication is non-negotiable...
...The 50-point agreement conceded to most campesino demands, including revising the agrarian reform law with campesino-indigenous organization participation...
...Email: WR@latinnews.com...
...Largely indigenous, rural dwellers represent the poorest 40% of the population, with 82% living in poverty...
...While the combat raged on in Colombia, more than 300 delegates of the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second-largest rebel group, as well as from the United States, European Union and Latin America, began a three-day meeting on October 16 in San Josd, Costa Rica to discuss the peace process...
...For subscription information: Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 674-9499...
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...Police gained the upper hand with the use of tear gas, growling dogs and some rocks of their own...
...Numerous clashes with police ensued...
...next October...
...According to a September 2000 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, per capita income in Latin America grew by 75% from 1960 to 1980, whereas from 1980 to 1998, a period of IMFand World Bank-prescribed trade liberalization and monetary and fiscal "discipline," per capita income grew by only 6...
...As of mid-October, an unknown number of protesters remained incarcerated...
...He has documents to prove his claims, but for the moment sees no effective way to stop these criminals' actions...
...She explained to a crowd of several thousand how the unaccountable institutions of globalization prevent her people's escape from oppressive working conditions...
...These conflicting positions portend continued dispute, as Morales' statement attests: "They are going to continue eradicating and we are going to keep planting...
...The mobilization culminated on Tuesday, September 26...
...in an open letter to the conference participants, they emphasized their commitment to peace but said they could not attend because of security risks and Continued on page 58 WEST PALM BEACH-On November 3, former Salvadoran defense minister Jos6 Guillermo Garcia, front, and former director-general of the Salvadoran National Guard Carlos Vides Casanova were acquitted in the wrongful death lawsuit filed against them by the families of the four U.S...
...experienced the largest demonstration in U.S...
...He worked with the Center for Economic and Policy Research during the 2000 IMF and World Bank meetings in Prague...
...Guatemala Human Rights Commission War Escalates in Colombia BOGOTA-Fifty-two Colombian soldiers and two police agents were killed on October 19 during a gov- ernment counteroffensive directed at some 1,000 rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the Urabi region of Colombia...
...It is estimated that some 60,000 people lost their jobs as a result, as many businesses were forced to downsize or went bankrupt...
...Jennifer Collins is a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of California, San Diego...
...He traveled to the Costa Rica meeting to report that since the paramilitaries gained control of the town in 1998, they have assassinated over 400 people, yet have gone completely unpunished...
...Latin American Weekly Report Gains for Campesinos, Stalemate for Cocaleros in Bolivia LA PAZ--Thirty days of crisis ended on October 15 after the government reached agreements with the most important indigenouscampesino federation and the teachers' union, and then a week later with coca producers (known as cocaleros...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas is published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...Marchers took up positions at the police blockades surrounding the Prague Congress Center, where IMF and World Bank officials were meeting...
...Konrad Fisher is a freelance writer and activist...
...This Bolivia doesn't have telephones, or internet, pharmacies, electricity, potable water or good roads...
...In the southern department of Putumayo, combat intensified during the week of October 16 between army troops and FARC rebels, and between rebels and right-wing paramilitary forces, provoking a wave of new refugees...
...More than 1,600 troops from counterinsurgency and special forces battalions took part in the operation...
...The meeting sought to generate a consensus on the need for a negotiated solution to the conflict...
...It also calls for the ministries of the Interior and Defense to present a report to Congress within 30 days on the results of each operation...
...Likewise, cocalero organizations will participate in administering the $80 million set aside for alternative development...
...In the end, the government was able to isolate the cocalero federations from the rest of the campesino groups within the United Labor Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia (CSUTCB...
...because they refuse to meet with "paramilitary spokespeople...
...anti-narcotics policy made their bargaining position very difficult...
...Latin American Weekly News Update -- Anonymous Protests in Prague PRAGUE-Just five months after Washington, D.C...
...We don't want this, we just want our plot of coca with which we survive...
...The only political party to vote against the law was the Alliance for a New Nation (ANN), whose deputies expressed concern about the militarization of the security forces...
...The day began with a colorful rally whose speakers included Nicaraguan labor rights activist Andrea Morales...
...and "Bring Seattle to Prague...
...At one point protesters successfully penetrated a police line, forcing many people within the complex to dodge flying rocks and to retreat indoors...
...But cocalero leader and Congressman Evo Morales insists that complete eradication in the Chapare is unacceptable, arguing that alternative development "has been a complete failure...
...They make rounds together and collaborate daily...
...German Martinez is deputy mayor of Putumayo's main town, Puerto Asis, and second in command after the mayor...
...In Bagado, in neighboring Choc6 department, some 500 FARC rebels seized the municipal center...
...The strength of the protests and the impressive gains made by the CSUTCB placed the plight of Bolivia's rural population on the public agenda in a forceful way, and CSUTCB leaders are now planning to form a new political party...
...It quickly snowballed as numerous organizations and unions announced protest actions against the government...
...The government agreed to two of their demands: For one, it retracted its decision to build three new military bases in the Chapare with U.S...
...Seventeen police agents are missing...
...Martinez backs his claims with statements from citizens of Puerto Asis and his own testimony about having witnessed activities of the 24th Brigade, the police and the anti-narcotics police who operate there...
...At the same time, it revealed divisions among the organizations and leaders representing rural peoples in different parts of Bolivia...
...The majority of political parties in the Guatemalan Congress voted for the law, which opens ground, air and sea space to the U.S...
...churchwomen raped and killed by the Salvadoran military in 1980...
...Regardless of what caused the meeting's early conclusion, activists successfully articulated their grievances, which are substantiated not only by personal testimony, but also by economic data and IMF and World Bank literature...
...Her research is on indigenous movements and political clientelism in the Andean region...
...Even former President Patricio Aylwin spoke of the possibility that a "black hand may have planted the virus" that killed Frei...
...When asked by a journalist whether he identifies with the Bolivian nation, Felipe Quispe Huanca, CSUTCB's Executive Secretary, replied: "I am from another Bolivia...
...Thirty more soldiers were killed by the rebels as they disembarked from two other U.S.-made helicopters...
...founded in 1982 to monitor, document and report on the human rights situation in Guatemala...
...Plans are underway for protests at the next annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C...
...The generals had "retired" to Florida, and so could be sued under the 1992 Torture Victim Protection Act, a federal statute allowing for civil suits against foreign human rights violators...
...If the government continues to use the military to repress coca IN BRIEF producers, they will organize to resist and this could result in a 'Colombianization' of the Chapare...
...Tuesday's rally was followed by a march in which participants chanted "Zapata vive vive, la lucha sigue sigue...
...The government also promised to turn over nine million acres of government land to landless and land-poor peasants, to file a water law under review by Congress, and to incorporate campesinos into the national health system...
...Colombians singing songs of Latin American solidarity marched alongside U.S...
...The FARC were also invited but declined...
...Several strategies have been devised to combat IMF and World Bank policies, including legislative efforts to halt government funding of the IMF and an international boycott of World Bank Bonds that has been endorsed by organizations from several Latin American nations, including Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Chile...
...Anonymous" is a reputable Colombian war journalist who for reasons of personal safety has requested anonymity...
...While the teachers' strike shut down public schools for over three weeks, the campesino and cocalero roadblocks effectively cut off transport between the three most important cities: La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz...
...A veteran of Seattle's WTO protest, Wilson maintains that the form of globalization promoted by the IMF and World Bank is a continuation of the exploitation indigenous peoples have faced since 1492...
...The families say they will take the case to a higher court...
...96A11, 61 Old Street, London EC 1V 9HW, England...
...Similar sentiments have been echoed by activists throughout Latin America who denounce the IMF's prescription of production for export rather than for domestic consumption...
...The agreements do not resolve the underlying conflict over coca production, with the government insisting on complete eradication and the cocaleros asserting that they will continue to produce what they refer to as the "sacred leaf...
...members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who were veterans of last November's World Trade Organization (WTO) Seattle protests...
...Among the dead were 22 soldiers killed when the U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopter in which they were traveling was shot down by rebels in Antioquia department...
...On September 23, labor activists from around the world marched through downtown Prague...
...The army claims the crash was an accident...
...While the agreements brought a peaceful end to a violent and extended social conflict, a permanent peace is by no means guaranteed...
...Meanwhile, at a meeting with World Bank President James Wolfensohn, Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman denounced the institutions' cooperation with dictatorships...
...The decree stipulates that a Guatemalan official from the Public Ministry and a Guatemalan military officer must be present during any action...
...The army was backed up by two K-Fir bomber planes, a high-tech spy plane and six helicopters...
...GHRC/USA also promotes advocacy for and aid to victims of human rights violations in Guatemala...
...Also present was Clemente Wilson, a representative of the Kuna tribe of Panama's San Bias Islands...
...This resulted in scarcity, higher food prices, and losses of over $140 million...
...SANTIAGO-A former secret policeman has revealed that the clinic in which Chile's former President Eduardo Frei Montalva died in 1982 was used by the Pinochet government's secret police, the National Directorate of Intelligence (DINA...
...Several people who were released reported that protesters had been beaten and denied food, water, phone calls and legal representation...
...The human toll from violent confrontations between security forces (the Army and police) and protesters was alarming: ten dead and over 150 injured, according to the Congressional Human Rights Commission...
...Military GUATEMALA CITY-On the 21st of September the Guatemalan Congress approved a decree that allows U.S...
...Jennifer N. Collins Guatemala Opens Door to U.S...
...On September 22, activists launched a "Counter Summit" to exchange information about the impacts of IMF and World Bank policies in different regions...
...the FARC communiqud reports that six police agents and one paramilitary were killed...
...financing...
...The law limits the number of troops involved in each operation to 99...
...The Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA is a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C...
...Economic marginalization compounded by racial discrimination has led to what campesino leaders call "two Bolivias...
...Activists immediately focused their attention on gaining the release of imprisoned protesters...
...It has its own religion, history, lands, territories and laws...
...The FARC reports in a communique that five rebels were killed in the combat...
...He said: "For us, the indigenous peoples, especially for the Kuna, the IMF has always been an instrument of corporations and industrialized countries...
...While at the outset the protests were somewhat coordinated between organizations, there was no unified platform...
...The cause of death was given as septic shock, but Frei's children have often voiced their suspicions that he might have been murdered...
...In their closing press conference, the institutions' officials insisted that the unanticipated closing did not represent a victory for protesters but that formal business had simply ended early...
Vol. 34 • November 2000 • No. 3
