In Brief
Bolivia: Cocaleros Face Terror Charges On December 11, Bolivian police and military troops arrested eight campesino coca growers, cocaleros, in a massive operation involving dozens of searches...
...Arzabe said the latest detainees are linked to Cort6s, Ramirez and Pefiaranda, who remain jailed in La Paz, accused of terrorism and involvement with the ELN...
...Actress Jane Fonda recently traveled to Guatemala in an attempt to bring attention to the killings...
...Here, tens of thousands live squeezed into fetid alleys and dank cement block cell-like rooms at the edge of the Port-au-Prince harbor...
...His reporting on the spill led the government's secretary of natural resources and environment to fine the company one million lempiras ($56,529...
...Six pounds of U.S...
...Guti6rrez has managed inflation and make tin ments on the foreign de has earned him support in national financial comm those same policies, acc by brutal fiscal adjustmi caused deep resentments working class and poor with some in the privat sector...
...At a press conference the same day, Rend Arzabe, one of 15 prosecutors on the case who led the arrest operations, announced that the eight detainees are linked to the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia...
...The local media reported on November 11 that Ecuadoran businessman CUsar Fernandez Cevallos, arrested in late October in a drug-trafficking case, had supported Guti6rrez's campaign for the 2002 election...
...The situation isn't as bad as Ethiopia, but hunger is generalized," said Phelps, a member of the executive committee of the National Association of Haitian Agronomists...
...Four of those arrested are local activists from the Movement to Socialism (MAS) and two are local cocalero union leaders...
...Rivas said at the time that he had received anonymous threats months earlier, but he declined to blame any sector for the threats or the attack...
...IPS' regularly-updated Latin America section can be read on our Web site, <http://www.nacla.org...
...Morales called the raids "the work of the [U.S.] embassy," part of a U.S...
...On December 1, vari society groups formed the the Defense of the Coun plans to call for a recall re on Guti6rrez's presidenc unions, political parties, i groups and ex-military are among those in t Campesino leader Collahuazo said the Fron ing that the president "r( economic and social favor the country's poor.' I to lower rely payebt, which Haiti: Nearly Half of Population Hungry Sthe inter- According to the United Nations unity...
...Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs...
...One result of that battle has been a freezing of hundreds of millions in foreign aid and loans, traditionally the source of about two-thirds of the government's revenues...
...In Ciudad Judrez, where at least 300 young women have been killed in the past ten years, police have also been unable to solve the murders...
...You have even more women killed than in Ciudad Judrez," said Fonda...
...Authorities have suggested that street gangs, known locally as "maras," are responsible for the murders, but have not been able to provide any hard evidence to support their claims...
...She promised to return with an "army" of women activists if the authorities didn't do more to stop the murders...
...Rivas was the owner, manager and news presenter of the TV station, and also owned a radio station in Santa Rosa de Copdn...
...Today Haiti ranks 150 of 175 nations...
...Dieuseul Andr6, a rail-thin rice farmer in Pensson near L'Esthre in the Artibonite Valley, barely makes ends meet...
...In 47 investigators have "g extreme of subjecting t families to a polygraph report noted...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Contributors: NotiSur is a weekly publication of the Latin America Data Base, an online news service...
...According to the prosecutor's office, another 23 cocaleros were being sought on the same charges...
...On a good day, Vieux t was ask- brings her earnings-50 gourdes direct his or about US$1.25-home to the policy, to hovel she shares with her mother, two siblings and two children in -- Notisur Belencou, one of the worst neighborhoods of Cit6 Soleil, itself one of the country's most infamous slums...
...Chapare cocalero leader Luis Cutipa said on December 12 that the cocaleros had declared an "emergency" and might carry out highway blockades to protest the "illegal arrests...
...no witnesses have come forward...
...sell them all before sunset...
...The assailants apparently used a revolver with a silencer to kill Rivas...
...Police have apparently made no progress in their investigation into the February incident, claiming "there is neither a motive nor rational evidence to suggest it was an attack...
...Cocalero leader and MAS deputy Evo Morales criticized the search and arrest operation, saying that government forces took repressive action against men, women "and even children who were tortured physically and psychologically...
...Vice President Alfredo Palacio admitted that in the runoff campaign, Fernandez "was present at some functions" for Gutidrrez's January 21 Patriotic Society Party (PSP) in Manabi...
...While such projects might provide a palliative, many of the causes of Haiti's hunger are structural, according to agronomist Stephen Phelps...
...The judge handed down the maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $17.4 million fine, double the $8.7 million that Alemdn was convicted of embezzling...
...Palacio has downplayed the connection, saying he only knew Fernandez when he Two Guatemalan campesinos with a homemade mortar prepare to violently confront police...
...President Bolafios-who has the backing of only a handful of PLC lawmakers, because most of the party's legislators are loyal to Alemin-told the press he was satisfied with the ruling, but surprised by Jerez's acquittal...
...The head of Congress, Ramiro Rivera, said Guti6rrez should not send the legislature his tax proposal until the drug matter is cleared up...
...Despite several arrests of suspects, the killings go on unabated...
...He was killed just minutes before he was to present the evening news on Channel 34...
...Foreign rice, corn, chicken, pork and other products regularly undersell Haitian products, but still cost too much for many Haitians...
...Despite rumors about a supposed political deal that would get Alemdn released, Judge Juana Mdndez issued her verdict on December 7. In her 110-page ruling, Mrndez stated, "There was fraud on the part of Mr...
...Of Byron Jerez, of the charge of knowledged money laundering...
...In the few statements from Fernandez since his arrest, he has touted his "friendship" with the Vice President...
...The law would have allowed ANCAP-founded as a state enterprise in 1931-to form a 30-year joint venture with a private company, and would have ended the state's monopoly on importing, refining and exporting oil, and exporting petroleum products...
...Land conflicts, both between different groups of campesinos and between the Guatemalan government and these groups, and the effects of the international coffee crisis, have led to a rash of land occupations in Guatemala...
...According to COFADEH, during the 1980s Rivas was an active collaborator of the human rights movement in Santa Rosa de Copdn...
...The local press has reported that, because of the scandal, the Social Christian Party (PSC) and the National Action Institutional Renewal Party (PRIAN) have withdrawn their support of the administration...
...Nicaragua: Ex-Presid Sentenced ith a report of Managua, where Mdndez transblasting ferred him on November 26 from and police prison due to "health concerns...
...One of the more disturbing aspects of the wave of killings is that the murders appear to be motiveless with all the victims being killed in the same manner: abducted, tortured, raped and then stabbed to death...
...The vote was a major victory for the leftist Broad Front coalition...
...But ndigenous that's when I have enough cash to personnel buy a basket of oranges and then he Front...
...The president of Mexico's National Human Rights Commission, Jose Luis Soberanes, presented Congress wi on November 24 Chihuahua prosecutors agents for "serious irregularities and crim investigation into the r the 263 officially ack murders, investigation halted in 155...
...But since Aristide's re-election in a contested race three years ago, his administration has been more focused on concrete projects, like building schools and public plazas, and on fighting a vicious political battle with opposition parties...
...The Spanish energy group Repsol YPF was among the foreign firms interested in taking part in Uruguay's oil trade...
...Arzabe and fellow prosecutor Silvia Blacutt said the suspects had been under investigation since last April, when Bolivian police arrested Colombian campesino activist Francisco Cortds Aguilar and Bolivian cocalero leaders Claudio Ramirez Cuevas and Carmelo Pefiaranda Rosas near La Paz...
...Of the 86 deputies, only three-one independent and two from the PSP-abstained in the vote...
...The campesinos faced eviction on September 4, 2003, from contested land they occupied in the community of Nuevo Palmar, Retalhuleu province...
...For the Americas, Haiti has the highest HIV-positive rate, the lowest for life expectancy (49 years) and the highest for adult illiteracy...
...Fernandez was governor of Manabf province during the administration of President Sixto Durdn-Balldn (1992-1996), and had been considered an upstanding and influential businessman...
...Last February, Rivas was fired at by an unidentified assailant outside his home, but managed to escape unharmed...
...The source said the donation was not reported to electoral authorities...
...After Guti6rrez threatened to sue El Comercio for not revealing its sources for the report, Congress passed a resolution condemning any attempt to interfere with freedom of expression...
...Some are refugees from the countryside...
...the previous two orders failed...
...Andr6 stood in knee-deep water in front of his mud and thatch hut...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Ecuador: 'Narcoscandal' Threatens President President Lucio Guti6rrez is facing the most serious challenge of his 11-month presidency with a scandal that reportedly links drug trafficking and members of his administration, including the vice president...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas Guatemala and Mexico: Brutal Murders of Women Continue Since 2001, more than 700 Guatemalan women have been murdered, with more than 270 reported this year alone...
...Visquez called the referendum result a "punishment vote" against the Colorado and Blanco parties, whose deputies had approved the ANCAP privatization bill in Congress in 2001...
...Every year, its UN Development Index ranking drops...
...Uruguay imports all the oil it consumes, and has the highest fuel prices in the region...
...Rojas said the murder has spread fear among journalists...
...Jerez admitted s have been diverting $8.7 million in public cases the funds to ghost companies set up one to the by Alemin...
...The eight people arrested were also accused of involvement in the recent killings of government troops carrying out coca eradication in the Chapare...
...Alemin, who as president of Nicaragua directed his subordinates" to help fulfill his goal of illicit self-enrichment...
...strategy to impose "a dictatorship" in Bolivia...
...Visquez won more votes than any other candidate in the 1999 elections, but was defeated in a runoff after the traditional Colorado and National (Blanco) parties united behind Colorado candidate Jorge Batlle...
...Palacio continued his denials even after the press leaked a document in which he proposed Ferndndez for a public position, which he was not given...
...A colleague in Copdn, radio journalist Ren6 Rojas, described Rivas as "identified with social causes...
...The president's credibility rating, already low, dropped even more-to barely 15%-following the outbreak of this latest scandal...
...Jerez, however, is :he victims' already serving an eight-year senexam," the tence for fraud and faces prosecution on other charges as well...
...e Front for "On a good day, we eat rice with try, which sauce and some tom-tom referendum [smashed breadfruit]," said 19y. Several year-old Louloune Vieux...
...The zero tariff policy has had devastating effects," Phelps said...
...An average of four, young and mostly poor, women are being killed every week...
...Flour and water porridge is a common meal, as is sugar water...
...The reforms are essential for the International Monetary Fund's continued support...
...In 1994, President JeanBertrand Aristide's government adopted radical neoliberal policies that eliminated subsidies for fertilizers and other inputs and brought once protective tariffs on grains down to between zero and five percent...
...For subscription information, visit <http://www.lapress.org...
...In 2003, the FAO launched a cry of alarm about Haiti's "silent" hunger emergency and began a campaign to raise $6 million to support farmers...
...Jose Eduardo Mora for Inter Press Service Uruguay: Oil Privatization Blocked In a December 7 referendum, Uruguayans voted by more than 62% to block a law that would have allowed the privatization of the state-run fuel company, the National Administration of Fuels, Alcohol and Cement (ANCAP...
...Three police agents and one soldier, all members of the Joint Task Forces (FTC) in charge of coca eradication operations in the Chapare, have recently been killed, either by homemade landmines known as "cazabobos" (fool-hunters) or in sniper ambushes...
...Inter Press Service is an alternative source of news and analysis from a Third World perspective <http://www.globalinfo.org...
...Weekly News Update on the Americas is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York...
...Newspaper articles and politicians frequently say Haitians "survive on less than US$1 a day," but here that figure must be lower...
...The group Journalists Confronting Corruption (PFC) mentioned another possible motive: A series of television reports, which Rivas assigned to journalist Xiomara Orellana, about the operation of coffee and livestock contraband gangs on the border between Honduras and Guatemala...
...and even Twenty-three percent of all chile-business dren under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, mortgaging ous civil- the very future of Haiti...
...Recent opinion polls show that if the elections were held now, Broad Front leader Tabard Visquez would win in the first round with no need for a runoff...
...Analysts expect the Broad Front will win the presidential elections scheduled for October 2004...
...The raids coincided with a visit to Bolivia by Rogelio Pardo-Maurer, U.S...
...was minister of health during the Durin-Ball6n administration and Ferndndez was governor of Manabi...
...But the ex-president "has been left out of the political game, and a closer relationship may now be forged between President Enrique Bolahios and Alemrn's allies from outside the PLC," he added...
...Alemdn, the first former president to be convicted of a crime in Nicaragua, is under house arrest in his estate outside Alemin would be their candidate for the 2006 presidential elections...
...The scandal, coming atop widespread discontent with the administration, has analysts questioning how long Gutierrez will be able to hold on to the presidency...
...The government has promised to implement various environmental and other plans drawn up during previous administrations...
...Latinamerica Press is a biweekly publication of information and analysis about Latin America and the Caribbean based in Lima, Peru...
...Guti6rrez's relations with indigenous groups, social movements and leftist parties that were pivotal in his election have ruptured or become seriously strained, and he has spent most of his presidency dealing with accusations of nepotism, arms trafficking and now alleged drug money in his campaign...
...Bolivia: Cocaleros Face Terror Charges On December 11, Bolivian police and military troops arrested eight campesino coca growers, cocaleros, in a massive operation involving dozens of searches in the Chapare region of the Cochabamba department...
...Arzabe said the eight were caught with a rifle, an explosive device, bomb-making materials and ELN pamphlets...
...Judge Carlos Snchez Castelu authorized the operation and issued search warrants for the homes of 27 campesinos in the Cochabamba tropics, including top union leaders...
...On November 14, the Quito daily El Comercio quoted an anonymous PSP source who said, "The Fernandez Cevallos family donated US$30,000 to the campaign of Lucio Guti6rrez in Manabi...
...www.nacla.org...
...For subscription information, visit <http://www.ladb.unm.edu> or call 1-800-472-0888...
...Implementation of the law was postponed pending the referendum...
...He said that because government agents don't manage the Artibonite River and the irrigation system the way they used to, his hamlet and many rice fields are often flooded...
...The former president, the head of the governing Constitutionalist Liberal Party (PLC), was also barred from holding public office, which put an end to hopes entertained by a faction of his party that wanted to get him reelected in 2006...
...Others are the result of a growing population...
...rice sells for about $1.45 wholesale, whereas Haitian rice sells for between $1.70 and $3...
...American rice undercuts our rice," he said...
...omissions, The judge absolved former es" in their director-general of the tax office, murders...
...The island nation is now classed as the world's most "water-poor" country by the Center for Ecology and Hydrology, third-most corrupt by Transparency International and last of 102 countries surveyed for potential for economic growth...
...Prosecutors in La Paz charged the eight with terrorism, armed uprising and criminal association...
...Many members of the PLC hoped Nicaraguans welcomed the 20year prison sentence handed down to former President Arnoldo Alemdn (1997-2002) for money laundering, misappropriation of public funds, embezzlement, fraud, criminal association and electoral crimes...
...According to the Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH), the February attack may have been prompted by Rivas' reports condemning the Compania Minerales de Occidente (MINOSA) company for spilling cyanide in the Lara River, which feeds the Higuito River, source of drinking water for Santa Rosa de Cop/n...
...This support is crucial for Guti6rrez to get his planned economic reforms through Congress...
...NACLA "Alemdn's sentence was welcomed by Nicaraguan society, but Jerez's acquittal caused shock, because he was a close associate ent of the former president," said analyst Alejandro Serrano...
...Campesinos of this community occupied a part of the land in question to oppose its sale by other members of the community This was the third evic- tion order to be served by the police...
...But Gutidrrez denied that Fern.ndez had contributed money to his campaign, and he threatened to sue anyone who tried to tie him with drug dealers...
...We don't have any help from the state," he said, shaking his head as he headed off to see what damage had been done to his tiny plot...
...But Food and Agriculture Organization companied (FAO), 3.8 million Haitiansents, have almost half of the country's popuamong the lation-go hungry every day...
...In the end, the police retreated, and will await another eviction order...
...CUsar Fernandez did not contribute a single cent to the campaign, I never met him," Guti6rrez said during a press conference...
...Today Rodrigo I didn't...
...There is little support for Haiti's farmers who grow rice, beans, corn, sorghum, bananas and plantains, vegetables, sugar cane for local use, mangos, coffee and a little cacao for export...
...For subscription information, visit <http://home.earthlink.net/-nic adlw/wnuhome.html...
...Long the "poorest country in the hemisphere," lately Haiti has grabbed the attention of statisticians for other reasons, too...
...Jane Regan for Latinamerica Press Honduras: Journalist Assassinated Journalist and media owner German Antonio Rivas was killed by a gunshot wound to the head on the evening of November 26 as he got out of his vehicle at the Corporaci6n Maya (Channel 34) television station in the western city of Santa Rosa de Copin, near the Guatemalan border...
Vol. 37 • January 2004 • No. 4
