IN BRIEF
For frequently updated news from Latin America, check our Web site <www.nacla.org>. Register on the site to receive our email newsletter PERU: Toledo on Shaky Ground THE FIRST GENERAL STRIKE TO...
...negotiations in July Others included a 2000-person march on the presidential building in Panama City on July 15...
...resignation Mancuso himself has been indicted s believe he in the United States on charges of t comes to trafficking 17 tons of cocaine and is too acquies- the target of a pending extradition ders and the request...
...In any case, Garcia has gained the most from Toledo's failures...
...More likely, it is a desire to ensure that the paramilitaries continue their dirty war against the FARC and suspected guerrilla sympathizers...
...And only one agenda: destruction...
...Intended as a hemisphere-wide extension of NAFTA, the FTAA would include all countries of Latin America and the Caribbean excluding Cuba...
...Since his inauguration in 2001, Toledo and his administration have faced a virtual train wreck of setbacks--a paternity scandal, corruption charges, strikes, protests and states of emergency...
...Jaime Caballero, of the Panamanian Union of Construction and Related Workers (SUNTRACS), said that the roadblock action, although illegal, "is the only language that is understood by the government...
...We encourage donations which support a range of solidarity and popular education projects - The journal is published five times a year...
...State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations...
...Demonstrators contained the expression of their anger to burning Toledo in effigy and holding a mock funeral for his government...
...Alan Garcia, a former President and current head of the APRA party, said millions had participated throughout the country...
...On their Web site, the Movement of Campesinos of the Rio Cobre in Panama assert their opposition to "the shark, as many of us campesinos call the desperate expansionist policy of the government of the United States...
...In other words, Washington is likely troubled by the reality that the conflict is currently in a stalemate...
...Calls for Toledo's abound...
...Six million Mexicans-twice the population of Panama-have stopped farming, abandoning two million hectares of land...
...For their part, international human rights groups criticized the provision of such a highprofile platform to leaders of an illegal armed group that continues to kill unarmed civilians...
...agricultural counterparts, who benefit from technical advances and massive subsidization unavailable to Panamanian producers...
...He blends demographic analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, history, and political theory to try to "understand" the enigma of Brazilian "race relations-how racial inclusiveness can coexist with exclusiveness...
...U.S...
...Intervention and, most recently, The War on Terror in Colombia...
...Here Edward : Telles seeks to understand the reality of race in Brazil...
...We are in Cuernavaca, Mexico, "The City of Eternal Spring...
...This may be exactly what the Bush administration is attempting to orchestrate...
...Families are welcome...
...Government preparations, however, reveal that it had taken the strike declaration rather seriously: the administration mobilized 93,000 police agents throughout the country, perhaps to prevent a repeat of the one-day riot that torched several buildings and injured 48 in the southern city of Ayacucho weeks before...
...Participants also demanded that the government reject the U.S.-promoted Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and halt payments on the foreign debt...
...For more than two decades, Washington ignored paramilitary involvement in drug trafficking and gross human rights violations, and overlooked the links of these groups to the U.S.-backed military...
...Telles's discussion by region of Brazil is the most revealing I have read...
...Should these forces demobilize, U.S...
...embassy official even met with an AUC emissary to discuss the negotiations, despite ON JULY 28, THREE LEADERS OF Colombia's largest paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), were flown into Bogota by military plane to address the country's Congress...
...Addressing Panama's government, the campesinos' statement continues: "If you claim to be seeking progress and economic development for us campesinos by signing Free 'Plunder' Agreements, we prefer to remain poor, ignorant and needy, rather than to lose our dignity and love for the land...
...Learn from our example and try to stop being a burden on us...
...In early 2004, however, Washington changed its tune...
...officials became increasingly adamant that extradition requests for AUC leaders would not be waived in order to purchase paramilitary demobilization...
...Showing no remorse for the thousands of unarmed civilians killed by the paramilitaries, AUC chief Salvatore Mancuso claimed, "History will recognize the goodness and greatness of our cause...
...Many experts agree that while the FARC are in tactical retreat--perhaps waiting until Uribe's term expires in 2006-they haven't been significantly weakened militarily...
...Register on the site to receive our email newsletter PERU: Toledo on Shaky Ground THE FIRST GENERAL STRIKE TO HIT Peru in nearly five years could not have come at a worse time for the beleaguered administration of President Alejandro Toledo...
...government in fo Many doubt he will be out his term...
...However, there have been no significant battlefield victories...
...Garry Leech PANAMA: Continuing Opposition to FTA PANAMANIAN FARMERS BLOCKED several central intersections of the Pan-American highway last July 13...
...NO CHARGE...
...Nonetheless, by and large the strike was peaceful with only some 76 arrests and six reported injuries...
...The controversial appearance was intended to help publicize the ongoing negotiations between the government and the AUC intended to demobilize some 13,000 paramilitary fighters by the end of 2005...
...Citing APRAls role, the Toledo administration declared the strike politically motivated and contrary to laws governing collective labor relations...
...The nation's importation of corn, a Mesoamerican staple since preColumbian times, has increased 3000...
...Even Business Week speaks of NAFTA causing the "virtual wipeout of Mexico's small farmers...
...In June, Ambassador Wood emphasized "the importance that the [peace] process in no way prejudice the extradition of Colombians indicted in the U.S., and the need to bring gross violators of human rights and major drug traffickers to trial...
...He went on to state that paramilitary leaders, who many view as drug traffickers and 42 " Telles has produced what will long be regarded as : the definitive treatment of race relations in Brazil...
...Twelve years after signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and the United States, Mexican dependency on food imports has increased drastically...
...In the ensuing months, Bush administration officials criticized the AUC's role in drug trafficking and U.S...
...One of these is the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which is currently awaiting ratification by the U.S...
...During and after the work stoppage, the Toledo administration dismissed the action saying only 2% of the workforce had responded to the CGTP's call...
...Like CAFTA, the Panama FTA is just a Trojan horse for the stalled FTAA" according to Larry Weiss, Executive Director of Citizens' Trade Campaign...
...We promise to find our own solutions because we do not want to be a burden on anyone...
...Most Peruvian is indecisive when it domestic policies and cent to multilateral lenr U.S...
...However, the timing of the U.S...
...The three were invited to speak by members of Congress who believed the paramilitary group has been misunderstood...
...His approval rating has lingered in the single digits for months...
...In May 2003, a U.S...
...Many Latin American countries reject the NAFTA model and refuse to go along with the Bush Administration's plans to extend that model throughout the hemisphere...
...job losses, Congressional opposition to the pact is growing...
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...Many called for a Constituent Assembly to facilitate Toledo's early removal from office...
...He also discussed the paramilitaries with the Colombian magazine Cambio, declaring: "They have only one program: narco-terror...
...Peru's largest labor union, the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), held the 24-hour work stoppage on July 14 to petition for higher wages and to protest the administration's free-market economic policies...
...Various civil society groups are voicing their strong concern about the pact's potential effect on the economies, societies and environments of the six signatory countries in the region (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic...
...Subscription to The Upstream Journal is free...
...Miners, teachers and health workers joined the strike according to CGTP representatives, but participation was nowhere near the 80% worker turnout predicted by the union...
...Moscoso has reportedly acknowledged these disparities, but claims an eventual FTA would take them into account...
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...While the increased strength of the Colombian military has allowed it to expand its presence in many regions, the paramilitaries are still the ones keeping the guerrillas at bay in many parts of the country...
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...involvement in Colombia suggests that this is not the driving force behind the Bush administration's recent anti-paramilitary propaganda campaign...
...Learn about Nicaragua's past, present, and future while working or meeting with many Nicaraguans...
...Riot police removed lizing the the anti-paramilitary protesters, but did not interfere with another group of demonstrators who where there to laud President Alvaro Uribe and Mancuso...
...Talks on the FTAA, however, have lost political momentum and are presently at a standstill...
...Both sides declared victory...
...The recent criticism of the paramilitaries has provided some long overdue balance to Washington's portrayal of Colombia's conflict, as compared to its previous singleminded demonization of the country's main leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC...
...criticism of the paramilitaries, along with the threat of extradition, may well contribute to a failure of the demobilization talks and guarantee just this outcome...
...In the meantime, Washington has aggressively pursued sub-regional agreements of a similar kind...
...CGTP president Mario HuamAn refrained from endorsing the latter demand, but noted that "More than 85 percent of the population is demanding Toledo go, not me...
...They maintain that the agreement would give unfair advantage to their U.S...
...Why is Washington now suddenly criticizing the rightwing militia group...
...The 33 grassroots, labor, campesino and student coalitions that organized the march issued a 15-point statement demanding that Panama withdraw from the FTA talks and accusing the Moscoso administration of rash decision making and of negotiating in a non-consultative and secretive manner...
...Some critics of the Panama FTA see this process as part of a U.S...
...The government, on the other hand, pointed to low numbers of participation as an indication that Peruvians did not support the strike nor, by extension, the APRA party or Garcia...
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...The fears of Panamanian farmers are far from baseless...
...officials are well aware that the FARC will likely seize control of much of the vacated territory...
...attacks against the AUC is curious to say the least...
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...The government was also quick to allege that remnants of the Shining Path guerrilla group were trying to infiltrate protest organizations to incite violence, part of what political analyst Alberto Adrianzen referred to as the government's "absurd campaign to demonize the strike...
...The administration is employing a backdoor FTAA strategy by twisting the arms of the small and weak governments in the region...
...The protesters demanded of President Mireya Moscoso that she uphold her promise to exclude the agricultural sector from any potential agreement...
...Ambassador to Colombia William B. Wood initiated a campaign against the AUC when he finally acknowledged what had been obvious to most Colombians for more than a year: "It is clear that the paramilitaries have not completely met the commitments of the ceasefire...
...Toledo has twice been forced by popular pressure to purge key Ministers from his Cabinet...
...at he will be human rights abusers, should not 2006 elec- receive any jail time as part of a a's previous peace agreement...
...Ironically, Garci administration (1985-19 ly held responsible for country into the eco political tailspin that br the quasi-dictatorial reign Fujimori...
...He expressed his concern that the negotiations are not taking popular interests into consideration: "Rather, it is all about the bigwigs who see this as a great opportunity to increase their profits and turn themselves into giant importers...
...email or call for more info: jemerrltt@elporvenlr.org 303-520-0093 www.EIPorvenir.org IA 11IIt IlKNINI)ll iiW A[IVANACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS IN BRIEF labor, consumer, family, farming, religious and other civil society groups, openly criticizes CAFTA and the prospective FTA with Panama as emblematic of a U.S...
...strategy to accomplish piecemeal the goal of the currently frustrated Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) initiative...
...While it is essential that paramilitary human rights abusers be punished for the atrocities they have committed, the history of U.S...
...Congress...
...The July 22 indictment of two AUC leaders participating in the talks-Diego Fernando Murillo and Vicente Castaflo-on drug trafficking charges, has further complicated the demobilization process...
...reign policy Outside the Congress in Plaza able to ride Bolivar, relatives of paramilitary victims carried coffins and photo-Teo Ballve graphs of their deceased loved ones to protest the appearance of the AUC leaders...
...Sarah Workman CONTRIBUTORS: Garry Leech is editor of Colombia Journal <www.colombiajournal.org> and author of Killing Peace: Colombia's Conflict and the Failure of U.S...
...At one point, when asked about the strike, Minister of Production Alfonso Velasquez scoffed, "What strike...
...We are defenders of a free Colombia and its institutions...
...For more information write or call: PO Box 452 Manson, WA 98831 Phone (800) 963-9889 Visit our web site: www.hermandad.com IN BRIEF proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between their country and the United States...
...The action by Panamanian farmers was only one of many organized by an array of civil society groups to rally against the Panama-U.S...
...Initially, the Bush administration supported Uribe's peace efforts by providing $3 million to help fund the demobilization of AUC fighters...
...The Citizens' Trade Campaign, a national coalition of environmental, 45 Volunteer Vacations in Nicaragua Work Trips - Cost $950 "* November 6-20,2004 "* January 8-22...
...The government declared the strike illegal in the days before and said workers would be docked a day's pay if they did not show up to work...
...According to Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch, "What this kind of circus does is raise the expectations for these individuals to strengthen their position by manipulating the public, with some sort of familyvalues speech...
...The farmers, from the central provinces of Los Santos, Herrera, Veraguas and Code, confronted riot police with tractors and other farm equipment as they protested the third round of negotiations on the 44 SPEAK SPANISH TOTAL IMMERSION PROGRAM If you really want to speak Spanish correctly and fluently in a surprisingly short period of time, study with us...
...Mancuso and his fellow paramilitary leaders know that if the Uribe administration fails to provide them with total immunity in return for demobilizing, they can simply return to the battlefield where they have operated with impunity for more than two decades...
...Mich6le Lamont, Harvard University, editor of The Cultural Territories of Race * C Race in Another : America The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil * C Edward E. Telles This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the increasingly important and controversial subject of race relations in Brazil...
...Most 41NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS IN BRIEF polls already project tha the frontrunner for the tions...
...the voice of the people is the word of God...
...Based on the fear of potential U.S...
...Despite backing from the center-left American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) 40 ISEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2004 IN BRIEF party of Toledo's main political rival, the strike was not nearly as successful as CGTP leaders had projected...
...Just send a request to publicmind@msn.com Or write to: WHAT'S LEFT, PO Box 18070, Denver, CO, 80218, USA JOIN THE AMERICAN EMPIRE'S POLITICAL DIALOGUE ON: www.AirAmerica Radio.com www.BigEddieRadio.com Mike Newcomb on www.i iooKFNX.com www.Thom Hartmann.com And challenge the many right-wing hosts who take calls of dissent www.radio-locator.com WENE OTL INACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS IN BRIEF conflict and that the FARC are now on the defensive...
...190) is wide- Mancuso's insistence on this sending the point echoed earlier pronouncenomic and ments by the paramilitary that any ought about threat of incarceration or extradign of Alberto tion to the United States will likely doom the demobilization process...
...Thomas E. Skidmore, Brown University, author of Brazil: SFive Centuries of Change Cloth $35.00 ISBN 0-691-11866-3 Due September SPRINCETON O 800-777-4726 - READ EXCERPTS ONLINE :University Press WWW.PUP.PRINCETON.EDU ! IN BRIEF the group's ongoing human rights abuses and drug trafficking activities-not to mention their placement on the U.S...
...U.S./COLOMBIA: Demobi AUC...
...policy that repeatedly takes advantage of relatively defenseless foreign governments...
...There were similar demonstrations and accusations last spring, during the previous round of FTA negotiations...
...and Colombian officials have repeatedly claimed that the armed forces have achieved the upper hand in the country's armed The Upstream Journal on economic, social, and cultural rights The Upstream Journal, a publication of the Social Justice Committee, reflects the perspective of Third World poverty as a human rights Issue...
Vol. 38 • September 2004 • No. 2
