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Archives: July 2009
EL SALVADOR: First Victim of the Struggle against Mining
check out this letter to the Salvadoran attorney general signed by CISPES and over 100 other organizations http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=617&Itemid=1
(the de facto attorney general is a hold-over from ARENA since the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly has been deadlocked and therefore has yet to appoint a new one)
Community leaders from the region of Cabañas have come under serious threat in the past month. www.elsalvadorsolidarity.org
*On July 2nd, the body of Marcelo Rivera, community leader from San Isidro, Cabañas, who had disappeared on June 18 and was found, tortured and murdered. Marcelo was an environmental activist, opposing mining in the region and denouncing electoral fraud in the municipality in January 2009. While there are four gang members who are considered suspects for the crime, there has been no research into the intellectual authors of the crime, who potentially hired the gang members to kill Marcelo.
*On July 27th, three journalists from Radio Victoria, who had been reporting on Marcelo's case, received intensifying death threats, telling them that they would “end up like Marcelo”.
*On July 28th, Father Luis Quintanilla, the priest who works with the community of Santa Marta and advocates for human rights in the region, was attacked after doing a radio show on Radio Victoria. Father Luis narrowly escaped a kidnapping and assassination attempt.
*On July 29th, a community leader in Santa Marta, the director of ADES, and a number of social organizations in Cabañas all received death threats.
To learn more about these cases, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFNLXrnnDec
All of these cases show an attempt to intimidate social leaders in Cabañas and stop them from organizing. The Attorney General's Office must do a true investigation into the intellectual authors of the violence and threats in Cabañas!
Also check out the youtube video "The Mysterious Death of Marcelo Rivera"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXm52BhSHQ
Pacific Rim Silent in Wake of Violence Against Anti-mining Protesters in Cabañas, El Salvador
Written by Jason Wallach
Wednesday, 05 August 2009
A wave of violence targeted at anti-mining protesters has ripped through Cabañas in north-eastern El Salvador, and Pacific Rim Mining Corporation, the mid-size Canadian company which has lost millions in its effort to exploit the area’s ample gold deposits has remained curiously silent on the attacks.
Last month, Marcelo Rivera, a prominent anti-mining activist community leader and FMLN member was forcibly disappeared by unknown assailants. Though many organizations immediately denounced his disappearance, police failed to act quickly enough to alter his fate. Rivera’s disfigured body was found dumped in a well two weeks after he was last seen alive.
Rivera was well-known in Cabañas. He headed a local community center and founded Amigos of San Isidro, an organization that formed part of the main coalition of groups that opposed the re-opening of the El Dorado mine, where Pacific Rim intends to set up shop. According to the Salvadoran daily, Diario Co-latino, Rivera’s funeral was attended by hundreds of “children, youth and elders…all crying at the same time.”
"He fought against the mining threat from the perspective of a teacher, a cultural promoter, a director of a community organization, and as a political leader", says Francisco Piñeda, a local environmentalist, also quoted in Co-latino.
Instead of merely sending a signal, Rivera’s murder has marked the start of an open season against anyone openly opposed to the El Dorado mine. On Monday July 28, parish priest Father Luis Quintanilla was traveling from Victoria to Sensuntepeque after his weekly radio broadcast when his vehicle was forcibly pulled over by three men wearing ski masks. According to published video testimony, Quintanilla and narrowly escaped under a nearby fence after his assailants were distracted by Quintanilla’s own inadvertently (or not?) triggered car alarm.
Before the roadside assault, Quintanilla had already been the target of threats. The priest had received a volley of cell phone text messages, one of which read: “Extermination: you’ve been warned to stop f**king around. You better shut your mouths if you don’t want us to shut them once and for all.” Another said:”Extermination > you mother-f**kers better stop stirring people up if you don’t want to end up like Marcelo. We’ve got eyes on you.”
Last week, the government’s Human Rights Ombudsman, Oscar Luna, held a special press conference to denouce threats made against three reporters at Radio Victoria, a community-based radio station out of Cuidad Victoria. News gatherers Ludwin Iraheta, José Beltrán, and Vladimir Ayala, ages 17,18, and 20 years old respectively, received messages over the course of the past month stating, “you’re on the list,”and “you’ll be next.” The most threatenening stated, “Be careful, because they spoke too much in San Isidro,” a direct reference to the Rivera assassination.
The Radio Victoria staff have been among the most prominent voices to denounce the proposed gold mine plans, and they were the first to denounce their friend Marcelo’s disappearance. After his death, they are calling for a full investigation.
Rivera’s assassination, the assault on Father Quintanilla and the ongoing threats accent a already tense climate in a place which saw voting suspended in San Isidro during January’s legislative election after allegations emerged that Mayor José Ignacio Bautista from the ARENA party was contracting voters across the nearby border with Honduras to stack the polls in his favor. When a re-vote was held a week later, Bautista won. Rumors of fraud fell to a murmur in this isolated rural town of 10,000, but open scars remained in the wake of the election battle.
Mining Rights, Mining Wrongs
The prospect of re-initiating gold mining-as-economic-development-strategy in El Salvador has stirred passions on both sides of the debate. Mining advocates mostly hail from the ARENA and PCN political parties—heirs of the deathsquad-sponsoring governments of the 1980’s. The two parties rule 100% of the Mayor’s offices and Municipal Councils in the Cabañas Department. Together, they carry big sticks in the national Legislative Assembly, where PCN deputies have been the chief sponsors of revamping the El Salvador’s relatively restrictive mining laws. Ex-President Francisco Flores’s environmental ministry issued a series of exploration permits to two gold mining companies in 1996—the first such permits to be issued in decades.
But last year, cracks in ARENA’s traditional rural power base emerged when ranchers in Cabañas noticed that the plentiful springs they used to water crops and livestock were mysteriously drying up. Upon investigation, ranchers found what local people long had suspected: the exploratory drill holes utilized by Pacific Rim to estimate gold deposits were re-channeling underground streams and drastically impacting the aquifer. Under its exploration permit issued by the Saca government, Pacific Rim drilled hundreds of holes, each one carefully documented by the company itself, with meticulous data made available for stockholders (and anyone else) to see on its website. This, aghast residents asked, and the company hasn’t even begun mining?
The movement opposed to Pacific Rim’s presence in Cabañas had been active since 2005, but as the truth about exploratory holes began to ripple through Cabañas, participation in anti-mining events burgeoned. Residents became active through a combination of community and faith-based organizing. They spoke about the impacts of the holes, and explained the dangers of cyanide leach mining on the water table. The leap was not a hard one to make for folks who had already seen their water disappear. Soon, the conservative Archbishop of San Salvador, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, was declaring, “Not one drop of cyanide should enter El Salvador.”
“"We are a very small and densely populated country that has already suffered enough."
In response, Pacific Rim attempted to buy public support—or at least quell resistance with a Minera verde, or “green mining” campaign touted the benefits of mining projects on local development. Worried about the potential effectiveness of such a campaign, the National Roundtable Against Metallic Mining was born.
Word crawled up the political ladder, and ex-President Tony Saca and the ARENA leadership were caught in a bind. Behind in the polls to a charismatic TV host named Mauricio Funes and facing the most contentious election in 25 years, a virtual mutiny was taking place in ARENA circles. The party’s leadership was forced to decide between issuing the mining permits and risking a fissure in its well-oiled electoral machine. The other option was to abandon the party’s traditional pro-business stance and suture the ecological and political wounds inflicted by Pacific Rim in Cabañas. Saca decided the pressure was too much and a week before the election announced that no new permits would be offered to Pacific Rim. (Note: late enough in the campaign that no offended donor could recoup any donations…)
Amid rumors that Pacific Rim would sue El Salvador under foreign investor protection rules outlined in the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Saca responded soundly: “I would rather pay the $90 million than issue the permit.” (A rather defeatist attitude, since no suit had yet been brought. Meanwhile, the San Salvador-based Center for Trade and Investment Research, CEICOM, declared that the government had the evidence to defeat any case brought against it, and that win or lose no payment should be made.)
Saca’s new found role as bulwark against foreign corporate intrusion and defender of the public interest may have surprised some who had followed his politics during the course of his five year term. After all, Saca’s own 2004 campaign was predicated on reaping the benefits of international investment that CAFTA would rain on El Salvador. But Saca’s turnaround on mining only highlights the severity of the political crisis he and the rest of ARENA faced (and still face) in Cabañas generally and San Isidro specifically.
Pacific Rim, for its part, has been facing its own crisis before and since the election. Much of the company’s business model was built around the promise of return on its El Dorado holdings. With public opinion, the Catholic Church, and the current government opposed to El Dorado, the company is now banking on a $77 million dollar arbitration claim in the CAFTA courts. The company recently announced its third straight loss year. Its shares on the NYSE are trading at 22 cents. Pacific Rim liquidated its holdings in another mine to gain cash. The company’s FY2009 report glibly revealed that the COO and CEO have been released. The President and CEO have taken large pay decreases.
The Current Wave of Violence
With the election firmly in rearview, mining advocates in Cabañas have little incentive for good behavior. The current wave of violence and politically motivated assassination is equivalent to a form of social cleansing—an extra-judicial form of exterminating the political enemies of Cabañas’s ruling elite. It is unclear what role Pacific Rim has had in the recent wave of violence, but the company’s curious silence and it’s refusal to denounce violence against anti-mining activists has led people in Cabañas to wonder whether the company, in addition to its arbitration suit, is not also seeking other forms of retaliation.
“We want a professional investigation. These [perpetrators] are people paid for by those in power and economic interests like Pacific Rim are present,” said Elín Jordan, a member of the Community-radio Network, ARPAS.
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BOLIVIA: President Obama Ends U.S. Trade Preferences for Bolivia
President Obama Ends U.S. Trade Preferences for Bolivia
By Jim Shultz
The Democracy Center
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Since he took office five months ago, President Barack Obama has had to show his political cards on one issue after another. How interventionist would he be dealing with the collapsing financial system? How far toward state-run care would he go on health reform? Where would he stand on gay marriage? What kind of candidate would he put on the Supreme Court? How soon would he pull troops out of Iraq and how many would he put into Afghanistan?
On the political back burner, behind these high profile questions was another one: How will President Obama play the complicated cards of the U.S. relationship with Latin America – in what ways would he be different than President Bush and in what ways would he be the same?
Over the past few weeks President Obama has begun to show some of his cards on Latin America. The first was his response to the military coup in Honduras. The second was his announcement last week that he is ending U.S. trade preferences for Bolivia.
The Honduran coup was probably not a tough call for the administration. It doesn't take much political courage to oppose the first military coup in Central America in a quarter century. The suspension of Bolivian trade preferences, however, was unexpected.
A Move in Bush's Footsteps that Will Likely Put Thousands Out of Work
Last September, when the governments of Bolivia and the U.S. were playing an escalating game of diplomatic tit-for-tat, beginning with President Evo Morales' expulsion of the U.S. Ambassador, President Bush overruled Congress and suspended U.S. trade preferences with Bolivia. The move put at least 20,000 Bolivian jobs at risk.
The Bush administration's official basis for the suspension was that it had “decertified” Bolivia's anti-narcotics efforts, charging that Bolivia had failed to fulfill its commitments to fight illegal drug trade in the country. By U.S. law, those ATPDEA trade preferences are tied to Bolivia's anti-narcotics efforts. But coming as it did square in the midst of diplomatic battle, and contrary to a bipartisan vote in Congress to continue those preferences for Bolivia, it seemed clear that the Bush administration’s move had a lot more to do with politics than drugs.
See video testimony here from affected workers.
Since January those watching the issue – especially thousands of workers in textile factories in Bolivia's impoverished highlands – have been waiting hopefully to see whether President Obama would reverse the Bush policy. On Tuesday the President announced that he would not. In fact he made the suspension of the trade preferences permanent.
"No duty-free treatment or other preferential treatment…shall remain in effect with respect to Bolivia after June 30, 2009," reads the ruling from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Was it the Law or Was it Politics?
So what was behind President Obama's decision on Bolivia?
Administration representatives and defenders will argue that it was a straight up ruling that Bolivia's anti-narcotics efforts do not meet the standards required to continue the trade preferences. The Trade Representative's Office writes in its findings, "The current challenges include explicit acceptance and encouragement of coca production at the highest levels of the Bolivian government," and it argued that a large portion of that growing crop is headed for cocaine production, not herbal tea. That finding was also buttressed by a new United Nations report this month claiming that cocaine production in Bolivia has increased by 9% over the past year.
Analysts with more expertise than I have, on all sides of the issue, can debate the statistics and the evidence about Bolivian coca's ultimate destination. But anyone living in Cochabamba can tell you that the hills on the outskirts of this valley are populated by a growing number of clandestine operations devoted to turning coca into cocaine. When the Obama administration argues that its decision is simply a strict reading of the facts and the law, it has a case.
However, other observers more skeptical of Washington’s moves will attribute the decision to other considerations.
Some may suggest that, in its dealings with the combative Morales, the Obama team decided that Bolivia might make a nice line in the sand – a signal that, while it intends to be more friendly toward some of the governments the Bush administration loathed, Obama's Washington still has its limits. President Morales has not done himself many diplomatic favors in his dealings with the new administration. This includes his breaking up the warm handholding at the April Summit of the Americas with a demand that President Obama publicly declare himself free of involvement in an alleged assassination conspiracy against Morales. To be clear, Morales doesn't do Bolivia's cause any help by constantly blaming the U.S. for his country's problems.
Others with even more sinister suspicions may claim that Washington is subtly trying to weaken Morales politically in advance of December’s Presidential election. The end of the trade preferences pits two parts of Morales’ political base against one another – coca growers who benefit from increased cultivation and workers in the factories who may now lose their jobs because of that increased growing.
While I am not generally big on conspiracy theories, there is, however, evidence of something strange going on here. Bolivian government officials had apparently received some solid assurances from their U.S. counterparts that the trade preferences would be restored and were deeply surprised by Obama's announcement. It is important to note that the White House Counsel, Greg Craig, was formerly employed as the defense attorney for ousted Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who would certainly look with glee upon Morales having political troubles.
On more than one occasion Mr. Craig has played Washington hardball with those insisting that his client be tried for the crimes he is charged with in Bolivia. If the White House Counsel had any participation whatsoever in administration discussions on the issue, the Obama administration has a very serious conflict of interest problem on its hands.
Bolivia/U.S. Relations Back on Shaky Ground
What is not in question, however, is that the announcement from Washington signals an end to whatever shaky honeymoon existed between Obama and Morales. Bolivia's President wasted no time in pouncing on his counterpart in the north. “President Obama lied to Latin America when he told us in Trinidad and Tobago that there are not senior and junior partners,” he declared in La Paz. He added, “Even if the appearance of the government in the United States has changed, the politics of the Empire haven’t.” Yesterday Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca declared that Mr. Obama was "worse" that President Bush, citing the trade preferences decision as the main reason.
One strange result of the political machinations between the Obama administration and Latin American leaders in recent months is that President Morales seems to have replaced Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as the South American ‘bad boy’ in terms of relations with the U.S. While Chavez is gifting books to President Obama and exchanging ambassadors once again, Morales has become President Obama's chief critic in the region.
But What About the People?
All this is about the politics and the political calculations involved in these matters - on both sides -- the stuff on which political analysts and political followers tend to dwell. But what about the people affected by all this? Where do they fit in to the political calculations in Washington and La Paz?
It seems certain now, as a result of the Obama administration’s Bolivia decision, that thousands of workers here will lose their jobs. This brings me back to the fundamental question we asked in September when President Bush first suspended the trade preferences, the same question we put forward in the video of worker testimony that we showed in Washington in October when the Trade Representative held its hearing on this issue:
Why is it in the interest of the United States to put these people out of work?
The answer is - it isn’t.
Just as he was announcing his plans to put Bolivians pout of work, President Obama spoke of his concern for the rising number of unemployed in the U.S. Too many families, he noted, worry about "whether they will be next" to lose their jobs. Being thrown into unemployment in Bolivia, where economic opportunity is scarce, is no better. But nowhere, sadly, does that show up in the Obama administration's Bolivian calculation.
Another thing that it is certain about the impact of President Obama's decision is that it won't do anything to combat the production of cocaine in Bolivia. If anything, it will make things worse. Putting tens of thousands of people out of work is only likely to push more of them into some kind of involvement with the illegal drug trade. That is a fact that should not have been hard for analysts in the administration to understand.
So What Will Obama Do that is Different than Bush?
President Obama has made clear in this case at least one way in which he is content to copy the policies of President Bush. Now the question is whether, on the issues of illegal drugs and trade, he is willing to demonstrate some of that creativity he promised to do things differently than Mr. Bush.
Here are two ways he can do just that.
First, the Obama administration could recognize the basic fact that helping create honest work in Bolivia is simply good policy for both Bolivia and the U.S. It should find a way to quickly restore the trade preferences without any link to drug policy. That is how it should have been from the start and doing so now would demonstrate genuine political courage and intelligence. Those preferences are about the thousands of workers impacted and the thousands more they support. Their future should not be dependent on coca production they have nothing to do with or whether their President tosses ongoing public insults at Washington.
Second, if the Obama administration is serious about wanting to help reduce cocaine production in Bolivia, it should move past policies that don't work and start adopting new ones that have a chance.
That begins by not insisting on making the U.S. a central player in Bolivia's anti-narcotics program. Washington's "Drug War" has a horrific history here, including giving Bolivian prosecutors special U.S. salary as an incentive to put thousands of innocents in jail. The U.S. will never be trusted here on drug policy. A serious U.S. strategy to combat illicit Bolivian coca would encourage more involvement by Argentina and Brazil, two governments that have far more cordial relations with Morales and whose people are the real target for the cocaine produced here, not the U.S.
A genuine approach would also make the logical distinction between the coca leaf, which is not an illicit drug, and cocaine, which is. Supporting the legal export and sale of products such as coca tea – served and recommended by the U.S. Embassy in La Paz – won't soak up all the leaves headed for processing into cocaine, but it will make a difference and create honest employment.
Both these directions would mark a radical departure from the myopic policies the U.S. has pushed here for more than two decades, but they make sense.
What's left now is to see is whether President Obama has a few cards left in his hand that he hasn't played, ones other than those he just picked up when President Bush left them behind on the table last January.
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COLOMBIA: Urgent Action on Behalf of the Families of Las Pavas.
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has accompanied the community of Las Pavas, and we are very concerned with the situation that is developing. Families who have lived and worked this land in South Bolivar province for the past 12 years are being threatened by large palm oil industries that wish to acquire the land from the current absentee landlord, a relative of deceased cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The Colombian Institute for Rural Development (INCODER) has initiated a process of eminent domain to claim the land for the government and then draw up titles for the residents of Las Pavas; the palm oil companies are now attempting to displace the families and short-circuit that process.
We ask that you respond to the urgent action alert below; it was sent by some of our trusted partner organizations who were present in Las Pavas when the events of the past few days occurred. Thank you for your help and involvement.
— CPT Colombia
COLOMBIAN GOVERNMENT AND PALM OIL BUSINESSES DISPLACE 123 FAMILIES IN THE VILLAGE OF LAS PAVAS
The Police Inspector of the Peñon municipality in south Bolivar Province, OMALDO GARCIA CAPATAZ, has ordered the DISPLACEMENT OF 123 CAMPESINO FAMILIES FROM THE COMMUNITY OF LAS PAVAS. Representatives of the Public Ministry that were present (National Human Rights Ombudsperson & Municipal Human Rights Defendor’s Office) opposed the order and requested its suspension, but the Inspector denied their request.
In the early hours of the morning of July 14th, Members of the National Police and the Mobile Riot Police Squad surrounded the community, blocking the movement of the families living there and those accompanying them. Later, at around 1:00pm, the police entered the community, destroyed 7 campesino homes and seized tools, and fulfilled the order to displace the 123 families, which include several pregnant women and approximately 100 children, some of them newborns.
At the moment these families, whose fundamental rights are being violated, find themselves displaced to the Buenos Aires district of the municipality of Peñon, South Bolivar province
Because of this, we ask that you contact the Colombian authorities listed below to demand that:
• The Colombian government guarantee the immediate return of the families that have been displaced from their land.
• INCODER (the Colombian rural development office) expedite their process of claiming the land by eminent domain, so the people may secure titles to their farms quickly and not face further threats.
• Financial reparations be made to the community for the damages caused by members of the police while carrying out the displacement order.
• Humanitarian aid be brought to the displaced families, with special attention given to infants, pregnant women and the elderly.
Please send an email to the following list of Colombian government officials. Please also copy CPT-Colombia (cptco@cpt.org), and we will forward your message to our personal contacts in the US and Canadian Embassies in Colombia.
Presidente de Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez
Vice Presidente de Colombia, Francisco Santos
Ministerio de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural, Andrés Fernandez Acosta
Defensor del Pueblo, Wolmar Antonio Perez Ortiz
Alcaldía del Peñón Bolívar, Catalino Meza Ruidiaz
Here is a sample letter you may use in your communications:
Saludos.
Soy cuidadana de [COUNTRY] y he escuchado las noticias del desalojo de 123 familias campesinas de la comunidad de Las Pavas, en el Sur de Bolívar. Sé que en este momento estas familias se encuentran desplazadas en el municipio del Peñón. También entiendo que el Inspector de Policía, Omaldo García Capataz, ordenó de forma arbitraria este desalojo, a pesar de que representantes de la Defensoría del Pueblo y la Personería Municipal se opusieron a la diligencia y solicitaron la suspensión de la misma.
En frente de esa vulneración de los derechos fundamentales de las familias de Las Pavas, le exijo al gobierno de Colombia:
* que garantice su retorno inmediato de la población desplazada a su predio
* que se repare económicamente a la comunidad de Las Pavas por los daños causados por la fuerza pública en aras del cumplimiento de la orden de desalojo.
* que se brinde la asistencia humanitaria a la población desplazada y se atienda de forma especial a la población infantil, mujeres embarazadas y adultos mayores
* que se inste al INCODER para que agilice los trámites correspondientes a la solicitud de la comunidad sobre la extinción de dominio que se encuentra en curso
Gracias por su atención; espero los resultados de su acción.
NAME
ADDRESS
COUNTRY
Translation:
Greetings.
I am a citizen of [COUNTRY] and I have heard the news of the displacement of 123 campesino families of the community of Las Pavas, in South Bolivar province. I know these families currently find themselves displaced in the municipality of Peñón. I also understand that the Police Inspector, Omaldo García Capataz, ordered this displacement in an irregular fashion, despite the fact that representatives of the National Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office and the Municipal Human Rights Defendor’s Office opposed the order and requested its suspension.
In the face of this violation of the fundamental rights of the families of Las Pavas, I demand that the government of Colombia:
* guarantee the immediate return of the displaced families to their lands
* ensure financial reparations to the families of Las Pavas for the damage caused by members of the police while carrying out the displacement order
* offer humanitarian aid to the displaced families, with special attention to infants, pregnant women and the elderly
* press INCODER to expedite their process of claiming the land by eminent domain, a process solicited by the community and already underway [so that the people may secure titles to their farms]
Thank you for your attention; I await the results of your action.
+++++++++++++++++++++
DOLE
Colombia remains the world's most dangerous place to be a trade unionist and U.S. multinational corporations such as Chiquita and Dole have been complicit in union violence. Tell the Department of Justice to investigate Dole Food Company for hiring paramilitaries to kill and intimidate its banana union leaders in Colombia.
President Obama recently hosted a White House meeting with Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe to discuss security, development and trade. Following the meeting, Obama stated that Colombia must cooperate with the U.S. in "improving the rights of the trade unions and the efforts to protect union leaders." Urge the Administration to get serious about reducing trade union murders and hold U.S. corporations accountable for violence!
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PERU: La Oroya (Doe Run) mine update
July 16, 2009
http://www.mining-journal.com/production-and-markets/peru-government-rejects-doe-run-smelter-plan
Peru’s government rejected a proposal by Doe Run Peru to reopen its shuttered lead and zinc smelter, saying the company needs to put up more cash.
The government said that it will not agree to delay a deadline for an environmental clean-up unless the company puts up 100% of its shares as a guarantee. The Energy and Mines Ministry said that the subsidiary of the Renco Group needs to spend "at least US$100 million", compared with the US$31 million proposed last month.
Banks froze Doe Run’s accounts in February after metal prices collapsed, and the smelter halted all operations on June 2 because it couldn’t buy the raw materials needed. Copper, zinc and lead prices plunged at least 49% in London last year, leading to US$124 million in company losses, Doe Run said in June.
"We’re studying a new proposal for suppliers and the government to be discussed in a meeting later this week," Doe Run vice president Jose Mogrovejo said in a telephone interview from La Oroya. "We hope to reach an agreement on this as soon as possible."
US billionaire Ira Rennert, Renco’s owner, must inject cash for the smelter, deputy mining minister Fernando Gala said in his statement. The government rejected the company’s proposal to use a prior US$18 million guarantee and tax rebates to finance part of its US$156 million debt to suppliers.
The government may extend an October 31 clean-up deadline if the company commits US$150 million over an 11-month period. Doe Run proposed a 30-month period to build a sulphuric acid plant to curb emissions.
(Bloomberg, July 15)
++++++++++++++++++
El Gobierno de Perú cerrará operaciones de Doe Run si no hay propuesta viable
The Government of Peru will close operations at Doe Run without a viable proposal
Lima 20 de julio 2009
http://www.adn.es/economia/20090716/NWS-1519-Gobierno-Peru-Run-Doe-operaciones.html
(very free translation in parentheses)
El Ministerio de Energía y Minas de Perú advirtió hoy de que procederá al cierre de operaciones de la minera estadounidense Doe Run si ésta no plantea una propuesta viable para salir de la crisis financiera, que ha paralizado sus actividades en la ciudad andina de La Oroya. (The ministry of Energy and Mines will close operations at the Doe Run Peru mine if there is not a viable plan to get out the financial crisis)
El viceministro de Minas, Fernando Gala, declaró a Radio Programas del Perú (RPP) que "hay poca voluntad de parte de la empresa Doe Run en dar aporte fresco y garantías para ejecutar el Programa de Adecuación Medio Ambiental (PAMA)". (Doe Run Perum must guarantee it will meet environmental standards PAMA)
Sin embargo, confió en que la minera presente una propuesta financiera "fresca y viable" para solucionar la crisis, que ha afectado el trabajo de otras empresas que extraen mineral de los yacimientos en el centro del país y lo procesaban con Doe Run. (there is confidence that a fresh and viable proposal will be presented...the crisis has affected work in other industries connected to Doe Run)
La minera, que opera el complejo metalúrgico de La Oroya, a 185 kilómetros al este de Lima, atraviesa una crisis financiera que la ha obligado a paralizar sus actividades y a plantear la postergación de la implementación del programa ambiental PAMA, que debía concluir en octubre próximo. (the mine is located 185km east of Lima is in the midst of a financial crisis that has paralyzed activities and postponed the implementation of environmental standards due to be completed October 2009)
La empresa tenía el compromiso de invertir por el PAMA 400 millones de dólares en la construcción de una planta de tratamiento de ácido sulfúrico del circuito de plomo, que inaugurada el año pasado, y otra de tratamiento de ácido sulfúrico del circuito de cobre, que debía ponerse en funcionamiento en octubre de 2009. (The company is committed to invest $400 million to construct a treatment plant for sulphuric acid in lead processing which was begun last year and the one for copper due to function in October 2009)
Sin embargo, Doe Run Perú propuso a finales del mes pasado inyectar 31 millones de dólares y de capital fresco y pidió al Gobierno una extensión de 30 meses del plazo para la culminación del PAMA. (Nevertheless, Doe Run Peru proposed at the end of last month to inject $31million new capital and asked for an extension of 30 months to meet PAMA standards)
Tras entrar en una profunda crisis a principios de año, la compañía obtuvo en abril un rescate financiero de 175 millones de dólares de sus proveedoras de mineral, pero incumplió las condiciones y fue denunciada ante la Sociedad Nacional de Minería y Petróleo. (Facing a profound crisis at the beginning of the year, the company obtained a financial rescue of $175 million from from their suppliers, but they did not meet the conditions and were denounced by the National Society of Mining and Petroleum)
El Ministerio ha planteado a la empresa que aumente el aporte de capital fresco en, por lo menos, 100 millones de dólares, y que ponga en garantía el 100% de sus acciones. (The ministry has proposed that the company add fresh capital of at least $100million and guarantee 100% of their actions)
Gala informó que Doe Run quedó en contestar a su solicitud hoy o, a más tardar, en los primeros días de la próxima semana. (Doe Run is supposed to respond no later than the beginning of next week)
El viceministro peruano dijo que el Gobierno puede aplicar contra la empresa el marco legal que impide el funcionamiento de las instalaciones cuando no cumplan con las medidas de protección medioambiental y disponer su cierre. (The Peruvian viceminister said that the government can apply a legal proceeding against the company to impede the functioning of the installation when it does not comply with environmental protections and they are disposed to close the plant)
"En la práctica significa que no podría operar. Lo que tendría que hacer la empresa es vender sus activos, sus concesiones y buscar otro operador", explicó Gala a la emisora de radio. ("this means they cannot operate..they will have to sell and find another operator")
La autoridad pidió a los trabajadores de Doe Run que esperen el resultado de las conversaciones entre ambas partes antes de acatar una medida de protesta anunciada para la próxima semana. (Authorities asked the workers to wait for the results of the conversations between the various parties before they carry out the protest announced for next week)
El sindicato de obreros de La Oroya, dedicado principalmente al procesamiento de minerales, realizó ayer una asamblea en la cual anunció la convocatoria a un paro regional, probablemente la próxima semana, y el bloqueo de la carretera Central, la principal vía que conduce al centro del país, como medida de presión contra el Gobierno. (the workers union, dedicated principally to the processing of minerals, yesterday held an assembly where they announced a call for a regional strike, probably next week, and a blockade of the central highway through the center of the country as a means of pressure against the government.)
En las instalaciones de Doe Run trabajan 3.500 obreros, quienes rechazaron en junio pasado una propuesta del Gobierno para pedir la administración de la empresa, ante la probabilidad de que sea declarada en quiebra. (3,500 workers work in the installations of Doe Run; they rejected last June a proposal to the government to take over the administration of the plant, when it looked like bankruptcy would be be declared)
El viceministro peruano aseguró que "el Gobierno está viendo los mecanismos para no afectar a los trabajadores, en el supuesto de que la empresa no mejore su propuesta". ("...the government is looking into mechanisms to protect the workers in the case that the company does not improve its proposal."
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IMMIGRATION: OPPOSE ENFORCEMENT-ONLY APPROACHES TO IMMIGRATION REFORM
We must deal with immigration reform from a comprehensive approach
Please express your dissapointment in your Senators recent votes
Background: During the week of July 6-10, the U.S. Senate considered amendments to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill. During the debate, the Senate considered and adopted several immigration enforcement amendments which continue the enforcement-only approach to immigration reform. An amendment offered by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) enhancing the U.S.-Mexico border fence was particularly disturbing.
DeMint Amendment #1399: This amendment would require the completion of at least 700 miles of double fencing along the Southwest border by December 31, 2010, as well as require double barriers along portions of the fence.
USCCB (CATHOLIC)Position: The USCCB has opposed the construction of a border fence, arguing that it will not stem, overall, illegal immigration, and could lead migrants to undertake more dangerous journeys into the United States. It also would force them to rely on expensive and dangerous human smuggling operations.
The Senate also adopted an amendment to extend the employment verification program, offered by Senator Sessions, and two other immigration enforcement amendments by voice vote (not roll call).
Notwithstanding the substance of the amendments, a vote in favor demonstrates that enforcement-only approaches to immigration reform are still supported by the majority of the Senate. Using the border fence vote as an example, we must communicate to our Senators that enforcement-only legislation is wrongheaded and ineffective and that only comprehensive immigration reform will help repair a badly broken immigration system.
Action and Targets: Clicking on the Take Action or Go! button (above) will bring you to two separate letters, one which thanks your Senator for voting in opposition to the DeMint amendment and one expressing disappointment for their vote on the DeMint Amendment. Below, please find the roll call vote for the DeMint Amendment, with a "Yea" voting for the fence and a "Nay" voting against the fence.
Please send the appropriate letters to your Senator. It is just as important to thank your Senator for the right vote as it is expressing disappointment for a wrong vote. You can also use the letters as talking points if you wish to contact them via phone at 202-224-3121.
Specific Targets: While it is important that all Senators receive letters or calls, there are specific target Senators important to the comprehensive immigration reform debate (and who should support CIR) who should hear from us:
Target Senators who voted the wrong way on the DeMint amendment: Democrats: Baucus, Bayh, Boxer, Feinstein, Klobuchar, Landreiu, Lincoln, McCaskill, Merkley, Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Pryor, Rockefeller, Schumer, Specter, Stabenow, Tester, Webb, and Wyden. Republicans: Bennett, Brownback, Hatch, Graham, Gregg, McCain, Snowe.
For more information, please contact: Antonio Cube at acube@usccb.org or Chris West at CWest@crs.org
U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress - 1st Session as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Question: On the Amendment (DeMint Amdt. No. 1399 )
Vote Number: 220
Vote Date: July 8, 2009, 11:34 AM
Required For Majority: 1/2
Vote Result: Amendment Agreed to
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 1399 to S.Amdt. 1373 to H.R. 2892 (Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2010)
Statement of Purpose: To require the completion of at least 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the southwest border by December 31, 2010.
Vote Counts: YEAs 54 NAYs 44 Not Voting 2
Alabama: Sessions (R-AL), Yea Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Alaska: Begich (D-AK), Nay Murkowski (R-AK), Nay
Arizona: Kyl (R-AZ), Yea McCain (R-AZ), Yea
Arkansas: Lincoln (D-AR), Yea Pryor (D-AR), Yea
California: Boxer (D-CA), Yea Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Colorado: Bennet (D-CO), Nay Udall (D-CO), Nay
Connecticut: Dodd (D-CT), Nay Lieberman (ID-CT), Nay
Delaware: Carper (D-DE), Nay Kaufman (D-DE), Nay
Florida: Martinez (R-FL), Nay Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Georgia: Chambliss (R-GA), Yea Isakson (R-GA), Yea
Hawaii: Akaka (D-HI), Nay Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Idaho: Crapo (R-ID), Yea Risch (R-ID), Yea
Illinois: Burris (D-IL), Nay Durbin (D-IL), Nay
Indiana: Bayh (D-IN), Yea Lugar (R-IN), Nay
Iowa: Grassley (R-IA), Yea Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Kansas: Brownback (R-KS), Yea Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Kentucky: Bunning (R-KY), Yea McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Louisiana: Landrieu (D-LA), Yea Vitter (R-LA), Yea
Maine: Collins (R-ME), Nay Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Maryland: Cardin (D-MD), Nay Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Massachusetts: Kennedy (D-MA), Not Voting Kerry (D-MA), Nay
Michigan: Levin (D-MI), Nay Stabenow (D-MI), Yea
Minnesota: Franken (D-MN), Nay Klobuchar (D-MN), Yea
Mississippi: Cochran (R-MS), Nay Wicker (R-MS), Yea
Missouri: Bond (R-MO), Yea McCaskill (D-MO), Yea
Montana: Baucus (D-MT), Yea Tester (D-MT), Yea
Nebraska: Johanns (R-NE), Yea Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Nevada: Ensign (R-NV), Nay Reid (D-NV), Nay
New Hampshire: Gregg (R-NH), Yea Shaheen (D-NH), Nay
New Jersey: Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay Menendez (D-NJ), Nay
New Mexico: Bingaman (D-NM), Nay Udall (D-NM), Nay
New York: Gillibrand (D-NY), Nay Schumer (D-NY), Yea
North Carolina: Burr (R-NC), Yea Hagan (D-NC), Nay
North Dakota: Conrad (D-ND), Yea Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Ohio: Brown (D-OH), Nay Voinovich (R-OH), Nay
Oklahoma: Coburn (R-OK), Yea Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Oregon: Merkley (D-OR), Yea Wyden (D-OR), Yea
Pennsylvania: Casey (D-PA), Nay Specter (D-PA), Yea
Rhode Island: Reed (D-RI), Nay Whitehouse (D-RI), Nay
South Carolina: DeMint (R-SC), Yea Graham (R-SC), Yea
South Dakota: Johnson (D-SD), Nay Thune (R-SD), Yea
Tennessee: Alexander (R-TN), Yea Corker (R-TN), Yea
Texas: Cornyn (R-TX), Yea Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Utah: Bennett (R-UT), Yea Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Vermont: Leahy (D-VT), Nay Sanders (I-VT), Nay
Virginia: Warner (D-VA), Nay Webb (D-VA), Yea
Washington: Cantwell (D-WA), Nay Murray (D-WA), Nay
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What do These Votes Mean for Comprehensive Reform?
While many Senators who voted for these amendments have long opposed immigration reform, not all of them will oppose a comprehensive package. For restrictionists Senators, the writing is on the wall that comprehensive immigration reform will be taken up later this year by Congress, and they are trying to get what they can before they become less relevant. Many Senators who will in the end support comprehensive immigration reform want to show they are going to be tough on enforcement, and will do so at every opportunity. It is disappointing that Senators are still making these symbolic actions which amount to more money being thrown at efforts to enforce laws that are broken.
It's time we start seeing them actually tackling the problem in a way that might fix it.
No comparable provisions are included in the House bill, which has already been passed. There will be a chance to remove these provisions when the House and Senate negotiate a compromise in Conference Committee (though it is not a given that these provisions will be stricken).
In Other News: DHS Announces Support of E-Verify for federal contractors;
Bush No Match Regulation to be Rescinded
The Department of Homeland Security announced today that it will push ahead with a regulation that will require federal contractors and subcontractors to verify their workers with the E-Verify system. According to the announcement, the rule will "apply to federal solicitations and contract awards Government-wide starting on September 8, 2009."
In the same announcement, the administration said it would rescind a 2007 Bush administration regulation establishing procedures that employers could follow if they received No-Match letters from the Social Security Administration. The rule has never taken effect, due to a pending lawsuit. The announcement noted that E-Verify is a better tool for identifying unauthorized workers.
You can read the entire statement here:
http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1247063976814.shtm
The Forum has put out a release commenting on both the administration and Senate actions today, and you can read the release here:
http://www.immigrationforum.org/press/release-display/immigration-focus-should-be-on-comprehensive-reform/
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HONDURAS: Ask your Representative to co-sponsor a Honduras Resolution
The Message:
I urge Representative ______________ to join in co-sponsoring the resolution introduced by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) calling for Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to be returned to office, and welcoming the mediation efforts of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. It is important to your constituents in ______________ that the U.S. Congress be loud and clear in condemning this military coup and supporting democracy in Honduras--and the Latin American region.
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IMMIGRATION: Center for Immigrant Healthcare Justice asks our support
We at the Center for Immigrant Healthcare Justice believe now is the time to galvanize support for substantive changes in the U.S. healthcare system that will meet the needs of the immigrant community. The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have proposed health reform legislation, but current drafts do not eliminate the five-year waiting period for Medicaid for most legal immigrants. Many immigrants, including children, will remain uninsured unless Congress takes steps to ensure immigrant inclusion in health reform proposals. Please call your senators and representative today, and follow up by sending emails, letters, or faxes, to insist that lawfully residing immigrants have equitable and affordable access to healthcare.
Please share this message with your Senators and Representative:
By phone (please ask to speak with the Health Legislative Assistant):
I’m calling to urge [name of Senator or Representative] to support equitable and affordable access to healthcare for lawfully residing immigrants in health reform legislation. Immigrants pay the same taxes as citizens, and should have access to the same public health benefits. This means eliminating the current five-year waiting period for legal immigrants to receive Medicaid. In addition, all kids deserve health care, and health reform should allow affordable coverage for all children in the U.S., including immigrant kids. Thank you for conveying my concerns to [name of Senator or Representative].
By email, letter, or fax (please personalize your letter and share your own experiences):
Dear [name of Senator or Representative],
As you consider health reform legislation, I strongly urge you to support equitable and affordable access to healthcare for lawfully residing immigrants. A healthcare system that provides opportunities for everyone in the United States to contribute to and purchase affordable health coverage will make the system stronger and less costly for everyone.
According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report, 63% of non-elderly immigrants living in the U.S. for less than five years are uninsured. One way to change this is to eliminate existing barriers faced by low-income immigrants working to provide adequate coverage for their families. Since 1996, most lawfully residing immigrants have been subject to a five-year waiting period before they are eligible to receive Medicaid; in 1997, this ban was extended to the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
The Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), which passed in February 2009, gave states the option to lift the five-year Medicaid and CHIP waiting period imposed on lawfully residing immigrant children and pregnant women. But other recent immigrants remain barred from public coverage. Please work to ensure that forthcoming legislation eliminates the five-year waiting period and requires states to provide equitable access to Medicaid and CHIP benefits for all lawfully present immigrants. Immigrants pay taxes just like citizens, and they should have access to public coverage to pay for needed healthcare should they fall into poverty, just like every other American.
Thank you for your efforts toward a U.S. healthcare system that meets the needs of all members of society.
Sincerely,
[your name]
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FARM WORKERS: FLOC needs you to take action to bring justice to tobacco fields!
Holly Koeppel is a member of the Reynolds Board of Directors, and has a close relationship with CEO Susan Ivey. She is also the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of American Electric Power (AEP). AEP provides electricity to consumers in parts of Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, and Oklahoma.
FLOC has asked Reynolds Director Koeppel to assist in arranging a meeting with Ivey, but she has failed to respond.
BACKGROUND
Reynolds Tobacco Campaign
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee is calling on Reynolds American to improve the conditions of tobacco harvesters in the fields of the South. FLOC has requested a meeting with Reynolds American CEO Susan Ivey, but after nearly two years she still refuses to meet with the farmworkers who produce the corporation's tobacco. FLOC wants to discuss the conditions of thousands of farmworkers in the South who plant, tend, and harvest the tobacco the corporation uses to make its products.
While corporate executives of big tobacco companies gain millions, tobacco farm workers remain some of the most exploited workers in the country. Reynolds CEO Ivey and the Reynolds Directors must take ultimate responsibility to ensure fair and safe conditions for the thousands of tobacco workers at the bottom of their supply chain. For more information about FLOC or the campaign, go to www.floc.com
Working in Tobacco Fields
Tobacco farmworkers work long hours of stoop labor in the fields, pesticide exposure, harassment in their work, abject poverty, miserable housing in labor camps, and are often denied basic labor and human rights protections.
Each year thousands of farmworkers are affected by Green Tobacco Sickness, caused by exposure to nicotine naturally occurring in tobacco leaves. Many of these workers receive little or no medical attention. The vast majority of farmworkers are not even covered under workers compensation insurance.
Who's Responsible?
Tobacco farmworkers are being denied a voice to speak out about their own conditions. The supply system dominated by Reynolds isolates the corporation from any contact with farmworkers, through a structure of contracts with the growers. Since Reynolds does not directly employ the farmworkers, the corporation argues that any problems in the fields are between the farmworkers and the growers who employ them.
Reynolds sets the prices and terms with their contract growers and is ultimately responsible for the just compensation and safe working conditions of these tobacco farmworkers. Reynolds earns some $2 billion in annual profits. Reynolds executives, who can receive up to $60 million a year in bonuses, claim to be committed to corporate social responsibility and to the common good of all stakeholders, but they do not allow for any input from farmworkers themselves.
What does FLOC want?
FLOC is seeking to gain dignity, respect, and safe working and living conditions for farmworkers producing tobacco used by Reynolds. History has demonstrated that the most effective way to achieve justice for farmworkers is when they have a direct voice through their union.
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COUP IN HONDURAS: Continuing updates each day
San Salvador, July 21, 2009
Dear Friends:
Greetings from the CIS. I am writing to let you know about the human
rights investigation mission I just returned from in Honduras
sponsored by the Hemispheric Social Alliance. This delegation
included representatives from El Salvador , Columbia , Panama , Mexico
and the U.S.
The military coup in Honduras has hit a sensitive note in El Salvador
. Just one month prior to the coup in Honduras , there was a
concerted effort to destabilize the government of Guatemala and force
President Colom to resign. Besides being neighbors, Guatemala ,
Honduras and El Salvador share a long history of military governments
and repression. All three countries have now elected progressive
governments for the first time in their history since the Spanish
colonization over 500 years ago. The Governments of Zelaya, Colom and
Funes are all reform minded, pro-social programs for the poor
majority; they all three have begun to take action to break up rings
of corruption linked with narco trafficking. They are also linked
with democratic movements that want to change economic policies which
concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few elite families.
Latin American countries began to rise up against military
dictatorships and the United States began to change its policy of
unconditional support to those military dictatorships thirty years
ago. This process of democratization is severely threatened by the
coup in Honduras . The General Assembly of the Organization of
American States ratified the Democratic Charter September 2001,
committing to promote and implement democracy. Honduras has violated
the charter and has been suspended as a member because of the military
coup. This is the first country in the Americas to get kicked out
since Cuba was suspended in 1962 (though a resolution in June 2009 has
overturned the 1962 resolution).
Our visit to Honduras was mixed with enthusiasm as well as concern.
The Honduran social movement is very spirited and non-violent and
resolved to bring back their president as well as promote
constitutional reforms. The broad social movement in Honduras has
promoted an agenda of constitutional reform for over 5 years, before
President Zelaya was elected. The social movement asked President
Zelaya to support their campaign for Constitutional Reforms, not the
other way around. The country's wealthy elite have a monopoly on
power. Whereas the Constitution provides for division of power
between President, Legislative Assembly and the Supreme Court of
Justice, in practice the 15 Supreme Court Justices are divided among
two political parties and not independent. The Attorney General's
Office, the Accounting Tribunal, and other public ministries are also
divided up between the two main political parties by agreement,
violating the concept of separation of powers as the base of the form
of government outlined in Article 4 of the Honduran Constitution.
HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
In terms of human rights, 14 of 28 media outlets were shut down in
Honduras . Some are back on the air, but are taken off if they air
something critical of the de facto government. Over 660 illegal
detentions have been documented. Deputies who did not support the
coup have not been allowed to enter the legislative assembly. There
have been three assassinations of opposition political leaders. In
addition, three activists have been assassinated since the coup.
There are verified reports of forced recruitment into the military.
These reports were given to our delegation first hand by both
non-governmental and governmental human rights offices. The society
is militarized. All government buildings and ministries are
surrounded by the military, as well as the presidential palace, public
streets, the Legislative Assembly, the Courts and other areas of the
country.
IMPLICATIONS FOR EL SALVADOR
The CIS mission since its founding has been to support democracy and
human rights and build solidarity across borders. The destabilization
in Honduras has a frightening impact on El Salvador . In economic
terms, El Salvador imports most of its fruits and vegetables from
Honduras and Guatemala . Prices of tomatoes and onions doubled
immediately. In terms of democracy, a successful coup in Honduras
will bolster the right wing in El Salvador in creating obstacles for
the FMLN government. The conditions in El Salvador are very similar
to those in Honduras; the left won popular presidential elections, but
the wealthy elite who have had a strong hold on El Salvador's economic
and political power for 180 years still hold control over the Supreme
Court of Justice, the Attorney General, the Accounting Court, the
Legislative Assembly and other important institutions, as well as
monopoly control over the major media outlets. In terms of human
rights, Honduran death squads executed Salvadorans fleeing the war in
El Salvador and refugee camps were set up along the border. The
setback to the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American
States if the democratically elected president is not re-instated is
immeasurable.
We urge you to contact your legislative officials and your president
to support the Democratic Charter of the Organization of American
States both in words as well as actions. The vast majority of
American and European counties have temporarily withdrawn their
ambassadors. The U.S. has not withdrawn their ambassador. The
international banks have suspended loans. The OAS has suspended
Honduras membership in that organization. The U.S. continues to
maintain its soldiers active at Palmarola Air force base, and has not
withdrawn Honduran enrollees from the School of the Americas
(SOA/WHINSEC). In fact, the general responsible for the coup, Romeo
Vásquez Velásquez, was trained at the School of the Americas in 1976
and 1984. The U.S. has suspended military aid, but not other types of
aid that could pressure the de facto government. President Obama has
clearly said this is an illegal military coup. Yet, Secretary of
State Clinton and other U.S. officials continue to be vague and not
refer to the situation as a military coup. The US has not retired all
aid to Honduras , despite the fact that US law states that no US aid
may go to a country whose democratically elected head of state is
toppled ¨by military coup or decree.
Secondly, we want to ask you on behalf of the Salvadoran social
organizations for a contribution to be able to publish the attached
paid ad in Salvadoran newspapers to publicize our position on the
issue. We propose to send solidarity and investigative delegations to
Honduras to provide moral support to the social movement and bear
witness to the situation.
· $600 will pay to publish the attached paid ad in El Salvador
· $200 will sponsor a Salvadoran for five days in Honduras on
a human rights mission.
Please take the opportunity to make a donation of $100, $50, $25 at
this urgent moment of Solidarity with our Honduran sisters and
brothers.
Donations can be sent made out to LOS OLIVOS CIS, with a note "
Honduras solidarity" to:
Los Olivos CIS
PO BOX 76
Westmont, IL 60559
Thank you for your support. Please send us written confirmation of
your pledge so we can publish the ad as soon as possible at:
cis_elsalvador@yahoo.com
Leslie Schuld, CIS Director
--
CIS:
Ave. Aguilares y Ave. Bolivar #103
Colonia Libertad
San Salvador, El Salvador
Telefonos: ++(503)2235-1330; 2226-5362
www.cis-elsalvador.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Negotiations collapsed Sunday July 19
The points from President Oscar Arias
*Return of Zelaya as legitimate president until end of period
conform a govt of unity and reconciliation with members of political parties
*Amnesty for all those involved in the coup
*Zelaya will not pursue "cuarta urna" (effort to vote for a constitutional assembly"
*Presidential elections for end of Oct instead of end of Nov.
*Armed forced will be located in the Supreme Court one month before elections
*Committee for verification by OAS
Puntos del documento
*Legitimar restitución de José Manuel Zelaya Rosales en la Presidencia de la República hasta el fin del período del que fue electo.
*Conformación de un Gobierno de unidad y reconciliación nacional compuesto por representantes de los principales partidos políticos.
*Declaración de una amnistía general, exclusivamente para todos los conflictos del golpe de Estado.
*Renuncia del presidente José Manuel Zelaya Rosales y de su gobierno a la pretensión de colocar una cuarta urna en el proceso electoral.
*Adelantamiento de las elecciones nacionales del 29 de noviembre al último domingo de octubre.
*Traslado del comando de las Fuerzas Armadas del poder ejecutivo al Tribunal Supremo Electoral un mes antes de las elecciones para garantizar la transparencia y normalidad del sufragio
*Integración de una comisión de verificación compuesta por hondureños notables y miembros de organismos internacionales especialmente de la Organización de Estados Americanos, que vigile el cumplimiento de estos acuerdos y supervise el correcto retorno al orden constitucional.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/1148809.html
Honduras talks' failure stirs fears of violence
As talks between Honduras' dueling presidents collapsed, some feared the nation may be on the brink of violence.
BY JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- A last-ditch effort to resolve Honduras' three-week political crisis appeared to stall Saturday as negotiators for the interim government suggested it would be up to congress and the courts to accept a seven-point proposal that calls for the immediate return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Vilma Morales, one of the negotiators for interim President Roberto Micheletti, told the Associated Press that her team lacked the authority to accept the proposal made by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.
In addition, Micheletti's chief of staff, Cesar Caceres, told The Miami Herald his boss was unlikely to accept demands that Zelaya be allowed to return without facing a series of charges, including abuse of power and treason.
Still, negotiators continued to meet late Saturday in Costa Rica, and Arias said he was confident a solution could be reached.
At stake is the future of one of Central America's poorest nations. While Micheletti has vowed to keep his populist rival out, Zelaya has vowed to reclaim the presidency even at the risk of bloodshed.
Speaking to reporters in Nicaragua on Friday, Zelaya said Micheletti was using the talks to stall for time and that if there was not a resolution this weekend he would return "one way or another.''
Zelaya has been in Nicaragua for the past two days and he is expected to attend Sunday festivities to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution here.
The Organization of American States and the United Nations have condemned his ouster and asked for Zelaya's immediate return.
The two men have been locked in battle over the presidency since June 28 when Zelaya was roused from his home at gunpoint and sent into exile. His fall came as he aggressively, and sometimes illegally, pursued a national referendum that might have allowed him to reform the constitution.
With just six months left in his term, Zelaya's foes feared he was intent on extending term limits and staying in power. Two days before the referendum, was scheduled, the supreme court ordered his detention.
Arias' seven-point proposal dealt with the legal tangle by granting Zelaya, and those involved in his ouster, amnesty. The plan also called for moving up national elections by one month to October, abandoning attempts to change the constitution, creating a power-sharing agreement, requiring the president to hand control of the armed forces to the Supreme Electoral Council one month prior to the elections, and the creation of a commission to guarantee the agreement.
Special correspondent Chrissie Long contributed to this report from Costa Rica.
++++++++++++++++
http://www.miamiherald.com/honduras/story/1147961.html
Talks on Honduras crisis break down
Negotiators for Honduras' interim government said they didn't have the authority to accept the Costa Rican president's plan that calls for the return of Manuel Zelaya.
BY JIM WYSS
jwyss@MiamiHerald.com
MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- A last-ditch effort to resolve Honduras' three-week political crisis appeared to stall Saturday as negotiators for the interim government suggested it would be up to congress and the courts to accept a seven-point proposal that calls for the immediate return of ousted President Manuel Zelaya.
Vilma Morales, one of the negotiators for interim President Roberto Micheletti, told the Associated Press that her team lacked the authority to accept the proposal made by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.
In addition, Micheletti's chief of staff, Cesar Caceres, told The Miami Herald his boss was unlikely to accept demands that Zelaya be allowed to return without facing a series of charges, including abuse of power and treason.
Still, negotiators continued to meet late Saturday in Costa Rica, and Arias said he was confident a solution could be reached.
At stake is the future of one of Central America's poorest nations. While Micheletti has vowed to keep his populist rival out, Zelaya has vowed to reclaim the presidency even at the risk of bloodshed.
Speaking to reporters in Nicaragua on Friday, Zelaya said Micheletti was using the talks to stall for time and that if there was not a resolution this weekend he would return "one way or another.''
Zelaya has been in Nicaragua for the past two days and he is expected to attend Sunday festivities to mark the 30th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution here.
The Organization of American States and the United Nations have condemned his ouster and asked for Zelaya's immediate return.
The two men have been locked in battle over the presidency since June 28 when Zelaya was roused from his home at gunpoint and sent into exile. His fall came as he aggressively, and sometimes illegally, pursued a national referendum that might have allowed him to reform the constitution.
With just six months left in his term, Zelaya's foes feared he was intent on extending term limits and staying in power. Two days before the referendum, was scheduled, the supreme court ordered his detention.
Arias' seven-point proposal dealt with the legal tangle by granting Zelaya, and those involved in his ouster, amnesty. The plan also called for moving up national elections by one month to October, abandoning attempts to change the constitution, creating a power-sharing agreement, requiring the president to hand control of the armed forces to the Supreme Electoral Council one month prior to the elections, and the creation of a commission to guarantee the agreement.
Special correspondent Chrissie Long contributed to this report from Costa Rica.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/hond-j20.shtml
Zelaya accepts amnesty for coup leaders
Human Rights report reveals brutal repression in Honduras
By Rafael Azul
20 July 2009
In negotiations held over the weekend, deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya agreed to a proposal by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias that, as a price for his returning to office, he accept a government of “unity and national reconciliation” that would essentially make him a powerless puppet of the very forces that overthrew him and sent him into exile.
Representatives of the coup regime in Tegucigalpa, however, rejected the proposal Sunday, insisting that they would not allow Zelaya to return.
Airport July 5 Honduran security forces closed down the Toncontin Airport in Tegucigalpa to prevent Zelaya from returning after his expulsion from the country–Photos: James Rodríguez / www.mimundo.org
The mediation by Arias is designed to legitimize the coup and consolidate its main aims. Before talks broke down, Zelaya reportedly agreed to abandon his call for a referendum on a constitutional convention, the main pretext for his ouster.
In accepting Arias’s terms, Zelaya was also reported to have agreed to a total amnesty for the military and political figures who carried out the June 28 coup and to the repressive forces that assaulted, arrested, beat and in some cases murdered workers and peasants protesting Zelaya’s removal.
While the Obama administration formally condemned the coup, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commissioned the mediation effort by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias—one observer compared it to the police demanding that a rape victim sit down and compromise with her rapist—to achieve precisely these aims.
Hand in hand with this process, figures close to the administration and to Clinton have conducted a media and lobbying campaign to whitewash the June 28 coup as a “defense of democracy.” Lanny Davis, who served as counsel to President Bill Clinton and is one of Hillary Clinton’s closest political supporters, emerged as a lobbyist for right-wing Honduran businessmen. Appearing before Congress, he declared that “democracy and civil liberties are flourishing in Honduras.”
A preliminary report issued by the Committee of the Families of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH), the country’s leading human rights group, exposes the criminality of the Obama administration’s policy and of the Democratic apologists for the coup like Davis.
Issued in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa July 15, the report, entitled Violations of Human Rights in the context of the Honduran coup d’etat, provides a devastating exposure of the actions carried out by the coup’s organizers against the Honduran people.
Demonstrators and PoliceProtesters and security forces at the Toncontin Airport in Tegucigalpa–Photos: James Rodríguez / www.mimundo.org
The 45-page preliminary report carefully details the treatment meted out to those who opposed the coup. So far, COFADEH has documented 1055 human rights violations in the first two weeks since Zelaya’s overthrow. These include 1046 illegal detentions, 59 beatings, 16 threats, 27 assaults on reporters and attacks on the independent press, six serious injuries, and four executions. In each case, the victims of the attacks have been workers, peasant farmers and the press.
In what amounts to naked state terror reminiscent of the 1972-1981 dictatorship, workers and peasants have been detained and kidnapped by military and security personnel. “Of particular concern,” says the preliminary report, “is the repression in the Department of Colón,” which is on the Caribbean coast in northeast Honduras. Among the human rights violations described in the COFADEH document is the herding of peasant families into a soccer field, “in the style of Nazi concentration camps.” The operation was carried out by military and security police.
The town of Guadalupe Carney, in the vicinity of the city of Trujillo, also in Colón, was occupied on July 13 by police and army personnel, who terrorized the 600 peasant households, threatening to execute the town’s mayor and impose military rule. Municipal authorities across Honduras have been threatened with execution, the expropriation of their property and exile.
Among the cases discussed in detail in the report is that of Isy Obed Murillo, who was killed by the armed forces at a protest in the Tegucigalpa airport on July 5. The case of Obed Murillo, 19, exemplifies the courage and determination of the Honduran working class, as well as the immense dangers it confronts. The young man was killed by the Honduran army when soldiers fired on a mass protest that demanded that an airplane carrying Zelaya back from exile be allowed to land at Toncontín Airport in Tegucigalpa.
Obed Murillo had come to Tegucigalpa five years earlier from Santa Cruz de Guayape in the Department of Olancho, a town of 4000 inhabitants in eastern Honduras. This journey is typical of the many thousands who have migrated to the cities and make up the country’s young proletariat. In Tegucigalpa he had held various jobs; at the time of his death he worked at a supermarket.
WoundedOne of the hundreds of protesters at the Airport after security forces opened fire on the crowd–Photos: James Rodríguez / www.mimundo.org
On the day of the airport demonstration, when the troops attacked the protest with tear gas, Obed Murillo became separated from his father, sister and two brothers. He was killed after the troops fired several volleys into the crowd.
At the youth’s funeral, Obed Murillo’s father, David Murillo, described his son as a person who was “self-educated in the principles of social rights, he knew that the powerful have exploited us and have trampled on our labor rights.
“He never compromised his principles,” said the father. “His death, his leaving us, hurts me deeply, but I am proud that he did not die while committing a crime or out of drunkenness, but because he fought against repression.”
Just days after the shooting death of his son, COFADEH took David Murillo’s testimony. The 57-year old man, who had done nothing wrong, was immediately arrested outside the COFADEH office.
Obed Murillo was one of three killed on that day by troops using live ammunition. Many hundreds of peasants and workers were victimized by the Honduran Army and police in the airport protest.
The COFADEH report charges that the Honduran coup was the result of a conspiracy by the ruling elite to do away with the constitution drafted in 1982 at the end of a nine-year military dictatorship. The dispute over Zelaya’s attempt to hold a non-binding plebiscite on June 28 on possible changes to the constitution merely provided the pretext.
Under this constitution, the military “continued to hold power behind the scenes throughout the decade of the 1980s, counting on a guarantee of absolute immunity” for the dictatorship’s generals, who had been trained in the US military’s School of the Americas and also in Chile, under the Pinochet regime, COFADEH reports.
During this period, the military strengthened its ties with industrial and financial enterprises and “kept control over key government institutions.” According to the report, “That part of the armed forces that had been carefully held in check made their appearance on June 23-26 in the manner of the 1980s.” This included the reconstitution of death squads.
“We think it is important to point to the militarization of public entities,” the report continues. “This includes the reactivation and placing in public posts of members of the [Battalion] 3-16 death squads, responsible for the forced disappearances that took place during the decade of the 1980s. The result is violations of the sacred principles enshrined in the Declaration of Universal Human Rights.”
The COFADEH report documents the harassment and repression of reporters, both Honduran and foreign. Reporters have been victims of extra-legal home invasions, detentions, expulsions from Honduras and executions. Independent media outlets have been closed by the regime. In each of these cases, due process as provided for in the 1982 constitution, was swept aside.
The assassination of Gabriel Fino Noriega, a reporter employed by several radio and cable TV stations, including Radio Estelar, Radio el Patio, and Radio América was the work of a death squad, the report states.
Noriega was shot seven times by two men as he left Radio Stelar in the city of San Juan Pueblo, in the eastern Department of Atlántida. Fino Noriega and the radio stations that employed him had been producing news reports about massacres that had been taking place along the Caribbean coast, even before the military coup. He has also reported on recent mass protests against the dictatorship.
The report also disputes the attempt of the coup’s organizers to invoke the 1982 Constitution to justify their action. The constitution, approved at the conclusion of a long and brutal US-backed dictatorship, acknowledged the principle of participatory democracy through initiatives and referendums, COFADEH said.
In practice, however, amendments to the constitution, including those that made it possible for the government to permit foreign corporations to operate with little or no regulations in special industrial zones, were carried out by the ruling elite with no popular consultation.
Two presidential decrees, issued in 2003 and 2004, severely limited the scope of popular initiatives and referendums, turning this right into a dead letter.
In recent years, COFADEH has itself been repeatedly victimized by the Honduran government for its work to expose the detention and kidnapping of union activists and human rights defenders. In a radio podcast created before the coup, COFADEH warned that the 3-16 death squad, which operated in Honduras in the early 1980s, was being reconstituted. It has also insisted that those arrested on charges of participating in criminal gangs be given due process.
In July 2008, the organization’s offices were ransacked and video equipment stolen. A few days later, COFADEH Coordinator Bertha Oliva de Nativí and her daughter were followed home by unknown individuals in an attempt to instill fear and interfere with the work of the organization. The danger has escalated; in the words of Bertha Oliva, “Each morning I kiss my daughter when I go to work, not knowing whether it will be the last time I see her.”
Even before the coup, death threats against COFADEH and other human rights activists had been on the rise. On June 19, following the killing of several prisoners by their fellow inmates, Bertha Oliva and several other activists received death threats. Shortly afterwards, President Zelaya gloated over the murders declaring them “a moral lesson for those who want to commit crimes such as rape of minors.” This declaration was followed by a wave of violent murders in the country.
Zelaya was elected on a right-wing law and order platform, from which he has not broken. That he took some tactical steps to the “left,” including organizing the plebiscite, granting a minimum wage increase and other populist measures, does not change the bourgeois character of his regime. This is confirmed by Zelaya’s decision to accept Arias’s compromise proposals, and make his peace with the Honduran military.
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From Machetera's Blog: http://machetera.wordpress.com/
Honduran Defense Ministry's list of drug traffickers links Micheletti to the Cali cartel
July 19, 2009
Jean-Guy Allard – Cuba debate Translation: Machetera
The name of the leader of the Honduran coup d'etat, Roberto Micheletti, appears on a long undated list of drug traffickers drawn up by a senior official in the Honduran Ministry of Defense and Public Security, showing his relations with the Cali Cartel, the Colombian drug trafficking network.
The document, signed by infantry Colonel Rene Adalberto Paz Alfaro on Ministry letterhead shows ROBERTO MICHELLETI BAIN (misspelled), number SN-FF. AA. 060 – with a connection to the Cali Cartel, and under the column headed "Location," the word "Yoro."
Micheletti's biographical notes indicate that he began his political career in the 1980's, when he held the post of Local Council President in Yoro, where he was always selected as a deputy to the National Congress.
Son of an Italian citizen, Umberto Micheletti, and Donatella Bain, the present usurper of the Honduran presidency was born on August 13, 1948 in the town of El Progreso (Yoro).
He studied Business in the United States in order to dedicate himself later on to his own business, Empresa de Transporte TUTSA (TUTSA Transportation) in his hometown.
The appearance of Micheletti's name on this list of drug traffickers leaves no doubt about the presence of his name in the files of the DEA, the U.S. anti-drug agency.
However, up to now, nothing has leaked from the North American source.
It's worth noting that a few days ago, a group of extreme right-wing U.S. congressional representatives, headed by the Florida representatives Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, tried to sully the name of the constitutional president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, by asking President Barack Obama to investigate his supposed "links with drug traffickers," through the DEA. Obama didn't bother to answer.
The Diaz-Balarts have a long record of dubious relations with Colombian circles tied to drug trafficking.
On the other hand, in an interview with Pacifica Radio on July 10, Andres Pavon, the Honduran human rights leader, stated that General Vazquez Velazquez, the chairman of the Honduran Chiefs of Staff, has known ties to drug trafficking.
"He is someone from the Latin American intelligence community, close to the DEA and CIA [intelligence] framework," he explained, in a telephone interview with the journalist Fernando Velazquez, reporting for Radio Mundial de Venezuela.
Pavon added that he had "evidence that the U.S. Embassy itself, through the DEA, has been involved in drug trafficking operations."
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There are MANY sources covering the Honduras story:
nytimes.com; washpost.com; wsj.com; miamiherald.com; reuters.com, npr.org, news.bbc.co.uk; CNN spanish;
alternative: counterpunch.org; truthout.org; democracynow.org; towardfreedom.org; upsidedownworld.org; zmag.org; commondreams.org
organizations: maryknoll.org; nicanet.org; soaw.org; cispes.org; lawg.org; lasolidarity.org; wola.org;
No matter what one might think about President Zelaya or Mr. Micheletti, a coup is a challenge to the democratic process. Many people are working to settle this situation justly. It is becoming clear that there are many conflicting powers at work and it seems that the cries of the poor are the ones that are heard last.
Watch a video of events in Honduras: http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1617/1/
Here is a transcript of a meeting with State Dept. officials:
7/13/09 Meeting at the State Department re: Honduras
In attendance:
- Christopher Webster (State Department, Director of Office of Central American Affairs)
- Colonel Almeida (State Department, Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs)
- Greg Maggio (State Department, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor)
- Jim Thompson (State Department, Global Partnership Initiative)
- Marvin Ponce (Member of Honduran National Congress)
- Jari Dixon (Lawyer in Honduran Attorney General’s Office)
- Dr. Juan Almendares (Former Presidential Candidate, Environmentalist)
- James Salt (Catholics United & Catholic Alliance)
- Marie Dennis (Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns and Pax Christi International)
- Annie Bird (Rights Action)
- Eric LeCompte, facilitator (SOA Watch)
- Mia Mitchell, note taker (SOA Watch)
Notes: Eric:
The majority of this briefing will be offered by Hondurans. This meeting was initially organized on behalf of US policy, labor and religious organizations. Representatives from these groups will offer an introduction to connect to the main briefing. When it was clear the we would have Honduran experts here to offer the main briefing, the initial policy and church groups submitted reports with details about the current situation in Honduras. These groups recognize and thank President Obama and Secretary Clinton for the statements that they offered condemning the removal of Zelaya and the groups believe that Zelaya should be reinstated unconditionally.
SOA Watch sent a delegation to Honduras last week to monitor the situation and to provide direct information, particularly human rights reports.
We have provided 20 documents on the state of human rights and constitutional law in Honduras and statements from religious and human rights communities in Honduras. We’ve translated documents when possible. Information is provided from the Steal Workers and the AFLCIO. Groups on the ground include the Sisters of Mercy, the Dominicans, Claretians and the Jesuits who offer a different perspective than the Cardinal. We also have statements from the Lutheran Church. We also have statements from the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, as well as organizations in Honduras, including COPINH and COFADEH. All of the reports and statements provided call for the unconditional reinstatement of president Zelaya.
Eric appreciates the support of Ambassador Bagley in arranging this meeting.
Marie:
Maryknoll enters the conversation with decades of experience in Latin America and concern about violence and bloodshed in Honduras and Latin America as a result of the coup. Maryknoll is concerned about a return to states of siege in Latin America and the violation of human rights. There is worry that the coup in Honduras may be the beginning of the unraveling of the rule of law in Central America.
James:
Catholics United and Catholic Alliance are involved because many U.S.-based Catholic Churches are concerned about foreign policy in Latin America. Ambassador Bagley was also involved in the founding of Catholics Alliance.
Juan:
As part of the movement working to restore constitutional rights, we’re happy about Obama’s statement against the coup in Honduras. People are concerned about the situation though, because it’s worsening. The curfew has been suspended, but there are now orders to kill people. Juan works as a doctor in a center for the prevention of torture.
Annie:
[Brief introductions again of the delegation from Honduras].
Jari:
There has been a campaign of misinformation, stating that the coup was a legal succession and arguing that the military had the legal backing to do it. There was no explicit order to capture Zelaya when he was exiled. The order came one day later from the Supreme Court (June 29 instead of June 28). There was no clear explanation of the proceedings. Furthermore, there was misinformation regarding Zelaya’s intentions to run again for President in 2010. He has always said he’d give up power in January 2010 and never made a public statement that he planned on running for office again. If reelection was allowed in Honduras, it would be decided by the Congress, and Zelaya would have no say in the matter.
We must ask what the private sector’s role was in all of this. Companies gave money for pro-coup media coverage. Today there is no protection for the average citizen. If this can happen to the President, who can’t it happen to? Whether you support Zelaya or not, it is a big problem for all the people. There is a huge risk that legal rights and processes won’t be respected or protected in Honduras and possibly in other Latin American countries. Furthermore, the rule of law must be applied equally across the socio-economic spectrum.
Zelaya’s resignation was forced. It was an illegal process that no one can actually explain. If papers had been filed before the coup on June 25, then Zelaya would have been prosecuted and tried like any citizen. There was no actual need for legal reason for exiling him. That action derailed the entire legal process.
A legal briefing has been prepared by Jari and will be sent to State Department contacts tonight.
Juan:
We have some questions for the State Department. Has military aid been completely suspended?
Christopher:
Military aid was already suspended, as was announced by the Department five days ago.
Juan:
Next, how will the coup influence economic and commercial treaties with Honduras, and is it possible to remove the U.S. ambassador from Honduras, as this would surely show the people that the U.S. does not support the coup government.
People are concerned about human rights, legitimacy and legality in Honduras. The coup government is doing terrible things, with the former Chancellor (now Minister of Justice), making terrible statements about Obama.
Too many people are being killed. We want justice, restitution and democracy. The coup comes at a time of economic, social and environmental crisis. It is a step back from democracy. There are already too many problems in Honduras with organized crime and drugs. We’re returning to a militarized state. We’re fighting in the streets. The press is being censured. We want to know what’s the position of the U.S. State Department. We have a large Honduran population here in the U.S. What’s their fate? Has there been a clear declaration of a “coup” by the U.S. government? What happens now if Zelaya is the only president that Obama will recognize? If Zelaya isn’t reinstated, will there be November elections? The only solution to all this, is to return Zelaya to power.
Christopher:
U.S. policy has been extremely clear from the beginning of this. We condemn the coup and have called for the prompt return of Zelaya. Clinton, Obama, and others have all asked for this. Ambassador Llorens gave a press conference that made this position clear.
The U.S. has not legally declared this a “military coup d’etat,” however, which would stop all aid to Honduras. The legal term has yet to be officially confirmed, though Obama has acknowledged it as a coup. The U.S. feels that it makes sense to keep Llorens in Honduras because from that position, he can help bring Zelaya back. Without him as an interlocutor between the various parties to this issue, we would have trouble reaching a solution.
Statistics tell us that the Honduran people are divided. Some support the coup, while others condemn it. Llorens is working to find a solution. The U.S. has maintained contact with Zelaya, who met with Secretary Clinton last week. Llorens has also been in touch with the current coup government. We’re engaging with them to the extent necessary to bring about a solution to the crisis. The mediation efforts in San Jose have not been a failure, but rather the process is in early stages. There are strongly opposing points of view. Together they need to work towards a resolution.
The return of Zelaya as president is non-negotiable. The conditions under which he returns are negotiable. Zelaya needs to come back to Honduras and finish his term.
We’ve been following the human rights situation in Honduras closely and we are aware of the censorship of the press and the restriction of rights and liberties. We have raised our concerns with the prosecutor for human rights and the Honduran police. We don’t see evidence, however, of people being shot or tortured. We haven’t been able to confirm these reports. In terms of Dr. Luther Castillo, the Honduran police say that there’s no warrant for arrest, and the AFL-CIO has reported that he is alright. The situation is not as grave as what we initially heard.
He also references SOA Watch delegation to Honduras that met with Ambassador Llorens last week.
Juan:
How can we rely on statistics obtained during a coup? Especially when many people in rural areas don’t have telephones to be reached at?
Christopher:
We have reports coming in from various organizations, which are saying that many people in Honduras are indifferent to what’s going on.
With respect to the deaths at the Tegucigalpa airport, maybe they wouldn’t have happened if Zelaya hadn’t tried to return, not to say that he’s responsible for them.
Greg:
Just to clarify is the position of all of these labor, religious and human rights groups is that the restoration of democracy is only possible through Zelaya’s return to power?
Eric:
Yes. When you read the briefing reports that we prepared – all of these groups believe that the constitutional order is returned when Zelaya is reinstated.
Marvin:
The reports could be true or false. The day of the coup, and the Thursday prior, I could not enter the Congress because I’d denounced what I saw were the steps leading up to it.
We have maintained democracy as best we can despite all this. But I fear that a civil war is imminent.
Eric:
When and how will this be legally defined as “coup”? What more information or facts are needed?
Christopher:
The facts are not clear-cut. We have treated this as a coup, but for it to be defined a “military coup” is up to the lawyers some of the reasons for the coup may accordance with the law – although the overthrow of Zelaya could never be justified. There was a warrant for Zelaya’s arrest. The State Department lawyers need to review the facts and come to a decision – it won’t happen overnight and they are defining it.
Juan:
What about the possibility of trade sanctions?
Christopher:
We’re looking at other options. We don’t have a sense of the timing or of when this might be called a “coup.” Zelaya’s return will require concessions of both sides. This is not a clear case of someone overthrown without committing murky actions. Both sides contributed to the tragic events that have taken place, although nothing justifies the military removing Zelaya.
Marie:
Do you think that this destabilization could spark similar acts in the region?
Christopher:
No, I don’t think so, but we are monitoring the situation.
Marvin:
There needs to be respect for the rule of law. Some analysts think the United States is a part of larger geopolitical operations in the area. Was the U.S. involved in the coup? What did the C.I.A. know?
Christopher:
No. Absolutely not. The U.S. government had nothing to do with the coup. Though Otto Reich did not like Zelaya, he played no part in this. The US condemns the coup and calls for Zelaya to return to office.
Jari:
The situation is worrisome. We cannot create the expectation that some sectors of the government can overthrow others if they do not like them. If Zelaya made errors, he should have been tried as a Honduran citizen. There needs to a respect for the law.
Christopher:
I agree with everything said and believe that Zelaya must be restored.
Groups thank each other for the meeting. Transcribed and translated by Mia Mitchel, program associate, SOA Watch.
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