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Archives: July 2010
EL SLAVADOR: Great News from Guarjila, Companion Community with IFCLA
Greetings from the Directiva (Leadership Team) of the Community of Guarjila and from the Sistering Committee, hoping that you have success in all your daily efforts.
We thank you as always for your continuing accompaniment with the community of Guarjila. We write today in an timely manner, and not so formal, for two things that are urgent so you know about the future of Guarjila.
In recent days we have breaking news. You remember last year when the FMLN and the Government of President Mauricio Funes came to power everyone hoped for changes in the policies of the governement, particulatly in health, education, security, food, work... We were “in love” with the project of the left in El Salvador. As soon as the President and the ministers were inaugurated, in the area of education, were presented huge advances like providing all students in public and private schools with school supplies, shoes and a daily snack, and improving the quality of education with a new program implemented by the Ministry of Education. This program is called “Let’s go to school,” with the proposal to erradicate illiteracy
to zero.
The most important thing that I want to mention is that in healthcare we are beginning to percieve great expectations for improved healthcare delivery to the people. Last year the Community Clinic of Guarjila through the health team and the directiva (town council) drafted a proposal for a Covenant between the clinic and the Ministry of Health with the objective to recognize the personnel of the Clinic, for the clinic to be absorbed into the national health system, and to provide the clinic with medicines and the provisions of other specialties.
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We know that the Ministry of Health represented by Dr. Isable Rodriguez and her team have studies the proposal in order to give Guarjila and other communities, other options of integral healthcare.
In recent days, we have received through Dagoberto Menjivar, Guarjila’s doctor, very important information that we have discussed in the town leadership.
The Ministry of Health, will initiate a program at the national level which will begin with some 63 municipalities of the 262 which we have in the country, beginning in August, a health program called, “Community Health Centers for Family Health,” a Regional Center with specialists in pediatrics, ob-gyn, nutrition, psychology and dentistry... But Guarjila is not a municipality and yet has been chosen to form part in this project for three reasons:
1. For the level of organization which we have.
2. For access to other municipalities and communities.
3. To be regarded as a MODEL system of community healthcare.
The Health Ministry is promising improvements in the infrastructure and in some cases construction, a laboratory, equipment, specialists, provision of a vehicle and medicines. This implies turning over the land and the infrastructure through a commitment which is the condition for the Government to invest in the Clinic. The community has to turn over the Clinic for 25 years.
This process of advances in the program have been discussed by the town leadership team, by a wide range of different areas of the community and recently we presented the agreement to the General Assembly for their approval.
We in the Directiva believe that this a grat opportunity without forgetting that governments are transitory and change every five years. The work now needs to be more intense to continue winning governments (elections), because otherwise we will defend it with our community organization. Nevertheless, we cannot sign a document blindly, they have promised us that the Directiva will be able to make decisions and will review prior to signing the loan later.
We have been having meetings with FOMILENIO about the northern highway. It is decided that the road will pass through Guarjila. However, we have managed to win that it will pass through a less dangerous part of the community. Of course we are not satisfied because our proposal was for the highway to pass further from the community.
According to FOMILENIO, if the community will not accept the highway, the vehicles will always pass through the center of Guarjila and they will not invest in improvements, so for that reason, we believe it is convenient to change a little. We know that Guarjila is the only community where the highway will pass through the community and it is a project ...
This is the route of the highway: from the balastera (fork in the road?), passing by the potato field, the fruit drying project, by the house of Tita (ex-town council leader), to connect again with the road to Arcatao. The problem is that when connecting the street by Radio Sumpul (community radio station), they are not considering a by-pass (bridge) for our elders, children and farmers to pass without danger, and we set this as a condition. They have said that they will repair the current road and will open the new road to truck traffic (carrying cargo). The road will have traffic lights and they will construct a walk bridge by Radio Sumpul for those who would face danger like children, elders and disabled to pass over.
The people from FOMILENIO are Ángel Quiroz (Executive Director of FOMILENIO), El Ing. Duque (subdirector of FOMILENIO), representatives of the Ministry of Public Works and Directors of Social Programs like Information Technology, Human Development and Production Development.
We presented a list of projects that the community demanded and they told us with which ones they would commit to support us and those that were not eligible, they committed to negotiate with other departments of the government.
An agreement was made to meet again next week to evaluate the second section of the road and to predict the viability of the section.
The ratificaiton of the passage of the Northern Highway through Guarjila remains in the hands of the community and we report everything to the community and we carry out whichever decisions they make.
With regard to the scholarhips, we want to tell you that we have included Evelyn Henriquez Romero and Dora Alicia Castillo Alfaro. They are studying in the university and are receiving $60.00/month. The two young women participate in the activities of the community when they are needed.
I have the agreements in writing with the signatures of those who attended the meeting and what FOMILENIO committed to do to support us.
Constantino Guardado
President of ADESCO, Guarjila, Chalatenango
In the name of the Community Leadership and the Hermanamiento Committee
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Good News.
Dear Marilyn Guarjila, June 16, 2010
I’m very happy to hear from you and I send regards to you and your family and the entire group in solidarity with Guarjila.
I am sending you the 2009 report, which lists the income and expenses in the final pages.
I have yet to send you the semi-annual report for 2010, which we are currently drawing it up.
I have many positive updates for you regarding the health project. As you may remember, last year we proposed an agreement to the new health authorities. After a month and a half they have responded with a proposal that is much broader than we had initially proposed!
They (Dr. Isabel Rodriguez, the minister, and Doctors Eduardo Espinoza and Violeta Menjivar, both vice-ministers) have chosen for Guarjila to be transformed into a reference center for the zone that covers eight municipalities regarding the health reform that they initiated in early June of this year.
This means that the Clinic would function as a Communal Family Health Unit with a health team and there would also be another Communal Health Unit with specialists (Specialty Unit): OB-GYNs, Pediatricians, Internists, Dentists, Nutritionists, and Psychologists.
Imagine, considering we have fought for this and now we are presented with a great opportunity!
We are in the agreement process and we are setting up the installations.
The community agreed, in conjunction with ADESCO, that the Ministry of Health would work in the community and that we will sign the agreement.
Now we are in the midst of the legal formal steps.
They have committed to:
1. Gradually absorb the health team although not totally (I’ll explain later). Regarding this they initiated the training for running the programs and have already evaluated a part of the team.
2. Provide medicine, medical supplies, and a laboratory.
3. Improve the installations in the future.
4. Gradually equip a medical team that they will need.
5. Promote community participation and organization.
Regarding the personnel that they are going to contract in August:
1. Marlene Cruz, nurse.
2. Angélica Serrano, nursing assistant
3. Reynady Ortega, health promoter.
4. Estela López, medical records and statistics.
5. Dagoberto Meníjvar, medical director.
What’s more, two more nurses will continue working with the Specialty Unit, and one more for varied services and driving. They have also sent us a doctor for medical consultation.
This week the entire team has been in training to prepare for the new method of running the health model. I have mentioned the health model, and they hope to have Communal Family Health Units in the entire country composed of teams of seven people, which includes a doctor, two nurses, three promoters and one assistant. These teams will be responsible for 600 families and will be in strategic locations. Chalatenango is one of the districts that has been chosen to begin with more than 50 communal teams.
Our part is to continue paying those responsible in the lab. They say it is difficult to get a position right now but they promised us one for the following year. Also, Marina and Esperanza will continue working with the salary that the Clinic has been offering. We also have to pay the ambulance driver. In total we are a team of four.
We believe this is a great beginning, with more than half the team being covered, which would reduce the highest expense: the personnel and the medicines.
We have to continue developing the programs and interventions that have defined us and to continue promoting activities for health.
We always count on your solidarity to keep getting better every day, and to make our dream for a healthy community a reality.
When we have everything defined I will explain it to you all in more detail.
The whole team is happy, but we are very anxious, since the responsibilities and work will be greater. But we have a firm conviction, that this is a big step towards a healthy community, and now our commitment to ethics and solidarity is greater, considering we are no longer just working for Guarjila but for a greater part of our people of the Chalatenango zone. We are all confident in our capacity to make the best of this experience in health care that has existed for many years, thanks to the conjoined efforts of you all who have helped us continuously, the community, who have remained organized, and has continued participating and fighting, and the health team (especially the promoters) who has continued working despite economic and family difficulties, not to mention difficulties of other types.
We also consider this a giant step for the new government, who has shown all of its interest in improving the population’s health.
Things are moving quickly, and I’ll tell you how they are coming along.
Un abrazo,
Dagoberto.
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TRADE JUSTICE and ENVIRONMENT: Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador
From CEPR's Latin America News Round-up. Congratulations to our friends at United Students Against Sweatshops for this groundbreaking victory!
Pressured, Nike to Help Workers in Honduras.
Steven Greenhouse. New York Times. July 26, 2010
Facing pressure from universities and student groups, the apparel maker Nike announced on Monday that it would pay $1.54 million to help 1,800 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when two subcontractors closed their factories.
Nike agreed to the payment after several universities and a nationwide group, United Students Against Sweatshops, pressed it to pay some $2 million in severance that the two subcontractors had failed to pay.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison terminated its licensing agreement with Nike over the Honduran dispute, and Cornell warned that it would do the same unless Nike resolved the matter.
A Nike spokeswoman, Kate Meyers, said on Monday that the $1.54 million was for "a worker relief fund" and was not for severance. Nike also agreed to provide vocational training and finance health coverage for workers laid off by the two subcontractors.
"This may be a watershed moment," Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a group of 186 universities that monitors factories that make college-logo apparel, said. "Up until now, major apparel brands have steadfastly refused to take any direct financial responsibility for the obligations to the workers in their contractors' factories. Now the most high-profile sports apparel firm has done just that."
The agreement is the latest involving overseas apparel factories in which an image-conscious brand like Nike shows its sensitivity - advocates might say vulnerability - to campaigns led by college students who often pressure universities to stand up to producers of college-logo apparel over workers' rights.
Nike issued a statement in conjunction with a Honduran labor federation, Central General de Trabajadores, saying it had "reached an agreement to help improve the lives of workers affected" by the plant closings. As part of the deal with the labor group, Nike pledged that other factories it used in Honduras would give priority to hiring workers laid off by the two subcontractors.
"We were trying genuinely to find a way in which we can help set up a program that would be meaningful to workers on the ground," Ms. Meyers said.
The dispute began in January 2009, when Hugger and Vision Tex - two subcontractors that made T-shirts and sweatshirts for Nike in Honduras - closed their plants. After the workers complained, the Workers Rights Consortium gave more than 100 American universities a report it did finding that the subcontractors had failed to pay more than $2 million in severance owed under Honduran law.
United Students Against Sweatshops mounted a pressure campaign, holding protests at dozens of Niketown stores and Nike retailers. The campaign adopted the slogan "Just Pay It."
At Cornell, 1,100 students petitioned the university to end its contracts with Nike. Thirty student groups, the student newspaper and the University Assembly also endorsed that idea.
Mr. Nova of the Workers Rights Consortium said Nike at first claimed that the two subcontractors were not making college-logo apparel. On April 20, the company issued a statement saying it was disappointed that the subcontractors had not paid the severance, but added, "It remains Nike's position that factories which directly employ workers are responsible for ensuring that their employees receive their correct entitlements, and as such Nike will not be paying severance to workers that were employed by Hugger and Vision Tex."
Alex Bores, president of the United Students Against Sweatshops chapter at Cornell, argued that it was only fair for Nike to make good on its subcontractors' obligations.
"Nike plays a key role in setting up the worldwide apparel system that its contractors and subcontractors work in," Mr. Bores said. "Nike plays factory against factory, causing them to shave a penny here and a penny there, creating an ultra-competitive environment that drives down wages and gives factory owners virtually no choice but to disrespect workers' basic rights."
United Students Against Sweatshops estimated that Nike's total payments, including those for health coverage and training, would exceed $2 million.
Even with Monday's agreement, Ms. Meyers said her company would stick to its position that contractors and subcontractors were responsible for obligations like severance pay.
Workers' rights groups say that while many brands boast that they are complying with codes of conduct to protect workers, the brands at the same time balk at assuming responsibilities when contractors' violate their obligations to their workers.
Jane L. Collins, a University of Wisconsin sociology professor who is on the school's licensing committee, which called on the university to end its licensing agreement with Nike, said, "If apparel companies can't take responsibility for the factories where they have contracts, they can't claim to be adhering to a code of conduct."
Officials at several universities had warned Nike that unless it settled the dispute, it would face larger protests once the fall semester began.
Last November, the student movement against sweatshops got Russell Athletic to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when the company closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized. The students had persuaded 100 universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell.
Explaining Monday's agreement, Jack Mahoney, national organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops, said, "After we got over 100 universities to boycott Russell, Nike understood the university pressure would not simply go away."
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Honduras to Assess Bunker Fuel Leak (Inside Costa Rica)
Honduras to Assess Bunker Fuel Leak TEGUCIGALPA - A Honduran congressional commission traveled to the southern department of Valle to assess the environmental impact of a bunker fuel leak in San Lorenzo Bay.
www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/july/31/centralamerica10073103.htm
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COUNTRY UPDATES: Responses to Militarization in Latin America
(www.alternet.org/story/147690/with_opposition_to_u.s._militarism_in_latin_america_on_the_rise,_colombian_and_venezuelan_govs_clash)
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Colombian Lawmakers Must Approve U.S. Bases Pact, Judge Says.
EFE. July 23, 2010
BOGOTA - An accord giving the U.S. Armed Forces access to seven military bases in Colombia requires congressional ratification, a Constitutional Court judge said in a draft opinion released Friday.
The court is due to rule Aug. 17 on a motion brought by a lawyers group challenging the constitutionality of the December 2009 pact.
In his draft, Judge Jorge Ivan Palacios urges his colleagues on the court to declare the accord invalid, but suspend the ruling for one year to give Congress a chance to study the text and either approve or reject it.
Palacios rejected the argument of President Alvaro Uribe's government that the bases agreement was simply an extension of a bilateral military pact signed in 1974 and, as such, did not require congressional ratification.
The constitutional challenge to the accord was filed by the Jose Alvear Restrepo Attorneys Collective.
In October 2009, the Council of State, Colombia's highest judicial-administrative body, issued a non-binding opinion that Congress must be consulted on the bases agreement.
The pact "contemplates the presence of foreign military personnel, as well as that of ships and planes of war, something that should be approved by a law of Congress," the council said then.
Most South American countries greeted the bases pact with unease, while Colombia's neighbor Venezuela reacted with outrage, calling the arrangement a threat to regional peace.
The signing of the agreement further aggravated the already strained bilateral relationship, which took another turn for the worse this week, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez broke diplomatic relations in response to Bogota's accusations that his government is harboring Colombian rebels.
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Proyecto de sentencia contra acuerdo militar Colombia-EEUU
Bogotá. La Voz.com. | 23 julio de 2010
Un proyecto de sentencia sobre un controversial acuerdo militar entre Colombia y Estados Unidos pide declarar que el convenio habría sido inconstitucional, informó este viernes una alta corte.
El proyecto aún requiere ser sometido a la votación de los nueve magistrados de la llamada Corte Constitucional, la máxima instancia para dirimir asuntos de la Carta Magna.
Funcionarios de la Corte Constitucional dijeron en la jornada que el proyecto de sentencia, redactado por el magistrado Jorge Iván Palacios, sería votado a mediados de agosto próximo.
Para su aprobación se necesita la mayoría simple de los integrantes del alto tribunal, es decir, cinco votos.
Si esa mayoría aprueba el proyecto de sentencia el convenio militar queda suspendido, aunque en otros fallos en el pasado la propia Corte Constitucional ha dado plazos al gobierno para ajustar textos de determinadas leyes o acuerdos y para que posteriormente sigan válidos.
El magistrado ponente alega que el convenio de cooperación militar sería inconstitucional porque debió pasar por la aprobación del Congreso, aunque no se dieron otros detalles del proyecto de sentencia porque éste tiene carácter reservado por normas internas de la Corte.
El gobierno del presidente Alvaro Uribe mantiene que era innecesario que el acuerdo de cooperación militar tuviera el visto bueno del legislativo porque se trataba de la extensión y revisión de convenios ya existentes desde hace varios años y que ya contaban con la aprobación de las dos cámaras.
Los gobiernos de Bogotá y Washington firmaron en octubre un acuerdo de cooperación que expande el acceso de Estados Unidos a siete bases militares colombianas, con el propósito de aumentar el monitoreo antidrogas, entre otras acciones.
Jefes castrenses colombianos han dicho que el acuerdo no aumenta el número 1.400 tropas y contratistas civiles estadounidenses (800 militares y 600 civiles) que es el techo fijado por leyes de Washington.
Brasil, Venezuela y Bolivia formularon abiertas críticas al convenio alegando que rompía el equilibrio de fuerzas en la región, mientras Caracas aún mantiene que se trata de un acuerdo que amenaza su seguridad interna.
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Report Suggests 'Correlation' between U.S. Aid and Army Killings
Helda Martínez July 30, 2010 Inter Press Service
"There are alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive U.S. military financing," John Lindsay-Poland, lead author of a two-year study on the question, told IPS.
Lindsay-Poland is Research and Advocacy Director for the U.S.-based Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), which presented a new report, "Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications", in Bogotá Thursday.
The report, produced in conjunction with the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC), studies the application in Colombia of the so-called Leahy Law, passed in 1996, which bans military assistance to a foreign security force unit if the U.S. State Department has credible evidence that the unit has committed gross human rights violations.
The Leahy Law is one of the main U.S. laws designed to protect against the use of U.S. foreign aid to commit human rights abuses.
"If the Leahy Law was fully implemented, assistance would have to be suspended to nearly all fixed army brigades and many mobile brigades in Colombia," Lindsay-Poland said.
The report points out that most military training in Colombia is funded by the U.S. Defence Department.
Colombia, caught up in an armed conflict for nearly five decades, is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in the world, along with Israel, Egypt and Pakistan.
The study reviewed data on more than 3,000 extrajudicial executions reportedly committed by the armed forces in Colombia since 2002 and lists of more than 500 military units assisted by the United States since 2000.
"We found that for many military units, reports of extrajudicial executions increased during and after the highest levels of U.S. assistance," Lindsay-Poland said.
The results were obtained by comparing the number of reports of such killings in the two years prior to the start of Plan Colombia -- the multibillion-dollar U.S. military aid package -- in 2000 with the number of killings after the launch of that counterinsurgency and anti-drug strategy.
It also found that reports of alleged killings of civilians by the army dropped when assistance was cut.
"Whatever correlation may exist between assistance and reported killings, there are clearly other factors contributing to high levels of killings. Yet, while we could not fix the causes of increased reports of killings after increases in U.S. assistance, our findings highlight the need for a thorough investigation into the reasons for this apparent correlation," the authors say.
"The U.S. government should respond to the questions raised by the report," Lindsay-Poland said.
For example, "why U.S. officials neglect their duties under the Leahy Law, not only in Colombia but in countries like Pakistan, where the situation is very complex."
The U.S. military presence in Colombia dates back to the 1940s, when leftwing guerrillas became active in the country. But it escalated to a new level in 1999 when Plan Colombia was agreed by the governments of then presidents Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001).
Plan Colombia was complemented and extended in 2004 by Plan Patriot, signed by President Álvaro Uribe, whose term ends Aug. 7, and former president George W. Bush (2001-2009).
The two plans have undergone radical changes since 2009, according to Lindsay-Poland, when they reached beyond the initial aims of counterinsurgency and counternarcotics, with a view towards strengthening U.S. control in the region.
U.S. army Southern Command documents state the importance of establishing a base "with air mobility reach on the South American continent and a capacity for counter-narcotics operations until the year 2025," he said.
Uribe offered the U.S. military the use of seven bases at strategic points in Colombia, including both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the province of Caquetá in the Amazon jungle, and the provinces of Meta, Tolima and Cundinamarca in the centre of the country.
Lindsay-Poland and other members of FOR tried to visit the Palanquero base in Cundinamarca, one of the seven, on Wednesday. But "they did not let us in," he said. "They demanded authorisation from the U.S. Embassy. So what kind of autonomy are we talking about here?"
Furthermore, the agreement for U.S. military access to the bases has not been approved by the Colombian Congress, as required by law.
As a result, the Constitutional Court ruled the agreement unconstitutional on Jul. 22 and gave Congress one year to approve or reject it.
If the legislature ratifies the deal, the Constitutional Court will once again study it, to determine whether or not it is in line with the constitution.
The report presented by FOR and USOC coincided with the start of an investigation of reports of unmarked graves in the La Macarena cemetery, which is next to an army base, according to a Jul. 22 public hearing in that town in the central province of Meta, which was attended by opposition lawmakers and international observers, including European legislators.
At the hearing, witnesses said military helicopters flew in the remains of bodies to La Macarena, 340 km south of Bogotá. Human rights groups say the bodies were those of civilians killed by the army.
"This is happening at the end of a government marked by grave human rights violations, which have largely affected the most vulnerable groups in society, and which are reflected in the thousands of 'false positives', as the extrajudicial executions have been popularly known," Alberto Yepes, director of the Observatorio de Derechos Humanos (DIH - Human Rights Observatory), told IPS.
The scandal over the so-called "false positives" -- young civilians killed by the army and passed off as guerrilla casualties in the military's counterinsurgency campaign --broke in the press in September 2008.
Although there are no hard statistics on the number of people killed, the report by FOR and USOC puts the number at over 3,000 in the last decade.
A group that calls itself the Madres (mothers) of Soacha, a vast working-class suburb stretching south of Bogotá, has filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over the loss of their 16 sons in 2007 and 2008. The young men were recruited with the promise of jobs, but their bodies were found in morgues or mass graves hundreds of kilometres away.
Yepes said the complaint filed by the Madres de Soacha "is a way to pressure the state to modify this kind of behaviour."
While activists and groups mobilise to pressure the armed forces to live up to the constitution, "the United States should assume its responsibility through better oversight, holding (authorities in Colombia) accountable and adopting corrective measures, so the money of U.S. taxpayers does not end up financing killings in Colombia," he said.
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Research connects SOA/ WHINSEC with human rights abuses
New Report Shows Dramatic SOA Ties to Extrajudicial Killings in Colombia
http://forusa.org/sites/default/files/uploads/militaryaid100729web.pdf
The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) just released their groundbreaking report, Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications, which exposes serious problems with the implementation of U.S. foreign military training. Once again, detailed research continues to connect SOA/ WHINSEC graduates and instructors with extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations.
According to the report, 30 of 33 Colombian brigade and division commanders who could be identified attended one or more courses at the SOA/ WHINSEC, and this visual representation http://www.soaw.org/img/SOA_EJE0209sm.jpg of the brigade divisions shows the direct connection these SOA-trained officers had with the high levels of extrajudicial executions for the past seven years. This summary of the connections to the SOA/ WHINSEC from the FOR/ USOC report demonstrates a clear pattern of the school's involvement in the escalating violence in Colombia. http://www.soaw.org/about-the-soawhinsec/colombia/3470-the-impact-of-the-soa-in-colombia
And this is likely the tip of the iceberg.
In July 2010, the Obama Administration made a decision to cement the secrecy around the multi-million dollar, U.S. taxpayer-funded SOA/ WHINSEC program and deny human rights organizations like SOA Watch access to who trains and teaches at the school. This means the staggering volume of human rights violations cited in the FOR/ USOC report linked to SOA/ WHINSEC graduates could be much higher given the thousands of Colombian soldiers who have passed through the school in the last few years.
SOA Watch compiled the names, course, rank, country of origin, and dates attended for every soldier and instructor at the SOA/ WHINSEC from 1946 to 2003. After researchers exposed several cases of known human rights abusers attending the WHINSEC (despite claims that the "new" school was committed to human rights), and shared this research with Congressional decision-makers, the Department of Defense (DOD) refused to disclose any future information about who was training and teaching at the WHINSEC.
The human rights community and the U.S. Congress did not agree with the decision. In 2008 and again in 2009, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill demanding that the DOD release this information to the public. Last year, this measure was signed into law by President Obama, However, SOA/ WHINSEC supporters in Congress managed to slip in the caveat that Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense could issue a waiver to ignore the public's right to know and refuse to release the information, if he "determines it to be in the national interest."
Predictably, Obama's Secretary of Defense used the waiver to deny human rights organizations and the public access to any more information.
Important reports like the one described above are essential resources for Congress and Administration officials making decisions about foreign military training. Despite the value of transparency, openness, and the public's right to know, the Obama Administration made a clear decision to value secrecy instead, and to prevent further exposure of the negative impact the SOA/ WHINSEC has in Colombia and the rest of Latin America.
Next month, Colombia's human rights status will be reviewed by the State Department. Please amplify the call for justice and transparency and help to implement the recommendations of the report by sending a free fax to the White House and to Secretary Clinton today!
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/727/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4530
SOA Watch is appealing the denial of our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and is working on a campaign to call attention to the continued human rights abuses associated with the SOA/ WHINSEC and demand that transparency be restored. Your contribution of $5 or $10 goes a long way to support our work against Pentagon secrecy and to close the SOA/ WHINSEC. A monthly gift of that amount goes even further. Together, we will shut down the School of the Americas and change U.S. foreign policy! Please watch for additional updates and mobilize your community to attend the November Vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia!
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IMMIGRATION UPDATE: Court Blocks Implementation of Key Sections of Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, July 28, 2010
CONTACT:
Adela de la Torre, NILC, (213) 400-7822; delatorre@nilc.org
Maria Archuleta, ACLU, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Jon O'Neill, ACLU of Arizona, (602) 773-6007; joneill@acluaz.org
Laura Rodriguez, MALDEF, (310) 956-2425; lrodriguez@maldef.org
Karin Wang, APALC, (213) 241-0234 or 999-5640; kwang@apalc.org
Marco Loera, NDLON, (602) 373-3859; mloera@ndlon.org
Leila McDowell, NAACP, (202) 463-2940 ext. 1021; lmcdowell@naacpnet.org
PHOENIX -- Ensuring that Arizona law enforcement will not be required to demand "papers" from people they stop who they suspect are "unlawfully present" in the U.S., a federal court in Phoenix today blocked key provisions of Arizona's racial profiling law, scheduled to go into effect on July 29, pending a final court ruling on its constitutionality. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice challenging the Arizona law. The ruling vindicates similar claims made by the National Immigration Law Center and a coalition of civil rights groups in a separate lawsuit challenging the discriminatory measure.
The blocked sections under the law include the following provisions:
• The requirement that police officers investigate the immigration status of all individuals they stop if the officers suspect that they are in the country unlawfully;
• The mandatory detention of individuals who are arrested, even for minor offenses that would normally result in a ticket, if they cannot verify that they are authorized to be in the U.S.;
• The new statute imposing state criminal penalties for non-citizens failing to register with the Department of Homeland Security or failing to carry registration documents;
• The provision for warrantless arrest of individuals who are deemed by state or local police officers to be "removable" from the U.S.; and
• The new state statute making it a crime for alleged undocumented immigrants to work.
The court blocked the provision that would create a ban on undocumented persons applying for, soliciting, or performing work. However, the court did not block the provisions that prohibit day laborers from being hired if the party hiring them impedes traffic. The civil rights coalition maintains that these sections violate free speech protections and are confident that they, too, will ultimately be barred as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
The civil rights coalition includes the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU, MALDEF, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) - a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, ACLU of Arizona, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), and the NAACP. The law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP is acting as co-counsel in the case.
The coalition's lawsuit, filed on May 17, challenges SB 1070 on the grounds that it invites the racial profiling of people of color, violates the First Amendment, and interferes with federal law. According to the coalition, the law would subject massive numbers of people -- both U.S. citizens and noncitizens -- to racial profiling, improper investigations, and detention.
The following quotes can be attributed to members of the coalition, as listed below.
Linton Joaquin, General Counsel, NILC
"With today's ruling, Judge Bolton enjoined the most egregious provisions of SB 1070, a dangerous enactment that threatens the fundamental rights of countless Arizonans and visitors. Other states following in Arizona's misguided footsteps should consider themselves forewarned: attempts to trample on the constitutional rights of communities of color in this country must not be permitted. We look forward to showing, through our lawsuit, that this pernicious law should be taken off Arizona's books permanently."
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:
"This is a major step that will help protect the residents of Arizona against racial profiling and discrimination, and the Obama administration deserves praise for its principled decision to challenge this law despite pressure to stay silent. A single state's frustration with federal policy cannot be allowed to hijack federal authority or dictate federal priorities in ways that impede effective law enforcement, threaten the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike and violate core American values."
Nina Perales, Regional Counsel Southwest Region for MALDEF:
"Today's ruling guts the unconstitutional immigration scheme that Arizona wanted to establish. The judge's decision further shows that SB 1070 is an unconstitutional attempt by the state to take over the federal immigration system within Arizona's borders. States around the nation should take heed that any similar efforts will not succeed."
Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona:
"This is a first step toward a victory for civil liberties in Arizona. We eagerly anticipate proving to the court that this reactionary racial profiling law violates the Constitution so we can begin the real work of crafting practical solutions that address our nation's immigration concerns rather than violate fundamental American values."
Julie Su, Litigation Director of APALC:
"We applaud the judge for seeing the imminent danger of having this law enacted. SB 1070 presents a distinct and separate immigration scheme that conflicts with federal law and policy, and would have a devastating impact on Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinos and other people of color in Arizona. Indeed, some of those negative effects have already been felt. This ruling makes clear that intimidation of immigrant communities, pretextual stops to ask for 'papers,' and rhetoric about who belongs in Arizona and who doesn't under the guise of enforcing SB 1070 should cease immediately."
Pablo Alvarado, Director of NDLON:
"If history is any guide, the road ahead in Arizona will be a long one. Today was one stop along the way, and we while we have complete faith in the legal process to ultimately defend the United States Constitution, we will not declare victory until SB 1070 is stopped in its entirety and until civil rights of all people in Arizona are fully protected."
Organizations and attorneys on the case, Friendly House et al. v. Whiting et al., include:
• NILC: Joaquin, Karen Tumlin, Nora A. Preciado, Melissa S. Keaney, Vivek Mittal and Ghazal Tajmiri
• ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project: Lucas Guttentag, Omar Jadwat, Cecillia Wang, Tanaz Moghadam and Harini P. Raghupathi
• MALDEF: Perales, Thomas A. Saenz, Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon, Victor Viramontes, Gladys Limón, Nicholás Espiritu and Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal
• ACLU Foundation of Arizona: Dan Pochoda and Annie Lai
• APALC: Su, Ronald Lee, Yungsuhn Park, Connie Choi and Carmina Ocampo
• NDLON: Chris Newman
• NAACP: Laura Blackburne
• Munger Tolles & Olson LLP: Bradley S. Phillips, Paul J. Watford, Joseph J. Ybarra, Susan T. Boyd, Yuval Miller, Elisabeth J. Neubauer and Benjamin Maro
• Roush, McCracken, Guerrero, Miller & Ortega: Daniel R. Ortega, Jr.
Today's order by Judge Bolton is available at
http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/US-v-AZ-prelim-inj-notice-of-order-2010-07-28.pdf
The motion for a preliminary injunction can be found at
www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/Friendly-House-v-Whiting-PI-MotionBrief-2010-06-04.pdf
More information about the Arizona law and this lawsuit can be found at
www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/index.htm#fed_lit
A new ACLU video about how the SB 1070 invites racial profiling can be found at
www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights-racial-justice/would-you-ask-man-his-papers
----------
CONTACTS:
Adela de la Torre, NILC, (213) 400-7822; delatorre@nilc.org
Maria Archuleta, ACLU, (212) 519-7808 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Jon O'Neill, ACLU of Arizona, (602) 773-6007; joneill@acluaz.org
Laura Rodriguez, MALDEF, (310) 956-2425; lrodriguez@maldef.org
Karin Wang, APALC, (213) 241-0234 or 999-5640; kwang@apalc.org
Marco Loera, NDLON, (602) 373-3859; mloera@ndlon.org
Leila McDowell, NAACP, (202) 463-2940 ext. 1021; lmcdowell@naacpnet.org
Court Blocks Implementation of Key Sections of Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
PHOENIX -- Ensuring that Arizona law enforcement will not be required to demand "papers" from people they stop who they suspect are "unlawfully present" in the U.S., a federal court in Phoenix today blocked key provisions of Arizona's racial profiling law, scheduled to go into effect on July 29, pending a final court ruling on its constitutionality. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice challenging the Arizona law. The ruling vindicates similar claims made by the National Immigration Law Center and a coalition of civil rights groups in a separate lawsuit challenging the discriminatory measure.
The blocked sections under the law include the following provisions:
• The requirement that police officers investigate the immigration status of all individuals they stop if the officers suspect that they are in the country unlawfully;
• The mandatory detention of individuals who are arrested, even for minor offenses that would normally result in a ticket, if they cannot verify that they are authorized to be in the U.S.;
• The new statute imposing state criminal penalties for non-citizens failing to register with the Department of Homeland Security or failing to carry registration documents;
• The provision for warrantless arrest of individuals who are deemed by state or local police officers to be "removable" from the U.S.; and
• The new state statute making it a crime for alleged undocumented immigrants to work.
The court did not block the provision that criminalizes the solicitation of employment on public streets or the provision that forbids local police agencies from adopting policies that limit or restrict enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The civil rights coalition includes the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the ACLU, MALDEF, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) - a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice, ACLU of Arizona, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), and the NAACP. The law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP is acting as co-counsel in the case.
The coalition's lawsuit, filed on May 17, challenges SB 1070 on the grounds that it invites the racial profiling of people of color, violates the First Amendment, and interferes with federal law. According to the coalition, the law would subject massive numbers of people -- both U.S. citizens and noncitizens -- to racial profiling, improper investigations, and detention.
The following quotes can be attributed to members of the coalition, as listed below.
Linton Joaquin, General Counsel, NILC
"With today's ruling, Judge Bolton enjoined the most egregious provisions of SB 1070, a dangerous enactment that threatens the fundamental rights of countless Arizonans and visitors. Other states following in Arizona's misguided footsteps should consider themselves forewarned: attempts to trample on the constitutional rights of communities of color in this country must not be permitted. We look forward to showing, through our lawsuit, that this pernicious law should be taken off Arizona's books permanently."
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU:
"This is a major step that will help protect the residents of Arizona against racial profiling and discrimination, and the Obama administration deserves praise for its principled decision to challenge this law despite pressure to stay silent. A single state's frustration with federal policy cannot be allowed to hijack federal authority or dictate federal priorities in ways that impede effective law enforcement, threaten the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike and violate core American values."
Nina Perales, Regional Counsel Southwest Region for MALDEF:
"Today's ruling guts the unconstitutional immigration scheme that Arizona wanted to establish. The judge's decision further shows that SB 1070 is an unconstitutional attempt by the state to take over the federal immigration system within Arizona's borders. States around the nation should take heed that any similar efforts will not succeed."
Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona:
"This is a first step toward a victory for civil liberties in Arizona. We eagerly anticipate proving to the court that this reactionary racial profiling law violates the Constitution so we can begin the real work of crafting practical solutions that address our nation's immigration concerns rather than violate fundamental American values."
Julie Su, Litigation Director of APALC:
"We applaud the judge for seeing the imminent danger of having this law enacted. SB 1070 presents a distinct and separate immigration scheme that conflicts with federal law and policy, and would have a devastating impact on Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latinos and other people of color in Arizona. Indeed, some of those negative effects have already been felt. This ruling makes clear that intimidation of immigrant communities, pretextual stops to ask for 'papers,' and rhetoric about who belongs in Arizona and who doesn't under the guise of enforcing SB 1070 should cease immediately."
Pablo Alvarado, Director of NDLON:
"If history is any guide, the road ahead in Arizona will be a long one. Today was one stop along the way, and we while we have complete faith in the legal process to ultimately defend the United States Constitution, we will not declare victory until SB 1070 is stopped in its entirety and until civil rights of all people in Arizona are fully protected."
Organizations and attorneys on the case, Friendly House et al. v. Whiting et al., include:
• NILC: Joaquin, Karen Tumlin, Nora A. Preciado, Melissa S. Keaney, Vivek Mittal and Ghazal Tajmiri
• ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project: Lucas Guttentag, Omar Jadwat, Cecillia Wang, Tanaz Moghadam and Harini P. Raghupathi
• MALDEF: Perales, Thomas A. Saenz, Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon, Victor Viramontes, Gladys Limón, Nicholás Espiritu and Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal
• ACLU Foundation of Arizona: Dan Pochoda and Annie Lai
• APALC: Su, Ronald Lee, Yungsuhn Park, Connie Choi and Carmina Ocampo
• NDLON: Chris Newman
• NAACP: Laura Blackburne
• Munger Tolles & Olson LLP: Bradley S. Phillips, Paul J. Watford, Joseph J. Ybarra, Susan T. Boyd, Yuval Miller, Elisabeth J. Neubauer and Benjamin Maro
• Roush, McCracken, Guerrero, Miller & Ortega: Daniel R. Ortega, Jr.
The motion for a preliminary injunction can be found at
www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/Friendly-House-v-Whiting-PI-MotionBrief-2010-06-04.pdf
More information about the Arizona law and this lawsuit can be found at
www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/LocalLaw/index.htm#fed_lit
A new ACLU video about how the SB 1070 invites racial profiling can be found at
www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights-racial-justice/would-you-ask-man-his-papers
===========================
On July 28, 2010, the District Court of Arizona granted in part and denied in part a preliminary injunction in the case of United States of America v. State of Arizona, et al. The decision enjoined several sections of Arizona's SB 1070 based on a finding that the U.S. is likely to demonstrate that these sections are preempted by federal law. Other sections of SB 1070 were not enjoined and went into effect yesterday. The State of Arizona filed an appeal on July 29, 2010, asking that the Judge's order be lifted. Friendly House, et al., v. Whiting, et al., a lawsuit jointly filed against Arizona's SB 1070 by the ACLU, MALDEF, NILC, APALC, ACLU of Arizona, NDLON, the NAACP and others prior to United States of America v. State of Arizona, et al., was argued before the same judge on the same day. We want to alert you to resources on the Court's decision and other materials on SB 1070 available through the Immigration Advocates Network (IAN), our partners, and other advocates.
On Immigration Advocates Network:
The "Library" contains:
- A copy of the Judge's order granting the preliminary injunction in part and denying it in part at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15769
- A copy of the U.S. Department of Justice Motion for Preliminary Injunction at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15770
- A folder containing a general overview of SB 1070 and related resources at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15771
The "News" section contains:
- A New York Times Article about the Judge's decision on SB 1070 at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15772
- An Associated Press article about the State of Arizona's appeal of the Judge's decision at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15773
- An NPR story, "Latino Immigrants Brace for Arizona Immigration Law," at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15774
- A New York Times Article, "Arizona Ruling Acts as a Warning to Other States," at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15775
The "Webinar" section contains:
- "SB 1070: The Arizona Law and Report on the Civil Rights Legal Challenge" at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15558
Other resources on SB 1070:
American Civil Liberties Union
A news release on Friendly House, et al., v. Whiting, et al., in light of the Judge's recent decision in United States of America v. State of Arizona, et al., at http://www.immigrationadvocates.org/link.cfm?15781
Department of Homeland Security
A statement on DHS' reaction to the ruling in Arizona, "DHS statement on Arizona immigration law ruling," at http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100728washington.htm
American Immigration Lawyers Association
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) maintains a page with resources on the Arizona litigation at http://www.aila.org/issues/issue.aspx?docid=31856
Department of Justice
The Department of Justice (DOJ) provides a list of declarations against the State of Arizona's SB 1070 at http://www.justice.gov/usao/az/declarations.html
Detention Watch Network
Detention Watch Network (DWN) has developed a set of talking points about Arizona's SB 1070, including problems with the law, potential solutions, and detention facts, at http://detentionwatchnetwork.org/SB1070_Talking_Points
Immigration Policy Center
The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) offers a "Q&A Guide to Arizona's to New Immigration Law" at http://immigrationpolicy.org/special-reports/qa-guide-arizonas-new-immigration-law
National Immigration Law Center
The National Immigration Law Center (NILC) issued a news release on July 22, 2010, the day the Arizona Court heard oral arguments in the cases of Friendly House, et al., v. Whiting, et al., and United States of America v. Arizona, et al., at http://www.nilc.org/pubs/news-releases/nr022.htm
============================
STATEMENT FROM PRESENTE.ORG
NEW DEVELOPMENTS REGARDING ARIZONA’S SB 1070
PRESSURE MOUNTS ON MLB COMMISSIONER SELIG TO MOVE OUT THE GAME IN ARIZONA
July 29, 2010
From Miami to Seattle, hundreds of thousands of Latino and immigrant communities working side by side with faith, labor and human and civil rights organizations understand that the recent developments to block some of the most controversial provisions of Arizona’s SB 1070 -- including on-the-spot police checks of suspected undocumented immigrants and the creation of a crime for the failure to apply for or carry immigration registration papers --are simply one step forward to the greater goal of respecting immigrant rights and advocating for real solutions to the immigration crisis.
Yet, even though we have achieved this partial victory over SB 1070, we are still concerned about the lack of leadership from Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Bud Selig to move next year’s All-Star Game out of Arizona.
This week, in more than a dozen cities across the United States, human and civil right advocates are holding actions to join the outcry of concerned Major League Baseball players and managers, such as Yovanni Gallardo and Ozzie Guillen, who are asking Commissioner Selig to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of the anti-immigrant state of Arizona.
As the steward of ‘America’s national pastime’, Commissioner Selig has the power to make a historic statement for civil rights by not holding next year’s All-Star Game in Arizona. Selig is fond of referencing baseball legend Jackie Robinson’s dictum that baseball has “a social responsibility and we are held to a higher standard than other institutions.” However, with a clear chance to turn Robinson’s words into action, Commissioner Selig has remained sadly and notably silent.
In fact, far from proclaiming baseball’s continued moral legacy, Commissioner Selig’s response to growing demands of over 110,000 baseball fans and civil rights advocates to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona - as well as newspaper editorials, ongoing protests throughout the country, denunciations by the MLB Players Association and threats of a boycott by important Latino players – has been disappointing, showing his lack of commitment to make a positive social impact both in baseball and in the United States.
More than 25 percent of the players on Major League Baseball rosters are Latino, including some of the top players. Taking a stand against Arizona’s SB 1070 is about defining the future of Major League Baseball and of the entire country. For this reason, Presente.org will continue encouraging its members to push MLB Commissioner Selig to take leadership on moving the game out of Arizona.
For more information, please go to http://movethegame.org
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COUNTRY UPDATES: Venezuela and Colombia break relations
Article by Eva Golinger
www.chavezcode.com/2010/07/venezuela-breaks-relations-with.html
“For the dignity of Venezuela”: Venezuela and Colombia break relations
By Eva Golinger
President Chavez ordered maximum alert on Venezuela’s border with Colombia after the Uribe administration made grave accusations against Venezuela claiming the Chavez government harbors terrorists and terrorist training camps
The outgoing government of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia gave a shameful presentation before member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Thursday, reminiscent of Colin Powell’s “weapons of mass destruction” power point evidence presented in 2003 before the United Nations Security Council to justify the war in Iraq.
Colombia alleged that Venezuela is harboring “terrorists” from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) and hosting several “terrorist training camps” near the border region that divides the two nations.
During an extraordinary session convened at OAS headquarters in Washington on Thursday, upon request of the Uribe government, Colombia’s ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, presented television and video images allegedly taken from computers confiscated during the illegal invasion of Ecuatorian territory on March 1, 2008, which resulted in the death of FARC leader Raul Reyes and a dozen other Colombian, Ecuatorian and Mexican citizens. Hoyos also presented several computer-generated maps and photographs of alleged members of the FARC, which he said were taken inside Venezuela.
NO REAL PROOF
Yet none of the images were authenticated or verified as reliable by any source other than the Colombian government. Colombia also used satellite map images, some from Google Earth, to show alleged “coordinates” where FARC members are in Venezuela.
Furthermore, the photographs presented by Hoyos had no source identification, dates or times, and merely showed alleged members of the FARC and ELN in different jungle and coastal areas.
Venezuela and Colombia share a porous, jungle and mountainous border and both countries have Caribbean coasts. The countries have similar vegetations, climates and scenery.
Venezuela’s ambassador to the OAS, Roy Chaderton said the photographs looked to him as though they had been taken in Colombia. “That looks like the beach in Santa Marta to me”, responded Chaderton, after Hoyos claimed a photo of a FARC member drinking a beer on the beach was taken at Chichirivichi, a Venezuelan beach town.
“There is no evidence, not a single piece of proof, of where those photographs were taken”, said Chaderton, adding that the “evidence” presented by Colombia was “confusing, imprecise and non-convincing”.
The Venezuelan army verified and thoroughly inspected the locations and coordinates provided by the Uribe administration on Thursday and found none of the alleged “terrorist sites”, “camps” or “guerrilla presence” claimed by Colombia.
Upon arriving at the first coordinate indicated in Colombia’s report, identified as an alleged terrorist camp of alias Ruben Zamora, the Venezuelan army found a farm growing plantains, yucca and corn. The second coordinate, which was the alleged camp of FARC commander Ivan Marquez, was merely an extensive field with no structures or presence of anyone or anything.
INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION
During his two-hour long flamboyant presentation, Hoyos called for “international intervention” in Venezuela to verify the campsites and gave Venezuela a “30-day ultimatum”.
“Colombia requests a commission of international members, including all those of the OAS, go to Venezuela and verify each of the terrorist camp sites and coordinates to see the truth”, said Hoyos, adding, “we give the Venezuelan government 30 days”, although he didn’t specify what could happen afterward.
Hoyos also accused the Venezuelan government of facilitating drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal arms trade, attacks against Colombian armed forces and even went so far as to allege the Chavez government “squashes its opposition”, “represses freedom of expression”, “insults other governments” and “violates principles of democracy”.
At the same time, Hoyos said his government would be unwilling to listen to or respond to any accusations, insults or offenses made by the Venezuelan government.
Colombia’s position is an echo of Washington’s, which has accused Venezuela of harboring and providing refuge to members of the FARC during the past seven years. But, the US government has also failed to present any evidence to back such claims, and often makes contradictory statements, which appear to confirm the lack of solid proof.
In March 2010, US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) chief General Douglas Fraser said that he had seen no evidence of any links between Venezuela and the FARC. “We have not seen any connections specifically that I can verify where there has been a direct government-to-terrorist connection”, declared Fraser during a hearing before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee.
However, the following day, General Fraser contradicted himself before the press, stating, “There is indeed clear and documented historical and ongoing evidence of the linkages between the Government of Venezuela and the FARC”.
Possibly, Fraser was referring to previous governments in Venezuela, such as those of Carlos Andres Perez (1989-1993) or Rafael Caldera (1994-1998), which actually housed an office of the FARC in the presidential palace. President Chavez shut down that office when he entered the presidency in early 1999.
Or maybe General Fraser was referring to the specific requests made by two Colombian presidents, Andres Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe, for Chavez to mediate the release of hostages held by the FARC.
With full disclosure and complete authority from President Alvaro Uribe, and based on his own personal request, in September 2007, President Chavez accepted the role as mediator in order to secure the release of several hostages held by the FARC inside Colombian territory. For that reason only, Chavez met with FARC commander Ivan Marquez and assured the release of Clara Rojas and Consuelo Gonzalez in January 2008.
But otherwise, the Venezuelan government has consistently and repeatedly denied any links or support given to the FARC or any other armed, irregular group from Colombia or elsewhere.
RELATIONS BROKEN
After Colombia’s presentation before the OAS, President Chavez announced a complete rupture in relations.
“It is with tears in my heart that I announce that we will break all relations with Colombia. We have no other choice, for our dignity and our sovereignty”.
Chavez also ordered troops to secure all border areas. “I have ordered a maximum alert on our borders. Uribe is a mafioso and a liar, and is capable of anything”, he said, recalling how Uribe ordered the invasion of Ecuador’s territory in 2008 and then lied to President Rafael Correa about what had happened.
Venezuela accused Colombia of failing to resolve its own internal conflicts, including a 60-year old civil war that has negatively impacted its neighbors with violence and drug trafficking spilling over the borders. More than 4 million Colombians, fleeing the violence in their country, live in Venezuela today.
The Colombian “show” appears to be an effort to justify preemptive war against Venezuela. Last year Colombia opened its territory to seven US military bases in an agreement that the US Air Force claimed was necessary in order to conduct “full spectrum military operations” throughout South America to “combat the constant threat of anti-American governments in the region”.
T/ Eva Golinger
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HAITI: Debt relief setting the stage for more debt from new loan
Jubilee USA Network www.jubileeusa.org
July 22, 2010
IMF Takes Two Steps Forward and One Step Back on Haiti
Jubilee USA Encouraged by IMF's Debt Cancellation for Haiti, Concerned by New Loan
Contact: Melinda St. Louis, Deputy Director, 202-441-7579
Hayley Hathaway, Communications Coordinator, 202-543-0692
Jubilee USA Network welcomes the International Monetary Fund Executive Board's decision to cancel Haiti's $268 million debt to the institution in response to the January 12 earthquake. Yet the IMF's decision to provide $60 million in financing support as a new loan raises serious concerns.
When the IMF provided emergency assistance to Haiti as a $102 million loan after the earthquake, Jubilee USA and allies world-wide mobilized, calling for all of Haiti's debt to international financial institutions, including the post-quake IMF loan, to be canceled.
The Fund's launch of the Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief Trust Fund, through which Haiti's debt cancellation will be financed, represents an important step forward for the IMF as it initiates a concrete framework that provides debt cancellation and grant support to countries which face devastation beyond their control.
"It is indeed a victory that the International Monetary Fund responded to calls from civil society and governments around the world to cancel Haiti's debts. Now we must raise our voices again to make sure the Fund understands that a loan of any kind is completely inappropriate for a country in such desperate need," says Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network.
The $60 million loan approved yesterday is the most concessional loan available from the IMF, with zero percent interest until the end of 2011 and a five and a half year grace period. If it is held as international reserves as planned, the loan may not add to the country's long-term debt burden. Still, the decision to provide this assistance as a loan risks putting Haiti into debt yet again.
"The IMF is taking two steps forward and one step back. This is a precedent-setting moment as the IMF has agreed to use internal resources to cancel the debt of a country facing extraordinary need. But, unfortunately, this good news is undermined by the IMF's new loan. The role of the IMF in Haiti has been long criticized, and this new loan could set Haiti on the wrong path toward a new cycle of debt. The IMF must go further by using its new Post-Catastrophe Trust Fund to provide assistance on grant terms and ensure that this comes without harmful conditions," says LeCompte.
Six months after the tragic earthquake struck the impoverished country, it is clear that Haiti will need massive support for the foreseeable future. 1.6 million Haitians remain homeless, and at the current rate, it will take 10 to 15 years just to clear the streets of Port-au-Prince of wreckage.
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COUNTRY UPDATES: Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Cuba
Nicaragua News Bulletin
www.nicanet.org
July 20, 2010
This weekly news bulletin is the successor to the Nicaragua News Service and Nicaragua Network Hotline. This publication may be reproduced in whole or in part. Please credit the Nicaragua Network.
1. Half a million people celebrate anniversary of the revolution in Managua
2. Los Angeles judge rules against banana workers in Nemagon case
3. New poll shows some gains for FSLN and Ortega
4. Social groups condemn US troop agreement with Costa Rica
5. Business leaders disillusioned with opposition politicians
6. President unveils new health care facilities
1. Half a million people celebrate anniversary of the revolution in Managua
More than half a million people came out to a Managua plaza on July 19th to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, according to the Sandinista media, a figure that the opposition did not challenge. Invited foreign guests included Cuban Vice-President Ramiro Valdes, President Sergei Bagapsh of Abkhazia, and President Eduard Kokoiti of South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared their independence from the Republic of Georgia and were recognized only by Nicaragua and a few other nations. Bagapsh and Kokoiti are on a good will tour of Latin America.
In his speech, President Daniel Ortega reviewed the achievements of his government for the past three years, saying that levels of illiteracy in urban areas had been lowered to 4% and in rural areas to 8%. He noted that Nicaragua had the smallest decline in economic growth between 2008 and 2009 of any country in Central America and predicted the economy would grow in 2010. He said that 300,000 Nicaraguan farmers and ranchers were actively producing, noting that the production of corn had risen 22.6%, beans 18.5% and rice 17%. He stated that his government had built 400 miles of new highways, and maintained and repaired thousands of miles of roads and streets. In foreign affairs, Ortega lauded the formation of a resistance movement in Honduras. He said that relations with Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, installed after elections held by the coup government that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya, had improved and should normalize. He noted that Lobo had talked with Zelaya about the latter's return to Honduras.
Meanwhile, the opposition media published criticism of the expenditures made by the city and the national government for the celebration. Leonel Teller, a Managua city council member and Constitutional Liberal Party leader, said, "Some of the special guests of the dictator Daniel Ortega and his party had their airline tickets and hotels paid for with tax money from the people of Managua."
Dissident Sandinistas held a celebration in Masaya on July 17. The event was organized by the Sandinista Rescue Movement, whose members include Monica Baltodano, Henry Ruiz and Onofre Guevara. It was attended by members of other parties and organizations also, including Victor Hugo Tinoco, Xanthis Suarez, and Saul Lewites of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS), as well as representatives of the Nicaraguan Socialist Party and the Consumer Defense Network. The main speaker was veteran journalist Danilo Aguirre and music was provided by Carlos Mejia Godoy and Los de Palacagüina.
The Sandinista Rescue Movement was formed in 2000 after Daniel Ortega signed a political agreement with then President Arnoldo Aleman. The Sandinista Renovation Movement, which did not hold a celebration this year, was founded in 1994 by former Vice-President Sergio Ramirez, Dora Maria Tellez and others. In an interview with a Spanish new agency, Ramirez said that, "I don't see any light for Nicaragua. The opposition is disarticulated and under siege by a government that is trying to buy votes in the National Assembly for a reform that would permit continuous reelection of Ortega." (Radio La Primerisima, July 20; El Nuevo Diario, July 17, 19; La Prensa, July 17, 18)
2. Los Angeles judge rules against banana workers in Nemagon case
Victoria Cheney, a Federal Court judge in California, on July 15 threw out a US$2.4 million judgment against Dole Foods in the case Tellez vs. Dole that had been won by six Nicaraguans who said they were made sterile by the pesticide Nemagon while working on Dole banana plantations. The judge said generalized fraud by American and Nicaraguan attorneys had tainted the trial and spoke of a larger conspiracy that included even the Nicaraguan legal system. The ruling overturning the November 2007 decision puts in question not only other Nicaraguan cases but claims against Dole by former banana workers from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and Honduras. Nemagon was banned in the United States in 1979 but was used after that around the world by banana companies.
In April 2009, Judge Cheney had thrown out similar cases (Mejia vs. Dole and Rivera vs. Dole) when secret witnesses for Dole said that the plaintiffs had never worked on the plantations and that laboratory exams had been falsified. Months later seven of those secret witnesses came forward to say that they had been bribed to testify for Dole against their fellow Nicaraguans.
Lawyers representing the Nicaraguans in the Tellez case last week presented videotapes and sworn affidavits that revealed bribes and false testimony by the secret witnesses recruited by Dole but the judge did not take the evidence into account. Attorney Steve Condie said, "We had a judge who had already decided that my clients and every American attorney opposing Dole in Nicaragua were part of a vast conspiracy." He said that he would appeal the decision. Nicaraguan lawyer Antonio Hernandez said a few days before the July 15 decision, "The judge hit us hard [in 2009]; she's an insensitive and racist woman who sees Latin Americans as a blight, but even so we are going to continue to fight this monster [Dole]."
Meanwhile, the government has begun clearing the land for 400 homes for those former banana workers who have been camped out in Managua demanding compensation for damage to their health from pesticide exposure. The houses, which will be built in a grove of eucalyptus trees in the old center of Managua, are part of the Houses for the People Program. Engineer Sergio Guzman said that no trees will be cut down and the houses will be built among the trees. Altagracia Solis, a leader in the camp, said that since 2007 the government has been providing health care and food packets to the workers camped out in Managua. Also in 2007, the Health Ministry set up a department in the Chinandega Hospital for dialysis and other attention to victims of pesticide poisoning. (Radio La Primerisima, July 16; El Nuevo Diario, July 4, 6, 8; La Prensa, July 8)
3. New poll shows some gains for FSLN and Ortega
According to a new poll by M&R Consultants, the Sandinista Party (FSLN) continues to be the largest political party enjoying the support of 32.6% of Nicaraguan voters. However, those who declare themselves independent outpoll the FSLN by nearly 10 percentage points at 42.3%. Far behind are former President Arnoldo Aleman's Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) with 14.8%, and former presidential candidate Eduardo Montealegre's "Let's Go with Eduardo" movement at 7.8%. The Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) has the support of 1.7% and all other parties polled less than one percent. These figures represent a 5.4% growth in popularity for the FSLN and 3.7% increase for the PLC from M&R's last poll.
While a bare majority of voters view the government of President Daniel Ortega as "authoritarian," 67.1% believe education has improved and 62.3% say that health care has improved under the Ortega government. His government's overall approval rating is 31.9% compared to 43.7% disapproval.
Aleman continues to be viewed as the leader of the opposition with 29% naming him. He was followed closely by Montealegre who was named by 25.3%. MRS's Edmundo Jarquin was seen as the opposition leader by 2.5% and former Sandinista Managua Mayor Dionisio Marenco by 1.7%. However 25.5% don't see any of them as the leader of the opposition, reflecting the continued disarray of the opposition. 81.1% view the work of the opposition as "negative" while only 13.6% see it as "positive." The poll showed no current pairing of opposition politicians beating Ortega if the vote were held today.
National Police Chief Aminta Granera, as she has in past polls, leads as the public figure with the highest positive regard by voters at 68.2%. This compares to 47.2% positive for Ortega and 28.3% positive for Aleman. Aleman had the highest negative public opinion with 64.3%. An interesting finding of the poll is that 56.1% of the respondents have "no problem" with an Ortega re-election bid if he permits a total replacement of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) with magistrates that "inspire confidence and credibility."
The poll was carried out between June 19-28, and has a margin of error of 2.5%. A total of 1,600 residents over the age of 16 were interviewed nationally. The Nuevo Siglo agency also released a poll last week. The poll reported that, in answer to the question of who the respondent would vote for if the election were held today, 45.5% said they would vote for Ortega (who was elected in 2006 with 38%). Coming in second was Montealegre with 8.2% and Aleman with 5%. Other candidates fared even worse. 32.3% were undecided. (La Prensa, July 13; Radio La Primerísima, July 13)
4. Social groups condemn US troop agreement with Costa Rica
Central American and Caribbean social groups, meeting in Managua, condemned Costa Rica's recent agreement to allow US military ships and troops entry into that country saying that it was done "behind the backs of the Costa Rican people and is a threat to the nation's sovereignty." The statement came during a meeting of 80 representatives of social movements, unions, and left organizations meeting in Managua on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. The final session of the meeting also condemned political interference, dictatorial actions and anti-union actions by the governments of Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala. The gathering also condemned repressive actions by the government of Panama against social and labor leaders and demanded the retraction of Law 30 which criminalizes popular protest.
The conference was called to strengthen communication and collaboration between social movements in the region. At the same time, youth and students from Central America, the Caribbean and countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of the People of Our Americas (ALBA) met to consider the project of higher education as a transformative process for the people. Aily Labañino, daughter of Cuban anti-terrorist hero, Ramón Labañino, who has been imprisoned in the United States for 12 years, attended the youth conference and met with President Daniel Ortega. Ortega called on the youth from 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries, when they return home, to intensify their campaigns to free the Cuban Five as Labañino and his four fellow US political prisoners are known.
During the social movement meeting, Edgar Morales Quesada, secretary general of the National Association of Costa Rican Public Employees said, "We are gathered in a difficult meeting as the United States and big national and international capital are trying to reestablish their hegemony in the region. On the one side is the militarization of our territory and on the other the repression of social protest and attacks on labor, trying to dismantle the movement's gains." He said that the process of militarization in Central America has risen to levels that are causing great concern with the presence of military bases in El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, the activation of the Fourth Fleet, and new military installations in Honduras and Panama.
According to speakers at the meeting, the intervention project of the United States coincides with the interests of the power groups of Central America and of transnational capital, with fighting drug traffickers serving as the modern Trojan Horse to penetrate the region. Onidia Gomes, president of the Central American Common Labor Platform, explained, "There is a well defined strategy to maximize insecurity and create fear in the population, using drug trafficking as the justification for militarization and repression. They create terror and in this manner obscure the true objective which is the demobilization and criminalization of social protest and the labor movement, favoring the interests of big capital." (Radio La Primerisima, July 18)
5. Business leaders disillusioned with opposition politicians
On July 16, Cesar Zamora, manager of AEI Energy in Nicaragua and vice-president of the American Chambers of Commerce (AMCHAM) of Latin America, said in a television interview that the opposition to President Daniel Ortega's government "doesn't have a product to sell to society [and] doesn't have a program of what it would want to do for the country." He went on to ask, "What is the Liberal Party planning for the government that would generate enthusiasm among the people? What is Eduardo Montealegre proposing today for governing that would generate enthusiasm? What is the MRS [Sandinista Renovation Movement] as part of a coalition proposing that would generate enthusiasm among the population? There is nothing!" He said that, on the other hand, the Sandinista Party now in power, has captured what people need and want and has provided free education and health care "while previous governments, stupidly, had charged fees for these services." He noted that some of the services might be bad but "the poorest citizens in this country are thankful for them."
He said that business leaders have told the opposition if they don't offer plans for governing, they will have no other alternative than to tie their wagons to the Sandinista government. He indicated that given that the opposition is not working on the topics that are important for the citizenry, what the business community would do is to lay out the minimum requirements that they want in a government for the country to grow and prosper and present those to the political parties. (Radio La Primerisima, July 16)
6. President unveils new health facilities
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega will inaugurate 15 public health facilities this week that were remodeled or built to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution. Perhaps most impressive among these medical facilities is the new Solidarity Hospital in Managua. It is considered one of the most modern medical facilities in Latin America with cutting edge technologies. Solidarity Hospital will have 240 beds and is expected to serve some 100,000 Managuans with its specialties in surgery, pediatrics, internal medicine, gynecology, urology, orthopedics and intensive care.
General hospitals will also be dedicated in El Sauce (in the Department of Leon), San Juan del Rio Coco (in Madriz), Muelle de los Bueyes (in the RAAS), in Tipitapa and in Managua. The ophthalmology center of Matagalpa will become part of Operation Miracle (a program run by Cuban doctors who perform eye surgery for needy patients), joining similar institutions in Ciudad Sandino, Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas.
These works are products of the effort of the Sandinista government over the last three years to improve the health of the population. The government has said that health care is a fundamental right of all Nicaraguans, and that it is the responsibility of the government to provide quality health services. (Radio La Primerisima, July 14)
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HONDURAS: OAS to vote on July 30 whether to readmit Honduras to organization--MEETING CANCELLED: Report by the OAS July 29, 2010 www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/AGSC00258-ING.doc
General/doc.1/10 Assembly
July 29, 2010
Original: Spanish
REPORT OF THE HIGH-LEVEL COMMITTEE OF THE OAS ON THE SITUATION IN HONDURAS
In pursuance of resolution AG / RES. 2531 (XL-O/10)
REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON HIGH LEVEL THE SITUATION IN HONDURAS ESTABLISHMENT AND ACTIVITIES
1 .- On June 8, 2010, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) adopted a Resolution on the Situation in Honduras [AG / Res. 2531 (XL-O/10)], through which he determined: a) The formation of a high-level commission whose members are appointed by the Secretary General to analyze the situation referred to in resolution AG / RES. 1 (XXXVII-E/09) and b) The High Level Commission shall, not later than July 30, 2010, its recommendations to the General Assembly. [See Annex 1]
2 .- In pursuance of the decision by the General Assembly on 17 June, the Secretary General appointed a High Level Commission composed of representatives of two South American countries, two of Central America, one of CARICOM and two North American . With the later addition of three other countries and an open invitation to other Central American countries, the Commission was composed of the OAS Permanent Representatives of the following countries: Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, United States, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Dominican Republic.
3 .- At the time, the Commission made the that are described below:
3.1. Heard the representative of the Government of Honduras, Mr. Arturo Corrales, Minister of Planning, on 18 and 23 June, receiving the documentation is entered in the detailed annexes in the text this report.
3.2. Reviewed the legal opinion that gave the President of the Inter-American Juridical Committee, Mr. Guillermo Fernandez de Soto "personal capacity" and Secretary of Legal Affairs of the OAS, Mr. Jean Michel Arrighi, who traveled to Honduras from 25 to June 26 to gather information on site-with the relevant authorities - on the legal status of former President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales in the country.
3.3. Received the report of the Secretary General and Secretary for Political Affairs, Mr. Victor Rico on the meeting with former President Zelaya and his representatives, Mr. Jorge Arturo Reina and Mr. Rodolfo Pastor, in Santo Domingo on 1 and 2 July and the meeting with the President of Honduras, Mr. Porfirio Lobo Sosa, in Miami on July 5 as part of the work of the Commission.
3.4. He was the representative of former President Zelaya, Rodolfo Pastor, on July 7.
3.5-obtained the opinion of the President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Mr. Felipe González and the Executive Secretary of the IACHR, Mr. Santiago Canton, as well as the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, Ms. Catherine Botero, 16 July on the actions that the Government of Honduras should be undertaken to improve the situation in this crucial aspect. [See Annex 2]
3.6. Mr. Rodolfo Pastor sent on 12 July this Committee a document signed on behalf of former President Zelaya. [See Annex 3].
3.7. He was the representative of the Government of Honduras, Mr. Arturo Corrales, who gave the Commission more complete history of all court cases involving former President Zelaya. The release of this information was held on 13 July. [See Annex 4]
3.8. On 15 July, the Secretary General met with President of the Republic of Ecuador and President Pro Tempore of the UNASUR, Mr. Rafael Correa, to discuss the work of the High Level Commission. On 16 July the Secretary-General reported this to the Commission. At the meeting the Secretary General with President Rafael Correa, he raised his strong opposition to a possible return of Honduras to the OAS while staying a situation of impunity for the perpetrators of the coup, especially in regard to abuses human rights, noting that a solution that does not contemplate this point or at least a clear procedure to deal with it would not be acceptable to his government. The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Ecuador to the OAS subsequently handed a note. [See Annex 5]
3.9. On 21 July, the Secretary-General reported to the Commission for assistance, at the invitation of President of El Salvador, Mr. Mauricio Funes, the Special Summit of SICA held in San Salvador on 20 July. The Summit was attended by Heads of State and Government of Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Belize and the Dominican Republic Vice President. During the Summit, the Secretary made a presentation on the work undertaken by the High Commission. On the occasion of this meeting, the leaders signed a Special Declaration on Honduras that includes a request that "the states of the Organization of American States in the framework of the High Level Commission of the OAS, to expedite and resolve earliest possible return of Honduras within the OAS, while reiterating the call to the authorities of Honduras for the purpose of ensuring the full enjoyment of fundamental rights to all its citizens. "[See Annex 6].
3.10. The Commission received on 22 July the Human Rights Minister assisting the Government of Honduras, Mrs. Ana Pineda and the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights Attorney General of Honduras, Ms. Sandra Ponce, who reported extensively on their work and on current human rights situation in Honduras. They deliver two documents, including a summary of general information about allegations of human rights violations that the Public Ministry received after the coup and a report on the status of specific cases of violations of freedom of expression and human rights and corruption that took place during the de facto regime. [See Annex 7]
BACKGROUND
1 .- June 28, 2009 occurred a coup against the constitutional Government of Honduras and arbitrary detention and deportation of the Constitutional President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales was an unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order.
2 .- On June 28, 2009, the OAS Permanent Council adopted a resolution (CP / RES. 953) to condemn the coup and called for a special session of the General Assembly. On 30 June, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (AG / RES. 1 (XXXVII-E/09), invoking Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, condemning the coup and instruct the Secretary General, "along representatives of several countries, make diplomatic efforts aimed at restoring democracy and the rule of law, and the return of President Zelaya. "On July 4, the Secretary Insulza told the General Assembly on the consultations carried out in Honduras. In Accordingly and in compliance with Article 21 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the General Assembly adopted a resolution (AG / RES. 2 (XXXVII-E/09) to "suspend to Honduras from exercising their right of participation in the OAS" and "instruct the Secretary General, along with representatives from several countries duly appointed, to intensify all diplomatic and other initiatives to promote the restoration of President Zelaya."
3 .- The November 29, 2009 general elections were held in Honduras. According to official data from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, participation reached 50% and the winner was the National Party's presidential candidate, Porfirio Lobo, with 53% of the vote, the Liberal Party candidate, Elvin Santos, was 35%. In Congress, composed of 128 deputies, the National Party won 71 seats (55 in the previous legislature) lie that the Liberal Party took 45 (62 in the previous legislature). The other 13 members are divided among the three minority parties: Innovation and Unity Party (3) Democratic Unification Party (4) and Christian Democrats (5).
4.President Lobo took office on January 27, 2010 and immediately passed the amnesty covering political and common crimes related to those involved in the events of June 28, 2009. At the same ceremony announced the formation of a government of national unity and reconciliation with the participation of three former presidential candidates from five political parties registered in the country legally, who participated in the general election in November 2009 and figures for sectors not had supported his candidacy for the Presidency or who had rejected the coup. No representatives of former President Zelaya, since they refused to attend, but part of the cabinet before a person linked to the resistance, Mr. Cesar Ham, president of the Democratic Unification Party, the current Minister Director of the National Agrarian Institute.
5 .- At the same time the Board of the National Congress was formed with the participation of opposition MPs in positions of Vice, including a representative of the Democratic Unification Party, National Front member of the Popular Resistance.
6 .- The same day, January 27 President Lobo gave a pass to former President Zelaya so he could leave the Embassy of Brazil, where he was from the September 21, 2009, and in the company of President Leonel Fernandez, accompanied him to airport where he boarded a plane that flew him to the Dominican Republic.
7 .- June 30, 2010, judges of first instance void left Tegucigalpa trials they considered covered by the amnesty decree.
8 .- The Commission of Truth and Reconciliation was formally installed on May 4, chaired by former Vice President of Guatemala, Eduardo Stein and including the former Minister of Justice of Peru and former Permanent Representative of Peru to the OAS, Ambassador María Zavala, the Canadian Ambassador Michael Kergin, the Rector of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras, Ms. Julieta Castellanos and former Rector of the University, Mr. Jorge Omar Casco, all persons of national and international prestige and proven track record [see Annex 8]. The Commission's objective is to clarify what happened before and after June 28, 2009, in order to identify actions that led to a crisis situation and provide recommendations to prevent a recurrence of this situation in the future.
9 .- In relation to information supplied by representatives of the Government of Honduras in the field of human rights, particularly by the Minister Advisor on Human Rights and the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights of the Public Ministry, highlighted the cases of violations freedom of expression, as the closure of newspapers that opposed the coup d'etat (eg, Radio Progreso and Channel 36). [See Annex 9]. As regards corruption cases during the de facto regime, highlighting the case of irregular approval of the concession contract of the Hydroelectric José Cecilio del Valle to the Utility Nacaome, of Italian origin. This case came to light in February this year and prompted the current Congress to create a Special Commission to review the concession, which was approved by the previous Congress. [See Annex 10]
10 .- Notwithstanding the above, both the former President, as the National Resistance Liberal Party and sectors related to it are not considered participants in the current government, openly denounce their actions and even its legitimacy. [See Annex 11] In addition to this, some sectors still maintain that repression against the opposition, especially the resistance and the violation of human rights. They also question the appointment of members of the de facto regime and military officials of the current administration.
ANALYSIS
1 .- The Commission considered, first, the statements issued by countries before and during the session of the OAS General Assembly, determining address four key issues.
1.1-Conditions to make possible a return to former President Zelaya of Honduras and members of his government;
1.2 .- Incorporation of former President Zelaya Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), in his capacity as former Constitutional President of Honduras;
1.3 .- Situation of human rights in Honduras;
1.4-inclusive political dialogue to overcome the crisis of democracy in Honduras.
2 .- The Secretary General went to the Secretary for Political Affairs of the OAS, Mr. Victor Rico, to Santo Domingo in January and July 2 to hear the views of former President Zelaya on the matters outlined in the previous section. To this end, the Secretary-General suggested the former President Zelaya to join him and the two people who would be their representatives to the Commission, Mr. Jorge Arturo Reina and Rodolfo Pastor.
As a result of the meeting produced a bill with the points that former President Zelaya and his representatives wanted to see reflected in any resolution of the crisis: overcoming the present situation of former President Zelaya reaffirmation of the commitment of the State of Honduras to the promotion and protection of human rights mechanisms proposed to strengthen the fight against organized crime and impunity, the extension of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation; call by President Wolf broad dialogue and the establishment of a Commission OAS to monitor the situation in Honduras. [See Annex 12]
3 .- On 5 July, the Secretary General met with President Porfirio Lobo for their reaction to the matters set forth in the minutes. At that meeting, the Chairman Wolf stated the following views:
3.1 Location of former President Zelaya.
i. Trials. The Chairman Wolf presented the course, according to his information, were bringing the proceedings against former President Zelaya, most of which would be in the process of being dismissed under the amnesty. He referred, however, those lawsuits would not be possible to implement this law, under which dismissal involving allegations involve a violation of Article 17 of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, which is in force in Honduras.
ii .- Central American Parliament (PARLACEN). He agreed with the incorporation of former President Zelaya to that body, saying, however, this was not an issue that depended on him, but was the former President who had to apply for membership to PARLACEN Board to credit the appropriate agency. The latter information was confirmed on July 12 the Secretary General by the President of PARLACEN, Deputy Nicaraguan Jacinto Suarez.
iii .- safety device for former President Zelaya. Lobo President reaffirmed his commitment to provide security to former President Zelaya, by the State of Honduras, as the former President of the Republic.
3.2 Human Rights. The President reiterated his commitment to protecting and promoting human rights and agreed to implement the recommendations of the IACHR. He recalled that for this purpose appointed a Minister for Human Rights Advisory and extended an open invitation to the Inter-American System for Protection of Human Rights. It also welcomed the request for action to strengthen the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights of the Public Ministry and the Office of the Minister for Human Rights Advisor. He noted that in response to a request for cooperation to Spain, a Spanish judge would visit Honduras for the purpose of collaborating with the design of a comprehensive human rights policy. The visit of a Spanish judge took shape a few days later. [See Annex 13].
3.3 Dialogue. The President expressed his willingness to resume dialogue on both political issues and on public safety issues, seeking the support of the OAS in this regard.
3.4 Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. The Chairman expressed his reluctance to reopen the decree on the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation given the situation of the country and also noted that the Commission was autonomous in its decisions and that any changes that might alter its composition should be from herself.
3.5 Support of the OAS. The President agreed to create an accompanying mechanism, noting even his willingness to apply.
4 .- With respect to trials in which the former President Zelaya is accused, the Committee was informed that Congress issued an amnesty decree on January 27, 2010 [see Annex 14]. The Commission was informed that the Public Ministry, through the Attorney-General's Office issued a statement on June 29, 2010 in which it reported the file of records covered by the amnesty decree and recognizes the right of judges to apply this decree in cases brought to its attention. [See Annex 15]. For its part, the judges of first instance void left Tegucigalpa these trials on June 30, 2010. There are still open trials in two cases in which former President Zelaya is accused, referring to the alleged misuse of resources from the Honduran Social Investment Fund (FHIS). [See Annex 4]
5 .- According to the information provided, there are two processes related to funds transfers made in 2008 for advertising expenses of the Presidency of the Republic, which began just days after the coup against former President, his Ministers the Presidency and Finance and other officials. In these processes the amnesty applied only in part, on the grounds that they include acts of alleged corruption, which would be incompatible with the accession of Honduras to the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (Article 17).
6.-During the meeting held on 7 July, the Commission discussed with Mr. Rodolfo Pastor about the possibility of appointing a legal representative, the representative of President Zelaya rejected that possibility, because it would mean recognizing the legitimacy of courts of justice have been perpetrators of the coup. This view was later confirmed by former President himself, in telephone conversations with the Secretary-General, stating that it is willing to "get in the hands of their executioners" and recalling that these processes were opened in the days after the coup, just to legitimize that action. According to former President Zelaya, the Prosecutor and the judges who issued the resolutions are the ones who should be revoked.
7.-Following alternatives were considered, including the possibility that, through an attorney appointed by former President Zelaya or by a public defender (whose designation was not challenged by former President Zelaya), was seeking invalidation of these processes, or to consider a moratorium on such cases, or any trial related to events after June 28th until the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission delivered its report.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
According to the above, the Commission proposes the following points as a basis for the General Assembly to adopt the resolutions it deems pertinent concerning the status of Honduras:
1 .- The Commission considers it appropriate to end lawsuits over the de facto regime against former President Zelaya and his associates, under the laws of Honduras. In reaching this recommendation, the Commission considered that although the two processes that are pending against former President Zelaya correspond to events with much prior to the coup, these processes and actions of the Prosecutor's Office were recently formalized after former President Zelaya was overthrown by his duties as president of the country, while allegations made against such as treason, abuse of authority and others, in the midst of negative political climate that followed the coup state. It is clear that the time when trials are living a situation of constitutional breakdown which can not be ignored. Therefore, these allegations are perceived as politically motivated.
2 .- The Commission emphasizes the readiness of President Porfirio Lobo to give the former President Zelaya protection they are entitled to the former Presidents of the Republic in Honduras and recommends that it be implemented once the former President Zelaya return home.
3 .- It is recommended that former President Zelaya request the Board of PARLACEN joining the agency. The Commission considers that the incorporation of former President Zelaya recognize its character as Constitutional President of the Republic of Honduras prior to President Porfirio Lobo.
4 .- The Commission considers that the cooperation extended by the Government of Honduras for the IACHR's visit last May, the communications sent by the President Lobo the Secretary General on this matter, the subsequent action informed by the Minister Advisory Human Rights and the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights and the presence of an external consultant to investigate crimes against journalists and human rights defenders among others, are positive steps. At the same time, the Commission recognizes the need for concrete action to comply with recommendations of the IACHR, in particular the following:
a) The steady progress in the investigations to clarify the murder of several people, including journalists and defenders of human rights.
b) The adoption of measures to put an end to threats and harassment against human rights defenders, journalists, social communicators, teachers and members of the People's National Front, the judges who participated in activities against the coup and effectively implement enforcement mechanisms ordered interim measures to protect the lives and safety of many people who are at risk. The Commission received a communication from the Human Rights Advisory Minister advising that the Ministry of Security has created the Human Rights Unit to support the work of the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights.
c) Provide the Interinstitutional Commission on Human Rights in Honduras appropriate staff and resources in order to respond efficiently to the defense of human rights of Hondurans and precautionary measures by the IACHR. The Commission has seen the letter from the Minister for Human Rights Adviser in which reports on the decision taken by his Government for the creation of a Ministry of Justice and Human Rights.
d) An end to impunity for human rights violations, including those verified by the IACHR and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN. The Commission met for the establishment of the Research Unit for Human Rights Violations in the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights to support research in this area.
e) Effective support to the work of the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights and the Office of the Minister Advisor on Human Rights. The Commission appreciates the work done both institutions, despite the precarious financial and human resources. Considers that this work can have a significant impact on the validity of human rights, if they allocate the resources necessary to perform an effective job of monitoring, protection and transformation of the state towards a culture of promoting and protecting human rights. The Commission met with satisfaction the proposals of the Honduran Government to allocate resources to these bodies and supported its early implementation. Also met requests for cooperation made to the governments of Colombia and the United States to investigate human rights violations.
5 .- The Commission considers that the work of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation should have the full support and collaboration of all sectors of Honduran society to determine what happened on June 28, 2009. The Committee notes with satisfaction the readiness of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine the issues of human rights violations in the context of the coup.
6 .- The Committee notes the willingness of President Wolf to convene a national dialogue among all political sectors in which to discuss issues of interest to all parties, with the aim of achieving reconciliation in society Honduras. For this it is necessary to avoid any impediment or hostility towards them, especially to opponents of the current government, whose security and protection must be guaranteed by the authority.
July .- The Commission presents this report to the General Assembly for consideration for it, in accordance with the Charter of the OAS and the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to adopt the decisions it considers appropriate in relation to the situation in Honduras.
ANNEXES
Annex 1. General Assembly Resolution Lima
Annex 2 - Report of the IACHR's visit to Honduras in May and release in June 2010
Annex 3 - Report of former President Zelaya on the situation in Honduras
Annex 4 - Status of trial
Appendix 5 - Note Verbale from the Permanent Mission of Ecuador to the OAS
Annex 6 - Honduras Special Declaration on the leaders who attended the Extraordinary Summit of SICA held in San Salvador on July 20, 2010
Annex 7 - Letter from Human Rights Minister assisting the Government of Honduras
Annex 8 - Ordinance establishing the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its members' biographical profiles
Annex 9 - Overview provided by the Human Rights Minister assisting the Government of Honduras and the Special Prosecutor for Human Rights in Honduras prosecutors on cases of human rights violations during the de facto regime.
Annex 10-Information provided by the present Government of Honduras on specific cases of violations of human rights, freedom of expression and corruption during the de facto regime.
Annex 11 - Statement by the National Resistance Front and the Liberal People in Resistance
Annex 12 - Minutes of Santo Domingo
Annex 13 - Letters from President Wolf on the actions of his administration
Annex 14 - Amnesty Decree
Annex 15-Statement by prosecutor
Annex 1 - Resolution of the OAS General Assembly
AG / RES. 2531 (XL-O/10)
RESOLUTION ON THE SITUATION IN HONDURAS
(Adopted at the fourth plenary session held on June 8, 2010)
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
WHEREAS:
That the situation in Honduras is of interest to all member countries;
It is necessary that member countries have more information about the current state of the Honduran political process,
RESOLVED:
1. Form a high-level commission whose members are appointed by the Secretary General to analyze the developments referred to the resolution AG/RES.1 (XXXVII-E/09).
2. The High Level Commission shall, not later than July 30, 2010, its recommendations to the General Assembly.
Annex 2 - Press the IACHR
PRESS RELEASE
No. 59/10
IACHR PUBLIC COMMENTS ON FOLLOW-UP VISIT TO HONDURAS
Washington, DC, June 7, 2010 - The Inter-American Human Rights Commission today released its Preliminary Observations on the visit to Honduras from 15 to May 18, 2010, in order to monitor the site visit completed in August 2009 and the Report Honduras: Human Rights coup.
During the visit in May 2010, the Commission found continuing violations of human rights in the context of the coup. The IACHR received information on the murder of several people, including journalists and defenders of human rights. Likewise, advocates and human rights defenders, journalists, social communicators, teachers, trade unionists and members of the Resistance are subjected to threats and harassment.
The IACHR considers that the complaints received could respond to the same pattern of violence arising in the context of the coup. The killings, threats and harassment do not have the necessary research to clarify whether or not related to the context of the coup.
In this regard, the Commission noted that continued impunity for human rights violations, both verified in the report of the IACHR and the Report of March 3, 2010 of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights UN human. The Committee was informed that only one person is deprived of liberty for human rights violations, while 12 others have been charged but the processes do not advance, among other things, the lack of investigation of state bodies, in particular the security forces responsible for conducting investigations.
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Mexico renews diplomatic ties with Honduras (Newkerala)
www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-11645.html
Mexico City, Aug 1 : The Mexican government has said that its ambassador to Tegucigalpa will return to Honduras next week, as it wants to renew diplomatic ties with the Central American nation.
Chile to return ambassador to Honduras, recognize new government a year after coup (The CW Washington, WDCW-TV)
www.dc50tv.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-chile-honduras-coup,0,3703897.story
Chile is formally recognizing the government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo a year after a coup ousted his predecessor.
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Rights Action
HONDURAS: US Can't Pressure OAS to Re-Admit Post-Coup Honduran Regime
July 30, 2010
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HONDURAS: The US Can't Get the OAS to Recognize Honduras
"... the OAS is reflecting the power struggle between South America and the indivisible US-Canada block."
BELOW: An article, by Annie Bird, about the political struggle inside the OAS concerning the re-admission of the post-military coup regime in Honduras. The chance of democracy and rule of law in Honduras, and across the Americas, hang in the balance.
HOW TO SUPPORT Honduras's amazing anti-coup, pro-democracy and pro-refounding the State and society movement: see below
QUESTIONS, COMMENTS, MORE INFORMATION: Annie Bird, annie@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
* * * * * * *
SERIAL COUPS RELATED TO HONDURAS, BUT ...
THE UNITED STATES STILL CAN'T GET THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES TO RECOGNIZE HONDURAS
By Annie Bird, Rights Action co-director, annie@rightsaction.org, www.rightsaction.org
The OAS, SICA, UNASUR, WB, IDB... the acronyms are dizzying, but one thing is clear, if the US can't force its agenda through international bodies by legal means, then breaking the rules - violating democracy and the rule of law - does not seem to be a problem for the US and its allies.
The problem for the US is that many nations in Latin America will no longer accept coups. Honduras' resistance is setting an extremely important precedent.
JULY 30 OAS MEETING ON HONDURAS CANCELED
During the June 6-8, 2010 annual meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), the US voiced strong support for lifting the suspension of Honduras from the OAS, put into effect following the June 28, 2009 oligarchic-military coup.
Unable to get the issue on the agenda at that meeting, the US backed an initiative to have the OAS General Secretary Jose Insulza author a report on Honduras and submit it on July 30 to the Permanent Council. Since his re-election as Secretary General early this year, Insulza's actions on Honduras have become very closely aligned to that of the US.
It was expected that in a July 30 meeting the OAS would decide whether or not to lift Honduras' suspension. However, the negotiations and lobbying Insulza undertook under the guise of compiling a report did not result in agreements between the coup government and the ousted president Zelaya, and did not generate enough support to lift Honduras' suspension. So, the July 30 meeting has been canceled.
Though OAS articles and decision making procedures could allow the suspension to be lifted with 2/3 of the member nations voting in favor, the OAS has a strong history of operating by consensus. Even the controversial June 2009 resolution to lift the suspension of Cuba was done by a unanimous decision of OAS members.
However, Honduran press reports claimed that the reintegration of Honduras would be done through a majority voting process, breaking with longstanding, essentially common law, tradition. Though Insulza assured Zelaya representatives that any decision on Honduras would be done by consensus, conflicting reports in Honduran press caused concern.
WARNING: COUPS ARE HABIT FORMING - ONE COUP LEADS TO ANOTHER, AND ANOTHER, ...
Had a vote been forced in the OAS, it would essentially have been a quasi coup against a longstanding principal in international law, but recent actions in other multilateral bodies lead one to fear it may have been in the works.
In the days after the June 28, 2009 coup, the OAS suspended Honduras, as did the System for Central American Integration, SICA. The World Bank, WB, and Inter American Development, IDB, put a "hold" on funding disbursements and signing of new loans, though apparently some funds were quietly released. The United Nations passed a resolution calling on member nations to not recognize Honduras.
Following the still not internationally recognized coup government sponsored elections in November 2009, the WB and IDB formally reestablished normal funding of Honduras in July, although the mandate of the IDB specifically stipulates funding is for members of the OAS.
The IDB's violation of its own charter is, in its way, a coup.
Though Central American nations are clearly subject to tremendous US pressure, SICA resisted readmitting Honduras. SICA's bylaws stipulate that such decisions must be made in unanimity. Since Nicaragua steadfastly refused to recognize the Lobo government, SICA could not readmit Honduras during the June 29, 2010 regular meetings.
El Salvadoran president Sergio Funes then convoked an extraordinary session for July 20, 2010 to specifically address readmission of Honduras. Insulza was present during the SICA meeting, readmission to SICA was seen as a prerequisite to readmission to the OAS.
Though Nicaragua did not attend the meeting, the remaining SICA presidents issued the decision to readmit Honduras, a violation of SICA's mandate, and yet another coup.
WHY WAS THE JULY 30 MEETING CANCELED?
There are many possible reasons for canceling the July 30 OAS meeting. The commission headed by Insulza may have determined that conditions simply do not exist to readmit Honduras. OAS member nations that favored readmission may not ever have been willing to force a vote, breaking with the consensus tradition.
Even if forcing a vote had been considered, the possibility of losing the vote may have been too strong to make such a dramatic break with tradition politically viable. Twelve votes were needed to block readmission, even with just a few of the many wavering nations voting against lifting the suspension along with the nine countries firmly opposed, the vote would have been lost.
Strong voices were heard in the OAS missions in the days leading up to the proposed meeting. Letters rejecting readmission of Honduras were sent by Honduran and international human rights organizations to Permanent Council missions, and the FMLN political party prohibited President Mauricio Funes from voting to lift the suspension.
Another possibility is that initially a block of nations may have intended to force a vote, breaking with tradition, but such an action following the polarization that happened after Colombia called an emergency meeting to accuse Venezuela of providing refuge to the FARC and resulting in an emergency session of the Union of South American Nations, UNASUR in Ecuador could have placed in danger the OAS as an institution.
THE OAS NO LONGER A PUPPET SHOW?
Over the fifty-one years of OAS existence, its halls, between the Mall and the White House, have welcomed uncountable representatives of military governments in their many forms. It seems the only criteria for participation were agreement with US interests; the only member ever previously suspended had been Cuba.
Dominance by the US in the OAS plays out not by its voting power. In contrast to the WB and the IDB, where voting power is determined by how much money each member state contributes, the OAS gives one vote to each member state, no matter how large or small.
US sway in the OAS is a reflection of how much the US can directly influence the policies of OAS members. So as South American nations have voted in progressive governments which have stood up to the US economic agenda, the OAS is reflecting the power struggle between South America and the indivisible US-Canada block.
Many of the countries expected to side with the US over readmission of Honduras are small Caribbean nations with populations under a million people, or Central American nations still undermined by ongoing and historical massive violence.
The coup in Honduras is driving a wedge between North and South America, especially when coupled with other deep divides, such as the formal accusations by Colombia that Venezuela is providing safe haven for the FARC.
As these very real and even violent divisions are being played out in diplomatic forums like the traditionally US dominated OAS, the newly formed UNASUR and SICA, it seems as though the Americas are moving into a new chapter in history.
Will the US maintain (or regain) political, military and economic dominance in the region? What means is the US willing to employ to do that, and what will it cost us, Americans in the broad use of the word, in lives, atrocities and enforced poverty?
If the US government is going to support a return to the military governments and terror that devastated Latin America form the 1960s to 1980s (and continues in Colombia) it becomes ever more urgent to take a cold hard look at what the National Security Doctrine did to Latin America.
* * * * * * *
WHAT TO DO
FUNDS ARE NEEDED: Since the coup, June 28, 2009, Rights Action has sent over $100,000 to community based Honduran organizations doing a range of work: poverty eradication and community development education and organizing; human rights defense and promotion; media (radio, publications and internet); human rights accompaniment; reporting; emergency support for victims or repression and human rights violations; transportation; communication (phone, internet); camera work (film and still); travel to forums and negotiations; etc.
TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS
To support the Honduras pro-community development, pro-democracy, anti-military coup movement, make check payable to "Rights Action" and mail to:
UNITED STATES: Box 50887, Washington DC, 20091-0887
CANADA: 552 - 351 Queen St. E, Toronto ON, M5A0in8
CREDIT-CARD DONATIONS: http://rightsaction.org/contributions.htm
* * *
JOIN our listserv. Click: http://www.rightsaction.org
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CREATE YOUR OWN email and mail lists and re-distribute our information
RECOMMENDED DAILY NEWS: www.democracynow.org / www.upsidedownworld.org / www.dominionpaper.ca
RECOMMENDED BOOKS: Eduardo Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America"; Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"; Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine"; Paolo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"; Dr Seuss's "Horton Hears A Who"
EDUCATION IN YOUR HOME COMMUNITY: Contact us to plan educational presentations in your own community, school, place of worship, home (info@rightsaction.org)
EDUCATIONAL DELEGATIONS TO CENTRAL AMERICA: Form your own group or join one of our delegations to learn first hand about community development, human rights and environmental struggles (info@rightsaction.org)
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Insulza lobbies the OAS and SICA to readmit Honduras
(www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=674:insulza-lobbies-the-oas-and-sica-to-readmit-honduras-&catid=101:news&Itemid=349)
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Statement by the National Popular Resistance Front to the OAS
The OAS (Organization of American States) will meet for its General Assembly on Friday, the 30th of July, as mandated by the Resolution agreed upon during its last Assembly in Lima, Peru, to address the Honduran crisis and decide whether conditions in the country allow for it to be readmitted to the Organization, from which it was expelled the 4th of July, 2009 as a result of the 28th of June coup that same year.
Through the Lima Resolution the member states instruct the Secretary General, Jose Miguel Insulza, to create a Special High- Level Commission in charge of visiting Honduras to diagnose if human rights, rule of law, and democratic-constitutional order have been fully reestablished by the Lobo Administration. The Commission will then inform the General Assembly about their findings and the General Assembly will make a decision whether to deny, postpone or allow readmission of the expelled member state. If the findings reveal that the conditions have improved, then the Assembly will probably decide to readmit Honduras, if they are not met, the readmission will be postponed until they are.
Conditions have clearly not improved in Honduras, where repression, persecution and systematic human rights abuses against Resistance leaders, popular movement leaders, journalists, judges, human rights activists, independent media, or anyone critical of the coup, have been documented by several independent and international human rights organizations and the OAS Inter American Human Rights Commission has made it clear through its many reports. During Lobo´s administration, more than 10 journalists have been assassinated, as have many more members of the Resistance.
But the OAS Secretary General has turned a blind eye to this reality and has been pushing, with the help of the U.S. and regional allies, for a rushed readmission of Honduras. Furthermore the Lima Resolution has been ignored and the Special High Level Commission has not visited Honduras, where its findings would obviously discourage any prompt readmission.
Furthermore, during the 20th of July, 2010 SICA Presidential Summit in San Salvador, the Presidents of Central America, with the exception of President Ortega of Nicaragua, readmitted Honduras to the sub-regional organization (against its own rules, which specify the decision must be unanimous) and cynically praised Mr. Lobo’s success in restoring democracy, the rule of law and safeguarding human rights, even if repression, violence and human rights abuses are still being documented.
Confronted by this imminent and false imposition, that would greatly damage our struggle by whitewashing the coup and strengthening the coup-monger´s regime and impunity, The National Popular Resistance Front demands:
1) That the Lima Resolution’s mandate be fully met by Secretary General Insulza, by organizing an exploratory visit of the Special High Level Commission to Honduras that should then report its findings to the General Assembly before any further decision on Honduras is made.
2) That the OAS takes the National Popular Resistance Front and its position into account before readmitting Honduras.
3) That the OAS acknowledges the ongoing human rights abuses and systematic repression and persecution that our people are subjected to in Honduras, as reports of IAHC, UN and several other human rights organizations have documented.
4) That the OAS helps to dismantle the coup-monger’s total control of Honduran institutions and acknowledges that Honduras is still controlled by the same people who organized and held the coup.
5) That the OAS acknowledge that the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, the Ombudsman and the majority of the judicial and executive branches of government are still controlled by the coup-mongers and should be fully reformed.
6) That the OAS ensures that Ex President Zelaya, who has been appointed as Coordinator of the FNRP and is still in exile may return safely and with full rights.
7) That the OAS ensures that persecution against the Resistance members, judges critical of the coup and the former members of Ex President Zelaya’s cabinet stops immediately.
8) That the OAS acknowledges that Mr. Lobo has himself declared that a coup took place on the 28th of June, 2009 and thus the only way to reestablish constitutional democracy in Honduras is through a National Constitutional Assembly.
9) That the OAS supports the return of democracy and safeguards human rights in Honduras, fighting the current state of impunity and absence of justice and holding the coup-mongers accountable for their crimes against our people.
The National Popular Resistance Front thus affirms:
A) That we do not recognize Mr. Lobo as our President, the campaign and election process through which he was elected are not valid or legitimate since they were organized by the de facto regime and under their repression and censorship, that they were thus not free or fair, there were no legitimate international observers (OAS, UN, EU) and a majority of the population abstained.
B) That we demand the creation of a National Constitutional Assembly to return our country to constitutional-democratic order.
C) That we do not recognize Mr. Lobo’s unilateral appointment of a Truth Commission and we only recognize the True Commission organized by the Human Rights Platform.
D) That there is no reconciliation or unity government and that the military is in full control of strategic posts as are the coup-mongers.
E) That Mr. Lobo’s representative to the OAS negotiations is the same person who represented the de Facto dictator Roberto Michelleti, Mr. Arturo Corrales.
F) We denounce and condemn the manipulation of information that has been pressuring for a prompt readmission of Honduras without conditions being met.
G) That we are being persecuted and repressed by the Lobo regime.
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COSTA RICA: US TO SEND 7,000 TROUPS AND 46 WAR SHIPS
*Costa Rican Supreme Court Temporarily Halts Entry of US Military*
*By Jamie Way, Communications Coordinator*
*Alliance for Global Justice*
* *
*July 27, 2010*
* *
The Costa Rican Supreme Court last week agreed to take a case challenging
the constitutionality of a US-Costa Rican agreement that would allow for a
massive US military presence. The agreement cannot go into effect until the
Supreme Court rules, thus postponing the arrival of US forces.
On July 1, Costa Rica’s unicameral Legislative Assembly, with 31 votes out
of 57, approved the US Embassy’s request to open the country to 46 US
warships, 7,000 US soldiers, 200 helicopters and two aircraft carriers. This
permission was granted through at least Dec. 31 of this year, officially
justified by the necessity of fighting drug-traffickers, providing
humanitarian services and providing a place for US ships to dock and refuel.
While most reports have put a Dec. 31 expiration date on the agreement, the
Nicaraguan media last week reported that Costa Rican Foreign Minister Rene
Castro, in a meeting with Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos, said
that the agreement is for five years.
Prior Joint Patrol bilateral agreements between the countries allowed only
US Coast Guard presence with Costa Rican law enforcement aboard. The US
Coast Guard was permitted to follow vessels into Costa Rican waters while in
pursuit and awaiting Costa Rican officials. Thus, the new agreement
represents a substantial increase in the allowance of US military presence
in Costa Rica, a country that abolished its army in 1948 and has a policy of
neutrality.
The legislature’s approval of the bilateral agreement has not gone
unchallenged. A substantial legislative opposition has formed, including
representatives from the Broad Front, Citizen Action Party and the United
Social Christian Parties. The opposition has challenged the
constitutionality of the agreement, citing Article 12 of the Costa Rican
constitution. Article 12 restricts the reasons that military forces may form
and states that they must always remain under Costa Rican civilian control.
Last week, the Costa Rican Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. This is
encouraging news for the opposition regardless of the outcome, because the
agreement cannot go into effect until the Court issues a ruling on the
constitutional question. There is no indication about when the Court may
issue a ruling.
Civil society as well is organizing to oppose the US military presence in
its waters and on its soil. Distrust of US motives is widespread in light of
the tacit US government support for the Honduran coup, the agreement with
Colombia to use seven bases there, and tensions between Colombia and
Venezuela in which Venezuelan forces are on high alert in preparation for a
possible attack from Colombia. Costa Ricans have reacted by holding forums
and protests. Student groups as young as high school have started to form in
opposition to the US military presence. Some have created Facebook pages and
posted YouTube messages representing civil society’s desire for a peaceful
and sovereign nation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSVP5bdf4ug
While Costa Rican officials and civil society have proven themselves to be a
formidable force in opposition to the spread of US militarism, it is vital
that we in the United States make our voices heard in support of our Costa
Rican sisters and brothers. The Alliance for Global Justice is urging all
people of goodwill to contact their member of Congress. Ask your member what
justifies such a huge military presence in a country that has been
demilitarized for over 60 years. Say that the size of the US military
presence seems all out of proportion with the claim that it is to help Costa
Rica interdict drug trafficking. Advise your member of Congress that at a
time of record deficit spending and unemployment, the government should not
be spending millions of taxpayer dollars further militarizing Latin America
and contributing to rising tensions in the region. The Congressional
Switchboard is 202-224-3121.
=================================
THE STATEMENT IS INCLUDED -- scroll down
Call to Action: United for Peace & Justice encourages UFPJ Member Groups and other organizations to individually endorse this declaration and communicate it to Hendrik Voss, School of the Americas Watch, hvoss@soaw.org To support endorsement, we encourage that issue information and calls to action be forwarded to member group constituencies.
==================
Call Congress Today!
Despite the fact that Costa Rica is widely regarded as a pacifist nation due to its decision not to have its own military forces, the country controversially granted the US permission to send 7,000 troops and 46 warships (along with their accompanying airplanes and helicopters) to Costa Rica through the end of the year. Officially, the act is considered part of the US led "Drug War" (which is increasingly war-like in nature). Costa Rica's neighbors, however, see the massive military presence as a potential base for regional strikes. Internally, many Costa Ricans are questioning the military presence and its impact on the nation's sovereignty. One party has even brought forth a claim questioning the constitutionality of such an act.
Due to the US's history of intervention in Latin America (perhaps most notably in neighboring Nicaragua), the region is clearly justified in its concern for the disproportionate and virtual invasion of troops into an area that provides such a logistical and geographic striking point. They deserve an explanation and we, as US taxpayers have the right to know why our money is being spent on further militarizing Latin America rather than on the jobs, schools, and healthcare urgently needed in our own country!
But the US has responded, as usual, by disregarding the concerns. According to a TicoTimes article
(http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103554307572&s=6716&e=001lQmcCZ8IzMrYYGaEIei5RAhK2lbtTnWPaHx3RUF_k9qaqbBNG0l8_eyRZ4beQ4hf4e51tOE4E7jRlET_TACrbq6p8cpTcsCe9BT7qoZG0398_n7-3afgY4XN0-wOBZEKqXpwGSiy80N0YiIsbIB3znU3UQKIgrgn)
----------------------------
Yanquis respond to calls to ‘go home'
By Chrissie Long
Tico Times Staff | clong@ticotimes.net
What seemed like normal protocol – seeking the approval of the Costa Rican Legislative Assembly for another group of Marines, with their support ships and planes, to monitor the country's coastline for signs of drug traffickers – erupted into protests and angry comments as some Costa Ricans complained that their country's sovereignty was being trampled upon.
The response caught the U.S. Embassy, which was amid its Independence Day celebration, by surprise.
“We are not sure why there is this uproar,” U.S. Ambassador Anne S. Andrew said, explaining that the request is the same one that has been submitted each year for the last 10 years under a bilateral agreement between the two countries. And the timing seemed rather odd, she added.
Costa Ricans will be the first to tell you that their once-peaceful country is suffering a problem of national security. A recently released study by polling company Unimer showed that Costa Ricans' greatest fears involve issues relating to security and crime. And few disagree the problem has arrived mostly from the outside, much of it on the backs of drug-smuggling cartels that have found room to maneuver along Costa Rica's lightly protected coastlines and borders.
“This (protest) seems to arise at a point where there is no question that there is a serious security challenge ahead for Costa Rica,” Andrew said. “In the last 10 years, the efforts of Costa Rica and the United States under the Joint Maritime Agreement have been responsible for the interception of 115,000 kilograms of cocaine and $24 million in laundered money off the coast of Costa Rica.”
For more on this story, see the July 9 print or digital edition of The Tico Times.
------------------------------------
"'We are not sure why there is this uproar,' U.S. Ambassador Anne S. Andrew said, explaining that the request is the same one that has been submitted each year for the last 10 years under a bilateral agreement between the two countries." Past agreements, however, appear to only grant US vessels permission to enter the area in pursuit and, to our knowledge, do not seem to have mentioned troop or warship presence.
--------------------
Please support Costa Ricans in defending their sovereignty and to maintain peace in the region by refusing US military presence! Contact your Member of Congress today,
(http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103554307572&s=6716&=001lQmcCZ8IzMol4K37uADI8vdS440CAvz6fcTPmzk6frOfyAtl7j3r_pJ_zmF60bebsuXT7wMrm-W48yH3kI0mS2uJ5QELXAZVPmjl2JUDGQbICaGKmbvXXUszHqKGiuqJ)and
demand the following:
I am very concerned about the increased US military presence in Costa Rica. I demand to know why my tax dollars are being spent on such a disproportionate show of force in response to drug trafficking, when that money could easily be redirected toward much needed treatment, job creation and social welfare programs at home. How much of our tax money is being sent on the deployment on 7,000 troops and 46 warships?
The region, that has suffered so greatly at the hand of US intervention, deserves a true explanation as to why we are sending such a huge military strike force. This military occupation must end immediately. Please report back to me the expected cost to the taxpayers of this misguided venture.
Sincerely,
Your Name
==========================================
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One Year After Coup, Honduras Still in Crisis; Is the US Enabling?
One Year After Coup, Honduras Still in Crisis; Is the US Enabling?
A year after a military coup toppled the democratically-elected government, a "horrifying" human rights crisis continues amidst economic and environmental decay. Is the U.S. enabling this repression with taxpayer dollars?
One year ago last week, on June 28, 2009, the Honduran special forces - led by U.S.-trained officers, wearing U.S.-issue uniforms and armed with U.S.-made M16s - attacked the home of president Manuel Zelaya, kidnapped him in his pajamas, and after a quick stop at the local U.S. airbase, flew him off to Costa Rica in exile. Honduras hasn't been the same since.
"[It's] a totally different country since the coup," says Dr. Adrienne Pine, a Central American expert at American University in Washington, D.C. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Pine, who was in the capital of Tegucigalpa as an international observer last week, described conditions in the new Honduras as being "horrifying."
"We've now reached a point where it's like we've returned to the 1980's, when death squads killed several hundred people and effectively ended the Leftist movement in Honduras at the time," says Pine, who spent Monday marching with about 200,000 pro-democracy demonstrators in the capital. She believes a heavy presence of foreign observers and reporters was the only reason the police and soldiers, who shadowed the marchers at all times, did not attack as they have in the past. "What we're seeing now is that they're using the same repressive strategies [as in the '80's]," she says. "Even the same people are in charge."
Many experts, including Pine, also believe that the tens of millions of dollars Honduras receives in military and security funding from the U.S. each year is furthering the crisis.
The State Department has publicly denied these charges, but the criticism continues.
"The U.S. is complicit in a number of ways," says Pine. "Most definitely by its silence. And the fact that the [we've] refused . . . to acknowledge the human rights violations, and the targeted assassinations."
On August 31, 2009, members of the pro-democracy Popular Front of the National Resistance (FNRP) dismantle an election billboard for controversial Honduran president Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo.
Roots of the Crisis
International human rights organizations have documented that more than 50 members of the pacifist Popular Front of the National Resistance (FNRP) - a broad, grass roots coalition that arose in response to the coup - have been assassinated by police, soldiers, and paramilitary forces since the coup. Hundreds more have been beaten, and thousands detained illegally, as troops regularly attacked peaceful assemblies with tear gas, rubber bullets, and even live rounds.
Recently, FNRP organizers and their families have been increasingly targeted in mysterious, execution-style slayings. Twenty-four such killings have come in the five months since the inauguration of controversial President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo, who also supported the coup, and came to power during a heavily-militarized election that saw more than half the Honduran electorate abstain due to concerns about corruption.
Nine journalists have also fallen prey to the death squads under Lobo's watch, prompting Reporters Without Borders to label Honduras as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. At least five FNRP members were assassinated in June alone; the victims including trade union leaders, farmers, and a teacher.
But despite the alarming reports coming out of Honduras, the Obama administration continues to back Lobo.
"The U.S. strongly supports the democratically-elected government of Pepe Lobo, and its urge to strengthen democratic institutions in Honduras, increase respect for human rights, and deal with major economic and social problems," says a State Department official, who would speak with me only under the condition of anonymity. "Like the [Lobo] government, we feel the emphasis should be focusing on the future . . . and less focusing on the past," the official says.
But for the majority of Hondurans, who refused to vote for Lobo, and for the many countries in the hemisphere that still don't recognize his regime - including Latin American powerhouses like Brazil and Argentina - the problems of "the past" haven't gone away.
"The government that's in place . . . was installed after an illegitimate election that wasn't recognized by the UN or OAS [the Organization of American States]," says Dr. Pine. "This regime is a nothing but a continuation of the coup."
Honduran police cordon off a march in the capital of Tegucigalpa on September 23, 2009.
U.S. Reps to the Rescue?
The situation in Honduras has become so severe that on June 25, 27 members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter [http://hondurashumanrights.wordpress.com/2010/06/25/27-congress-members-sign-letter-on-human-rights-in-honduras/]to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, expressing their "concern regarding the grievous violations of human rights and the democratic order which commenced with the coup and continue to this day."
The letter urges the State Department to "rise to this occasion" and conduct its own investigation to "make a prompt assessment of what is occurring there with regards to human and political rights."
More than a week after receiving that letter from Congress, the same State Department official says they "are still in the process of deciding" how to address the request from Congress.
"But I'd like to emphasize that the U.S. has been very closely monitoring the human rights situation in Honduras," says the official. "And we have been working with the government of president Lobo to fulfill his commitments to improve the situation."
As proof of his good intentions, the State Department cites Lobo's establishing a "Truth Commission" to investigate last summer's coup, as well as a presidential committee on human rights. But many Hondurans, as well as international analysts, feel these steps are largely cosmetic, intended to mollify President Obama's demands for reform, more than being aimed at actually curbing the violence.
"We know the police and the army have been involved in illegal detentions, torture and murders and now it's at a point where there are very systematic death squad activities being carried out," says Tom Louden, director of the U.S. based Quixote Center, a human rights NGO that monitors events in Central America and Haiti. Louden traveled to Honduras last week as an observer in a separate delegation from Dr. Pine's.
Louden - who has made more than a dozen previous, fact-finding trips to Honduras since the coup, and been tear gassed by Honduran authorities on more than one occasion - says he believes the Lobo administration is "absolutely" behind the death squad killings. And it's allegations like these that spurred the 27 members of Congress to start worrying about their constituents' tax dollars flowing into the Lobo regime's coffers.
The State Department says Honduras is scheduled to receive 51 million dollars of U.S. aid in 2010, and they've requested nearly 68 million dollars from Congress for fiscal year 2011. But, if things don't change for the better in Honduras, that might not happen.
"Without an early and accurate [human rights] report," the Members wrote, "we would be reluctant to see U.S. support for Honduras continue without significant restrictions."
Pro-democracy demonstrators clash with police on September 23, 2009, in the capital of Tegucigalpa.
Economic Impact
"Economically, Honduras is now a disaster," says American University's Dr. Pine, who has been an expert witness for dozens of Honduran asylum hearings in the U.S. "The country's finances were gutted by the de facto government," she says, in order to maintain a militarized state. Lobo declared bankruptcy in February.
In addition to the millions spent to mobilize the armed forces against the populace, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost, as international investment fell off during the violence that followed the coup. The crippling unemployment is leaving many families with no means of support, even as food and commodity prices rise due to instability. More than sixty percent of the country gets by on less than two dollars a day.
"Progress is dead. And the economy is still getting worse," says top FNRP organizer Juan Barahona, who also marched in the hot summer sun in Tegucigalpa on Monday. "It has become critical. There is no work for anyone. And of course the government of oligarchs does not help at all."
Zelaya had set up food and fuel subsidies for low-income families, financial aid for students, raised the minimum wage, and made steps toward reducing unemployment. But all of that has changed since the putsch.
"It was a classic neoliberal coup," says Pine, referring to the subsequent cuts in government aid and the push toward privatization, which have combined to drive up the costs of essentials like health care and education. "This has really been strangling the Honduran people," she says.
A forest fire in President Lobo's home state of Olancho, on February 25, 2009.
Environmental Fallout
According to some conservationists, the coup last summer has also had a serious, negative impact on the country's long-term environmental outlook. Ecologists report that logging in Honduras delicate, dry pine forests has increased dramatically since the far-right coup - causing dangerous deforestation and local climate change, as the trees are slowly replaced by scrub and savannah.
"The logging trucks run all the time now," says Jairo Gimenez, President of the Environmental Movement of Salama (MAS), which operates in the remote, heavily-forested Olancho region. "And there is always less government oversight - because that's what the logging barons want: to cut fast, for profit now, and forget about the future. Zelaya had passed laws to protect the forests, and even sent the Army to fight illegal logging - but all of that changed when they threw him out."
Zelaya had also passed strict legislation to regulate mining, because of reports that whole communities had been poisoned by tailings from internationally-owned gold and lead mines - but those laws have also come under attack in the post-coup era.
According to Grahame Russell, co-director of Rights Action, a U.S.-based NGO that watchdogs exploitive mining practices in Central America and elsewhere, certain Honduran elites want to see restrictive mining laws overturned because they control the in-country construction and transportation infrastructure, and know they'll profit from lucrative transnational contracts.
"Zelaya obviously was responding to increasing activism, in Honduras and the Americas, to reign in the abuses committed with impunity by mining companies," Russell says. "[Now] mining and investment sectors want the moratorium overturned so that they can make money."
"We know the water's not safe to drink or bathe in," says Carlos Amador, a teacher in the Siria Valley, home of Honduras' largest goldmine, owned by Canada's Goldcorp. On a visit to the Goldcorp mine, THP documented symptoms from mass poisoning in nearby villages that included lesions, hair loss, and mental retardation; the conditions being most pronounced in infants and children. "But this is their home. Where else can they go?" says Amador. "For many poor families, there's just no choice."
Although the Honduran government has run tests on local water tables in the Siria Valley, and denies any contamination from mine tailings - the Honduran State Department refused to release the results of those tests to THP. The Honduran Congress is expected to vote on a new mining law later this summer.
U.S. Sanctioning Human Rights Abuses?
"I would say that the U.S. is more to blame than anything else [for the Honduran crisis], because of how avidly it has supported the coup government," says Dr. Pine, who believes that the State Department was unhappy with former president Zelaya's friendly trading ties with Venezuela, as well as his push to convert the U.S.'s Palmerola Air Force base into a much-needed civilian hub. Although unpopular with Hondurans, the airbase is seen as vital to U.S. hegemony. And many foreign policy analysts believe that if Honduras, a long time ally of the U.S., had sided with Venezuela, it could've tipped the balance of power in the region.
"After the coup, the OAS said that Zelaya had to be re-instated without conditions," says Pine. "[But] what the U.S. said was that the de facto government of Micheletti was a legitimate bargaining partner. . . That incredibly weakened Zelaya. But more importantly it weakened the position of all Hondurans who believed in their democracy."
Some experts - pointing to evidence of close ties between the ruling business-military junta and the State Department, as well as the sophisticated, U.S.-style propaganda campaign employed by the coup-plotters, which sought to demonize Zelaya and legitimize the coup - even go so far as to call the U.S. the "intellectual author" of the putsch.
"Honduras is a country where nothing very significant happens in the government without some sort of approval by the U.S.," says Quixote-center director Louden. "We need to stop funding the police and the military [and stop] spinning what's happening to confuse people about Honduras."
But the State Department disagrees.
"I think those charges are completely preposterous," says the State Department official. "We do not have a situation where the government is sanctioning abuses of human rights. There may be human rights abuses committed by individuals who work for [Honduran] law enforcement institutions. I have no specific proof of any such abuses. But in any event we can count on the Honduran disciplinary legal action against those individuals."
But to many in the international community, that's not good enough. They contend that the investigative commissions Lobo assigned to investigate abuses are themselves corrupt. And that maybe U.S. influence is hurting more than it helps.
"Another important factor that has severely undermined the Lobo [Truth] Commission's credibility in Honduras has been the intense involvement of the U.S. administration in its creation and promotion," writes Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research analyst Alex Main, in an e-mail to THP. "It has to be remembered that the U.S. administration is not considered to be a neutral actor in the Honduran crisis, especially given its unilateral decision to endorse the national elections in November without calling for the prior restoration of democracy."
For Loudon, culpability runs deeper than failing to call for restoration of basic freedoms in Honduras.
"The people who are [committing these human rights abuses] are trained in the U.S.," he says, referring specifically to the Pentagon-sponsored education programs for the Honduran officers' corps. "[We] continue to provide the model and provide the oversight, for how to best eliminate a social movement."
But, according to the State Department official, instead of being responsible for the killings, the Lobo regime, despite U.S. support, is simply overwhelmed and helpless in the face of rampant violence and crime.
"Honduras's problems are longstanding," says the State Department official, "and a lot of the killings and other intimidation that occurs is not necessarily due to political acts, but it's just part of, unfortunately, the culture of impunity that has developed in Honduras."
Although rising poverty since the coup has led to a sharp spike in crime and murders, other experts observe that comparing the number of Resistance members' deaths, to the overall murder rate, makes it statistically improbable to attribute those killings to chance.
"It's just na�ve to think that nine journalists would be killed in the time that Lobo has been president, in specific targeted shootings, and that that would just be a coincidence," says Pine. "In particular when the majority of those journalists were critical of the coup."
Honduras Awakes
Given the severity of the political and economic crisis, many Hondurans say the best path toward reconciliation is to democratically construct a new national charter - something the coup may have been intended to prevent. Zelaya's ouster last year happened just hours before a scheduled, non-binding referendum on the issue of creating a Constitutional Assembly to re-write the outdated Honduras Constitution. The current charter is accused of keeping the nation's resources in the hands of few, elite families and the military - and many in Honduras see the coup as a desperate act to maintain the status quo.
"With the poll on the Constitutional Assembly [Zelaya] was responding to demands from grass roots organizations . . . Most Hondurans joined the Resistance because they felt that their democracy had been robbed from them, not because they felt that Zelaya had been robbed from them."
And that widespread perception could have serious repercussions for those behind the military takeover a year ago.
"In many ways the coup has totally backfired on those who perpetrated it, including the United States," says Loudon, who has lived in Central America for fifteen of the last twenty years. "The feeling was that they would do something that seemed quasi-legal, they didn't kill the president, and they thought that there would be a day or two of protests, and then back to business as usual . . . Instead it served as a kind of awakening, and day after day, week after week there have been protests, and they have been unable to erase the memory of what happened."
Dr. Pine concurs that Honduras is still a long way from business as usual. "What happened last year was a paradigm shift. . . Suddenly, the way Hondurans put it, the masks came off. They recognized that the authorities were violently repressing them all along. They recognized that the democracy they thought they had, was a farce."
A new, more participatory democracy is one of the core goals of the FNRP - a goal for which more than 50 of them have died.
"We have been struggling since June 28, 2009, to have a Constitutional Assembly," says Resistance leader Barahona, who was a trade union leader in Tegucigalpa before the coup. "To have an Assembly is indispensible because the responsibility for creating a new Constitution lies with the people, and only with the people."
Barahona says the FNRP - which is a broad coalition made up of unionists, teachers, students, human rights NGO's and indigenous groups - has in two months collected more than 600,000 petitions demanding a Constitutional referendum. Well on its way to collecting 1.2 million by Honduras Independence Day, on September 15th, when the FNRP plans a peaceful march on Congress to present the signatures.
"Because the government no longer serves the people, this is the only way we have to express ourselves," Barahona says.
"Blood on our Hands"
One year after the coup, the Honduran capital was still heavily militarized, with armed checkpoints stationed on the major highways. The massive columns of pro-democracy demonstrators and international observers marched peacefully, sang songs and danced around the soldiers and police.
"There are a huge number of people here from around the world," says Pine, "and they came because they were so inspired by the Honduran Resistance. They see this as one of the few places in the world where people are really coming together to demand radical change, a re-founding of the nation, and really re-thinking these basic concepts, like, 'What do we mean by democracy?' They're having these conversations on a societal level that are so profound, and then really fighting for them. And that's been such a source of inspiration."
And if the repression of that inspirational movement continues, it could have long-term consequences, both for the people of Honduras, and for Obama's legacy in Central America. Because Honduras is so dependent on U.S. aid, many believe the Obama administration could easily force an improvement in democracy and human rights.
"With sanctions, if we had wanted to, we could've turned the coup around in two days," says Pine, who wrote her dissertation on Honduras. "If the U.S. had really cut off aid . . . that could have forced a lot of things. But I don't the U.S. has a lot of interest in human rights in Honduras, and certainly not in democracy . . ."
But even though it's taking heavy flack on this issue, the State Department seems to be holding firm.
"I think we need to recognize that change in Honduras is going to come slowly. The country went through a very difficult and traumatic period last year and the divisions in Honduran society are very deep . . . For our part the U.S. will continue to support the government of president Lobo as it carries out its efforts to deal with Honduras's problems."
That "take-it-slow" attitude puzzles many experts, especially given the urgency of the economic situation, and the loss of human life.
"It's our money that is killing Hondurans," Pine says. "That blood is on our hands. And if we are not speaking up against that, then we are the ones responsible."
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St. Louis City takes a stand against anti-immigrant legislation
St. Louis City takes a stand against anti-immigrant legislation and in favor of recognizing the unique value of our immigrant communities.
In anticipation of our national Independence Day, on Friday July 2, 2010, the St. Louis City Board of Aldermen spoke out clearly and forcefully against Arizona SB 1070 and the brand of anti-immigrant racial profiling and discrimination embodied therein.
Responding to the recent efforts by certain members of the Missouri House of Representatives to copy such legislation into Missouri law in the recently ended 2010 regular legislative session, the Board of Aldermen courageously said "NO."
This resolution comes on the heels of the similar resolution passed by the City of Kansas City, Missouri on May 27, 2010.
The resolution was sponsored by Alderman Craig Schmid (Twentieth Ward) and co-sponsored by Lewis Reed, the President of the Board of Aldermen, with the encouragement of immigration attorney Ken Schmitt of US Legal Solutions, LLC, Joan Suarez and Jennifer Rafanan of Missouri Immigrant and Refugee Advocates (MIRA), and IFCLA.
Unfortunately, it also comes on the heels of the ill-considered opposite resolution of the St. Charles County Council on May 10, 2010 rubber stamping and signing onto Arizona SB 1070 and its endorsement of racial profiling and legalized discrimination.
A copy of Resolution No. 138 ("Opposition to State of Missouri Requiring St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to Check Immigration Status of Those Suspected of Being Illegal Aliens") passed by the Board of Alderman of the City of St. Louis is attached.
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Rethinking Iran-Contra: A Much Darker Story?
Rethinking Iran-Contra: A Much Darker Story?
The Iran-Contra/ October Surprise was the missing link in a larger American political narrative
By Robert Parry
URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19992
Global Research/Consortiumnews July 1, 2010
The conventional view of the Iran-Contra scandal is that it covered the period 1985-86, when President Ronald Reagan became concerned about the fate of American hostages in Lebanon and agreed to secretly sell weapons to Iran�s Islamist government to gain its help in freeing the captives.
Supposedly, the scheme went awry when White House aide Oliver North and other participants got carried away, including North�s decision to divert profits from the arms sales to another one of Reagan�s priorities, the Nicaraguan contra rebels whose CIA assistance had been cut off by Congress.
The Iran-Contra scandal was exposed in fall of 1986 after the shooting down of a North supply plane over Nicaragua and revelations in Lebanon of Reagan�s arms sales to Iran. A White House staff shake-up, including North�s firing, and some wrist-slaps from Congress for Reagan�s alleged inattention to details resolved the scandal, at least that was how Official Washington saw it.
The few dissenters who wouldn�t accept that tidy conclusion � such as Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh � were mocked and marginalized by the news media, including the Washington Post (which ran an article concluding that Walsh�s consistency in pursuing the scandal was �so un-Washington� and that he would depart as �a perceived loser�).
But an accumulating body of evidence suggests that the traditional view of Iran-Contra was mistaken, that this conventional understanding of the scandal was like starting a novel in the middle and assuming you�re reading the opening chapter.
Indeed, it now appears clear that the Iran-Contra Affair began five years earlier in 1980, with what has often been treated as a separate controversy, called the October Surprise case, dealing with alleged contacts between Reagan�s presidential campaign and Iran.
In view of the latest evidence � and the crumbling of the long-running October Surprise cover-up
� there appears to have been a single Iran-Contra narrative spanning the entire 12 years of the Reagan and Bush I administration, and representing a much darker story.
And it was not simply a tale of Republican electoral skullduggery and treachery, but possibly even more troubling, a story of rogue CIA officers and Israel�s Likud hardliners sabotaging a sitting U.S. president, Jimmy Carter.
Plus, with Washington�s failure to get at the larger truth about the Iran-Contra Affair, crucial patterns were set: Republicans acted aggressively, Democrats behaved timidly, and the U.S. national news media was transformed from Watergate-era watchdogs, to lapdogs and finally to guard dogs protecting national security wrongdoing.
In that sense, the Iran-Contra/October Surprise scandal represented the missing link in a larger American political narrative covering the sweep of several decades, explaining how the United States shifted away from a nation grappling with epochal problems, from energy dependence and environmental degradation to bloated military budgets and an obsession with empire.
For all his shortcomings and half-measures, President Carter had begun promoting solar and other alternative energies; he pushed conservation programs and worked to reduce the federal deficit; and abroad, he advocated greater respect for human rights and pulled back from the imperial presidency.
More on point, he cashiered many of the freewheeling Cold Warriors of the CIA and demanded land-for-peace concessions from Israel.
Unacceptable Dangers
Carter�s potential second term presented unacceptable dangers to some powerful interests at home and overseas. The CIA Old Boys (whom legendary CIA officer Miles Copeland deemed �the CIA within the CIA�) thought they understood the true national interests even if the lazy-minded public and weak-kneed politicians didn�t.
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his Likud Party believed in a �Greater Israel� and were determined not to trade any more land conquered in the Six-Day War of 1967 for promises of peace with Palestinians and other Arabs. In 1980, Begin was still fuming over Carter�s Camp David pressure on him to surrender the Sinai in exchange for a peace deal with Egypt.
In other words, the deep-seated concerns of many influential forces intersected in 1980, all with a common desire to sink Carter�s reelection campaign. And the best way to do that was to undermine his efforts to gain the freedom of 52 American hostages then held in Iran. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com�s �The CIA/Likud Sinking of Jimmy Carter.�]
The secret relationships, born of the 1980 hostage dealings, created the framework for the Reagan administration�s approval of Israel�s clandestine arms shipments to Iran beginning immediately after Reagan took office in 1981, just as the American hostages were finally released. Those initial Israeli arms sales gradually evolved into the Iran-Contra weapons transfers.
Thus, when the Iran-Contra scandal surfaced in fall 1986, the subsequent cover-up was not simply to protect Reagan from possible impeachment for violating the Arms Export Control Act and the congressional ban on military aid to the Nicaraguan contras, but from exposure of the even darker, earlier phase of the scandal, which would implicate Israel and the CIA.
In authorizing the first investigation of Iran-Contra, Reagan�s Attorney General Edwin Meese set the chronological parameters as 1985 and 1986. Congressional inquiries also focused on that narrow time frame, despite indications that the scandal began earlier, such as the mystery of an Israeli-chartered arms flight that was shot down in July 1981 after straying into Soviet air space.
Only late in the Iran-Contra criminal investigation did Walsh and his investigative team begin suspecting that the only explanation for the futile arms-for-hostage dealings regarding Lebanon in 1985-86 � when each freed hostage was replaced by a new captive � was that the tripartite relationship of Iran-Israel-and-Reagan predated the Lebanese crisis, going back to 1980.
That was one reason why Walsh�s investigators asked George H.W. Bush�s national security adviser (and former CIA officer) Donald Gregg about his possible role in delaying the release of the hostages in 1980. His denial was judged deceptive by an FBI polygrapher.
�People on High�
Nicholas Veliotes, Reagan�s assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, described his discovery of the earlier Iran connections after the Israeli plane went down in the Soviet Union in 1981.
�It was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment,� Veliotes said in an interview with PBS Frontline.
In checking out the Israeli flight, Veliotes came to believe that the Reagan camp�s dealings with Iran dated back to before the 1980 election.
�It seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration,� Veliotes said. �And I understand some contacts were made at that time.�
Though some two dozen witnesses � including senior Iranian officials and a wide range of other international players � have expanded on Veliotes�s discovery, the pressure became overpowering in the final years of George H.W. Bush�s presidency not to accept the obvious conclusions. [For details of the evidence, see Robert Parry�s Secrecy & Privilege.]
It was easier for all involved � surely the Republicans but also the Democrats and much of the Washington press corps � to discredit the corroborated 1980 allegations. Taking the lead was the neoconservative New Republic.
In fall 1991, as Congress was deliberating whether to conduct a full investigation of the October Surprise issue, Steven Emerson, a journalist with close ties to Likud, produced a cover story for The New Republic claiming to prove the allegations were a �myth.�
Newsweek published a matching cover story also attacking the October Surprise allegations. The article, I was told, had been ordered up by executive editor Maynard Parker who was known inside Newsweek as a close ally of the CIA and an admirer of prominent neocon Elliott Abrams.
The two articles were influential in shaping Washington�s conventional wisdom, but they were both based on a misreading of attendance documents at a London historical conference which William Casey had gone to in July 1980.
The two publications put Casey at the conference on one key date � thus supposedly proving he could not have attended an alleged Madrid meeting with Iranian emissaries. However, after the two stories appeared, follow-up interviews with conference participants, including historian Robert Dallek, conclusively showed that Casey wasn�t at the conference until later.
Veteran journalist Craig Unger, who had worked on the Newsweek cover story, said the magazine knew the Casey alibi was bogus but still used it. �It was the most dishonest thing that I�ve been through in my life in journalism,� Unger later told me.
However, even though the Newsweek and New Republic stories had themselves been debunked, that didn�t stop other neoconservative-dominated publications, like the Wall Street Journal, from ladling out ridicule on anyone who dared take the October Surprise case seriously.
Peculiar Journalism
Emerson also was a close friend of Michael Zeldin, the deputy chief counsel for the House task force that investigated the October Surprise issue in 1992. Though the task force had to jettison Emerson�s bogus Casey alibi, House investigators told me Emerson frequently visited the task force�s offices and advised Zeldin and others how to read the October Surprise evidence.
Subsequent examinations of Emerson�s peculiar brand of journalism (which invariably toed the Likud line and often demonized Muslims) revealed that Emerson had financial ties to right-wing funders such as Richard Mellon Scaife and had hosted right-wing Israeli intelligence commander Yigal Carmon when Carmon came to Washington to lobby against Middle East peace talks.
In 1999, a study of Emerson�s history by John F. Sugg for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting�s magazine �Extra!� quoted an Associated Press reporter who had worked with Emerson on a project as saying of Emerson and Carmon: �I have no doubt these guys are working together.�
The Jerusalem Post reported that Emerson has "close ties to Israeli intelligence." And �Victor Ostrovsky, who defected from Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and has written books disclosing its secrets, calls Emerson �the horn� -- because he trumpets Mossad claims,� Sugg reported.
Yet, the way Washington was working by the end of the 12-year Reagan-Bush-41 era, there was little interest in getting to the bottom of a difficult national security scandal. The House task force simply applied some fantastical logic, such as claiming that because someone wrote down Casey�s home phone number on another key date that proved he was at home, to conclude nothing had happened.
Between the House task force�s finding of �no credible evidence� and the subsequent ridicule heaped on the allegations by major U.S. news outlets, the October Surprise case was cast aside as a �conspiracy theory,� which is how it is still categorized by Washington�s insiders and by Wikipedia.
However, subsequent disclosures have revealed that a flood of new evidence incriminating the Republicans arrived at the House task force in its final weeks, in December 1992, so much so that chief counsel Lawrence Barcella says he recommended that task force chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, extend the investigation for several months. However, Barcella said Hamilton refused, citing procedural difficulties.
Instead, the incriminating evidence was simply kept from other task force members, and the investigation was shut down with a finding of Republican innocence. It even appears that a late-arriving report from the Russian government about its own intelligence on the case � corroborating allegations of a Republican-Iranian deal � was not even shown to Hamilton, the chairman.
When questioned this year, Hamilton told me he had no recollection of ever seeing the Russian report (though it was addressed to him) and Barcella added that he didn�t �recall whether I showed [Hamilton] the Russian report or not.� [See Consortiumnews.com�s �Key October Surprise Evidence Hidden.�]
According to other recent interviews, dissent within the task force over some of the irrational arguments being used to clear the Republicans was suppressed by Hamilton and Barcella. [See Consortiumnews.com�s �The Tricky October Surprise Report.�]
In other words, Official Washington preferred to sweep this unpleasant scandal under the rug rather than confront the facts and their troubling implications.
Yet, with Reagan remaining a conservative icon and his anti-government policies still in vogue among millions of Americans � slashing taxes for the rich, weakening corporate regulations, rejecting alternative energy, and expanding the military budget � the lost history of this broader Iran-Contra scandal has turned out to be a case that what the country didn�t know did turn out to hurt it.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com.
His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com .
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HONDURAS: Urgent Action Against Illegal Detention and Tortures
Urgent Action Against Illegal Detention and Tortures
SABADO 03 DE JULIO DE 2010 00:25 COFADEH
The Committee of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared in Honduras (Cofadeh), expresses its total repudiation and preoccupation by the illegal detention followed by tortures that Edwin Spinal R�belo was subject to at the hands of agents of the Preventive National Police.
The 30th of June at 11:30 p.m. Edwin Spinal Rïobelo was in his neighbourhood, La Flor del Campo, Tegucigalpa, when five policemen from the police station of Flor del Campo, headed by the agent Vargas arrived asking Edwin for his driving license. Edwin responded by showing his identity card, which was the document he was required to carry because he was not driving and therefore did not need to demonstrate his driving license. Immediately they began to beat him and agent Vargas sprayed him in the eyes with pepper spray and applied an electric baton to different parts of the body, especially the legs and ears.
He was then forced to board a patrol vehicle in which they drove in erratic directions in different streets for 45 minutes, during the journey they threatened him by saying that he was a communist, a Zelayista and "to abandon that shit of the Resistencia", after threatening him and taking pictures, he was transferred to the Cuarta Police Station; before being lowered from the patrol vehicle he was pushed with the intention of causing him to lose his balance and fall, the police also repeatedly sprayed pepper spray and proceeded to put him in a cell. When they applied the pepper spray, a police officer said that the gas would kill all civilians - Edwin lost his young wife, Wendy Elizabeth Avila of pulmonary congestion after breathing pepper spray on 22 September 2009 during the repression and suspension of constitutional guarantees. At the police station he was informed that he was detained for being for drunk and disorderly. Edwin R�belo does not drink alcohol. He was released at 10:30 a.m. on July 1, 2010 through the intervention of the Coordinator of Cofadeh.
Request
COFADEH makes a call to national and international community to:
Demand that the Honduran authorities guarantee the safety of Edwin R�belo Espinal Young, to carry out a prompt, thorough and impartial investigation into the acts of intimidation, illegal arrests and torture that violate fundamental human rights of Edwin R�belo, to make public the results and bring those responsible for these acts to justice.
Ensure the safety of all people exercising their right to association and free expression.
Direct their communications to the following authorities:
Jorge Alberto Rivera Avilas
Presidente de la Corte Suprema de Justicia
Tel (504) 269-3000 269-3069
Mail: cedij@poderjudicial.gob.hn
Luis Alberto Rub�
Fiscal General de la Rep�blica.
Fax (504) 221-5667
Tel (504) 221-5670 221-3099
Mail: lrubi@mp.hn
suazog@mp.hn
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Quixote Centre Honduras Delegation update July 1st, 2010
This update and others are also at www.quixote.org/honduras , http://arsncanada.blogspot.com, and http://commonfrontiers.ca,
Witnessing Resistance in Honduras
Quixote Centre Honduras Delegation update July 1st, 2010
Caitlin Power Hancey, Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN)
The Honduran resistance movement is real—it is also strong, diverse, and decidedly non-violent.
This is the last day of our international accompaniment and observation delegation to Honduras. For the past week our delegation has been busy accompanying a range of events leading up to the anniversary of the coup on June 28th, or “the anniversary active of popular resistance in Honduras.” We also continued meetings with representatives from various sectors active in the resistance movement—including women’s rights organizations, LGBTI coalitions, youth groups, academics, teacher’s unions, and peace-building organizations.
Over the weekend, we accompanied members of the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) as they collected signatures—actually “sovereign declarations”—calling for a National Constituent Assembly in the Tegucigalpa neighbourhood of La Esperanza. Nationally over 800,000 signatures have been collected, and the Front expects to have 1.2 million by September 15th, which is Independence Day in Central America. These signatures will give them the moral authority and political sway, as a coalition of social movements, to convoke the National Assembly and begin the process of creating a constitution representative of the diversity of peoples, regions, sectors and experiences that make up Honduras. The current constitution, for example, does not recognize the existence of any indigenous peoples in Honduras, while it is generally considered that there are nine indigenous groups within its borders. The largest groups are the Lenca in the west and Garífuna along the northern coast.
Sunday, on the eve of the anniversary, we accompanied a peaceful candlelight march that began at Francisco Morazán Pedagogical University. It was intended to go north on Miraflores Boulevard, veer right and stop at the presidential palace, then make its way west to the Congress in the centre of the city, where there was a vigil for all of the individuals who have lost their lives to state violence since the coup. When the crowd reached the first road leading to the palace, it was barricaded with cement blocks and chain-link fencing and guarded by soldiers in riot gear with machine guns. By the time the crowd reached Suyapa Boulevard, they had passed another route blocked by military in riot gear (who’s shields read “POLICE,” in English), and the east side of the main intersection was blocked as well. The marchers stayed at the intersection for about 20 minutes, chanting at the soldiers, some marchers asking them what they were afraid of. After the crowd faced the soldiers and sang the national anthem, someone with a megaphone asked for a show of hands to determine where to go next. It was getting late, but most of the group continued on to the Congress. Before moving on, organizers sent pick-up trucks out to the edges of the crowd to try to ensure that those who weren’t continuing with the main crowd had a safe way home and that no one would be travelling alone.
About 11:15 that night in our guesthouse, I received a text message from a former colleague in Honduras that Berta Caceres, the leader of the Coordination of Indigenous Peoples of Honduras (COPINH) had been detained by the police in the department of La Esperanza and the charges were not being made clear. Within a half-hour I received another message that she was released. I was told the next morning that the police department had received at least a dozen calls from human rights activists in Honduras and the United States and responded to the pressure. This was the night before the anniversary of the coup, when marches were being planned all over the country.
No major incidents were reported to us on Monday, the day of the anniversary. Though the marches in Tegucigalpa and other major centres were not accounted for in mainstream Honduran media, most alternative sources estimate a minimum of 10,000 participants at the Tegucigalpa march. Most people we talked with presumed that the state was aware of the international eyes on Honduras during the anniversary and wouldn’t take overtly repressive action. They believed the violations would continue in a strategic, targeted, and “silent” way, which has been the pattern observed since the Lobo government took power at the end of January. In a country with an average of 15 violent deaths a day, it’s not considered difficult for those who want to pass off political violence—including assassinations—as common delinquency, or to smear the victim by insinuating involvement in criminal activity.
Our group temporarily left the anniversary march to observe the inauguration of the True Commission (the alternative to the government-sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Commission), which others from the march soon joined. The energy was high in the auditorium, which was full, and international support from across the Americas was present. That afternoon and evening there was a concert on the grounds of the Pedagogical University showcasing Honduran musicians and original resistance music written since the coup.
After the anniversary our delegation had meetings with organizations representing the two groups hardest hit by political assassinations following the coup—the LGBTI community, who have lost 27, and teachers, who have lost 21(??). When our delegation members asked why each of those groups were so heavily targeted, representatives from ARCOIRIS, an organization that works with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people, said its in large part because they are considered by those responsible to be some of the most dispensable and disreputable members of the population, and therefore of the resistance. In our meeting with the presidents of five different teachers unions we were told simply that to repress teachers is to repress the next generation of resisters—and the strategy was clear.
We also met with representatives from Feminists in Resistance, a collective of individuals and women’s organizations that formed after the coup, who outlined the particular, gendered ways that women have been targeted in the resistance—from rape and sexualized beatings perpetrated by soldiers and police during demonstrations and curfews, to references in the mainstream media to “loose” and “irresponsible” women who take to the streets instead of taking care of their families. They also expressed clear determination to regain the ground they lost after the coup in terms of women’s rights, and sincere hope that with the increased organization and rejuvenation of their movement they would get even further. According to these representatives, since Lobo has taken power, the morning-after pill—and any education or advertising referencing it—has been made illegal. A new, inclusive sexual education guide that they had approved under the Zelaya government has been gutted, and the hard-won Institute for Women is being shut down and reportedly replaced with an “Institute for the Family.”
This morning, a couple of hours before delegation members were scheduled to leave for the airport and return home, we received a call that a highly-visible member of the resistance, whose partner was killed as a result of tear gas poisoning during a demonstration last year, had been arrested for a traffic violation. He was reportedly badly burned by pepper spray from the police officers, had been tasered, and also couldn’t open one eye. Some members went to the local police station to inquire about his welfare and ask if they could see him on their way to the airport. Shortly afterwards, we found out that a warrant was now out for the arrest of another outspoken member of the resistance because two years ago workers had cut down trees on her rural property, allegedly violating environmental laws.
On this Canada Day there is no shortage of recent events that encourage me to reflect on our country’s role internationally in support of violent, repressive regimes—such as backing the post-coup regime in Honduras, continuing support for Israel’s war on Gaza and the Palestinian people, and the recent signing of the bi-lateral free trade agreement with Colombia. And with the recent detentions, violence, and violations of civil liberties during the G20 meetings in Toronto, we’ve got several more reasons to doubt our current government’s respect for human rights at home, including the right to dissent.
I want to reiterate that the resistance movement is large, vibrant, multi-faceted, and decidedly present in Honduras. We do not hear about it via mainstream in North America, if we hear about the situation in Honduras at all, and major media in Honduras clearly misrepresents and undermines its existence. All representatives we met with insisted that as international delegates we must counteract the lies and omissions and let people in our countries know that their movement is real. In our meeting with him yesterday, Dr. Juan Almendares Bonilla, the Executive Director of the Centre for the Prevention and Treatment of Torture Victims and their Families (CPTRT) and an eminent human rights defender in Honduras, reminded us that international solidarity between peoples—despite the national boundaries and governments that divide us—is the most important and essential power we have, and we need to exercise it, mutually.
For more information about this delegation and additional updates or media releases:
The Quixote Centre: www.quixote.org
Common Frontiers Canada: http://commonfrontiers.ca
The Atlantic Regional Solidarity Network (ARSN): http://arsncanada.blogspot.com
For more information about the recent situation in Honduras and Canada’s role:
Honduras: Democracy Denied http://www.ccic.ca/_files/en/working_groups/apg_2010-04_honduras_democracy_denied_e.pdf
A Report from the Canadian Council for International Cooperation’s Americas Policy Group with Recommendations to the Government of Canada
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Correa offers to mediate Colombia conflict
Correa offers to mediate Colombia conflict
By GONZALO SOLANO (AP) – Jun 25, 2010
OTAVALO, Ecuador — Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said Friday that he would be happy to try to mediate an end to Colombia's long-running conflict with leftist rebels.
He also said in an interview with The Associated Press that he'd be pleased to attend the Aug. 7 inauguration of Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, though diplomatic ties have not been fully restored and he has not yet received a formal invitation.
Ecuador broke off relations with Colombia after its military crossed into Ecuador in March 2008 and attacked the jungle camp of top Colombian rebel leader Raul Reyes, killing him and 24 others in a pre-dawn raid.
An Ecuadorean judge last month issued an arrest warrant for Santos, who was Colombia's defense minister at the time.
Santos won the presidency by a landslide last Sunday with 69 percent of the vote. He has called the arrest warrant absurd because it was the Colombian state, not him as an individual, that made the cross-border incursion. He merely authorized it as defense minister, he told the AP in an interview three days before his election.
Correa said he would welcome any role in trying to end Colombia's half-century-old conflict.
"It destroys our soul, the civil war that's been going on for so many decades, the absurd spilling of blood among brothers," he said.
"If we can mediate, if we can serve as facilitators, count on us," Correa added in the 15-minute interview, held on the sidelines of a meeting of the ALBA bloc of leftist Latin American and Caribbean nations attended by leaders including presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
Colombian officials have presented documents from Reyes' computer and seized rebel video that they say prove chummy relations between Correa and rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. Correa calls them fabricated and refused to discuss the issue with the AP.
Several hundred thousand Colombians displaced by the conflict live in Ecuador, which has also long served as a refuge for the FARC.
A harsh critic of what he considers interventionist U.S. policies in Latin America, Correa said he hopes to see a change and called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit earlier this month a welcome sign.
He defended, meanwhile, the creation in recent years of regional organizations such as ALBA, the Bolivian Alternative for the Americas, and UNASUR, the nascent South America defense union, that exclude the United States.
"We need our own forum to deal with our problems, without the unbalancing presence of the United States," Correa added.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Honduran Coup: 1-Year Anniversary Beckons Better US Policy Towards Latin America.
Honduran Coup: 1-Year Anniversary Beckons Better US Policy Towards Latin America.
Rep. Mike Honda. The Huffington Post. June 29, 2010
Swirling south of here, in a gulf between the Americas, a crisis is brewing and already affecting the livelihoods of millions of people, threatening food and energy security, and undermining our nation's reputation regionally. Yet it has nothing to do with an oil spill.
There is an ever-growing gulf of political proportions gumming up U.S.-Latin-American relations, and it has nothing to do with BP and everything to do with Honduras, a country from which I recently returned. The need for a cleanup, incidentally, is equally paramount. Instead of oil, however, what needs cleaning up this time is Honduras' democracy.
The residue left in Honduras from last year's coup -- a coup that ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya and installed interim President Roberto Micheletti, a favorite of the Honduran political establishment -- remains ever-present in the minds of many mainstream leaders in and throughout Latin America. Protests by Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and others within the Union of South American Nations persist at a vehement pitch as Honduras marked the one-year anniversary of the coup on Monday.
The claim, furthermore, that Honduras' current president, Porfirio Lobo, was elected into power via free and fair elections is questioned by many of the leaders in the region, who believe that Lobo's rule remains illegitimate. Anti-Lobo sentiment inspired a recent boycott threat by several South American countries of the European Union-Latin American summit meeting in Madrid last month. The invited Lobo backed out, abstaining from the summit.
Here's the real rub for the U.S. in all of this: Given Washington's subsequent silence on the coup, on Zelaya's exile and on the call for investigations, we are not only losing an opportunity to enhance democracy for the people of Honduras, but simultaneously endangering allegiances throughout South America and undermining our multilateral efforts elsewhere.
Before the gulf widens further, and without changing course too dramatically, the U.S. can still restore relations with Latin America. The foundational framework is already there. President Barack Obama's original outreach -- his Summit of the Americas' pro-engagement speech in Trinidad and Tobago, his ending of travel restrictions to Cuba, and his extension of a diplomatic hand to Venezuela -- began to rebuild the damage done by President George W. Bush-era policies. Latin America first reacted favorably, but floundered soon after, wanting more walk, less talk.
We now have an opportunity to walk the talk. This month, the Organization of American States announced at its annual meeting that it plans to send a high-level delegation to Honduras to "study the political process," a first step in a series of confidence-building mechanisms aimed ultimately at readmitting Honduras to the OAS. So too must the U.S. thoughtfully assess Honduran polity before encouraging a full return to the intercontinental body.
Holding Honduras accountable to a host of reform measures should be a stated prerequisite for OAS readmission. First, one of the best ways to build confidence among South American leaders, the OAS and the people of Honduras is for the U.S. to call for the rightful and responsible return of Zelaya calmly and quickly. This demonstrates the Honduran government's commitment to a sometimes painful part of any democracy -- the willingness to countenance criticism and civic concern.
Second, the U.S. must ensure international oversight of any investigative and reconciliatory initiatives, including the Honduran government's truth commission and the alternative truth body established by human rights groups (which are doubtful of government intent and neutrality).
Third, the U.S. must not let arbitrary arrests, beating and killings of government opponents and journalists and the sacking of judges continue unabated and unaddressed -- it sends the wrong signal to Honduras' democracy and the wrong sign to the rest of Latin America.
Finally, I have joined my colleagues in Congress on a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton requesting that the State Department direct Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner to visit Honduras and make a prompt assessment of what is occurring there with regards to human and political rights. Without an early and accurate report, we would be reluctant to see U.S. support for Honduras continue without significant restrictions.
If Washington wants to welcome a new era in Latin American relations, the quickest way to usher it in (and with it all the associated trade and diplomatic benefits), is for America to help Honduras hone in on human rights, rule of law, accountable governance and freedom of movement for opposition figures like Zelaya. Our calls for something similar in Cuba and Venezuela will continue to ring hollow as long as Honduras remains exempt from similar American sentiment.
As the OAS realizes its report for July and discerns Honduras' readiness for OAS resubmission, let us not miss this window to weigh in with equal candor and commitment to cleaning up coup-prone environments. This is our moment to show Honduras and the rest of Latin America that we are serious about a clean democracy, at home and abroad.
Rep Michael Honda represents California's 15th district.
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