Ecuador military says it will repress price protests

A protester throws back a teargas bomb during a
protest in Quito, Ecuador, Wed., Jan. 10, 2001.

Quito, Ecuador, Jan. 16— Ecuador’s high military command labeled the recent rash of protests against government-mandated price increases as leaning towards “subversion” and said that the military and police will repress any attempts to destabilize the government.

“Certain political movements or social groups, with the pretext of demanding that the latest economic measures be repealed, have threatened to execute popular uprisings that intend to overthrow the legally instated government,” the chief of Ecuador’s High Military Command, Admiral Miguel Saona, told reporters on Tuesday.

For the past three weeks, students, teachers and union groups have taken to the streets to protest against a 75 percent bus fare increase and 25 percent gasoline price hike mandated by the government at the end of December.

Union and Indian organizations have planned protests for the coming three weeks that include marches, road blockades, and a national strike.

Ecuador, an Andean nation of 12.4 million people, has sought to consolidate democratic stability since former president Jamil Mahuad was overthrown in a military and Indian uprising on Jan. 21, 2000. The nation has had four presidents in the past four years.

While the protests have been small compared with the masses of Ecuadoreans that descended on the presidential palace a year ago, high school and university students have begun to use Molotov cocktails, dynamite and even pistols against police, who respond with tear gas.

Teenagers covering their faces with t-shirts have aimed pistols at the police who have remained outside the public central University for the past three weeks, protecting themselves with tear gas and plastic shields. The university is a common place for student protests, as officers are not permitted on campus.

More than 2,000 high school students marched through the northern section of Quito on Tuesday morning. They were dispersed by the police near Carolina Park in the capital’s banking district.

“The forces of order reject groups that intend to re-create another January 21,” Saona said.

The military command asked Ecuadoreans to refrain from any protests that are not legally authorized, adding that anyone who “incites subversion and chaos” will be immediately arrested and sent before a judge for trial and punishment.

“The national police do not take responsibility for the consequences that arise in complying with its constitutional mission, protecting life, property and the legal activities of its citizenry,” he said.

Saona said the measures do not constitute a national state of emergency but are powers granted to the armed forces and police in the constitution.

Source: Reuters

Peruvian civil court charges Berenson

Peru, Jan. 15-- Peruvian prosecutor Maria Peralta Ramirez concluded the investigative phase of the civilian trial against US activist Lori Berenson. The civilian trial was initiated following the annulment last August of Berenson’s January 1996 summary conviction on treason charges and her sentencing to life in prison by a military court, which claimed she was a leader of the leftist rebel group Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Peralta found that Berenson was not a leader or even a member of the MRTA, but ordered that she face charges of collaboration with terrorism, which according to the Lima daily La Republica carry a prison sentence of no less than 20 years.

Berenson’s parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson, reported in a January 17 email update that based on the full reports they have received during the investigative phase of the trial, Peralta’s “decision to proceed to the public phase of the trial is unwarranted. In fact, the prosecutor concurred with the Supreme Military Council’s finding last August that Lori was not a leader of the [MRTA], and, additionally, the prosecutor concluded that Lori was neither an active participant nor even a member of that group.”

Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas: wnu@igc.org

150 jailed in World Bank protest

By Jan Sangharsh Morcha

Madhya Pradesh, India, Jan. 17— Nearly 150 people from people’s organizations in Madhya Pradesh were jailed while marching on the streets of Bhopal just before noon today. The representatives of people’s organizations, including tribals and peasants from the Narmada Bachao Andolan, Shramik Adivasi Sangathan, Kisan Adivasi Sangathan, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, and Ekta Parishad among others were arrested and picked up from a march while opposing the policies of the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). Many others were detained at several places outside Bhopal and prevented from reaching the protest site. The arrested people refused bail, and they were not released until evening.

The Madhya Pradesh government had organized a one day Development Forum in Bhopal where it had invited the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and various agencies of developed countries, including the British Development Minister.

Sunilbhai of Samajwadi Jan Parishad and Alok Agarwal of the Narmada Bachao Andolan said at the time of arrests that it is a matter of deep concern that the international funding organizations were in the forum to discuss the development of Madhya Pradesh and that the people of Madhya Pradesh were in jail. They said that this repressive action of the government reflected the slavery of the Madhya Pradesh government to the multinational corporations.

They pointed out that the energy sector policies of the ADB promoting privatization and corporatization of the energy sector had led to prohibitively expensive power production by private corporations.

The organizations also opposed the attempt of the multilateral institutions to seek control over the vast natural resources of Madhya Pradesh and marginalize and uproot the Adivasis through the controversial MP Forestry Project. In the last five years that the Forestry Project has been in operation, 4 tribals have been killed and 8 people have been maimed by forest officials and police.

The people of Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh have already paid a large cost for the criminal negligence and lack of accountability of multinational corporations, such as the genocide caused by Union Carbide. The people of the Narmada valley had already paid a large cost when the World Bank continued to be involved in the destructive Sardar Sarovar Project from 1985 to 1993, despite clear social and environmental violations, until massive public resistance finally compelled them to withdraw from the Project.

The organizations stated that the newly passed Special Areas Security Act was at the insistance of the multilateral institutions and global corporations, and was aimed to muzzle the voice of the people and popular opposition against the globalization policies of the state.

In a separate meeting of civil society organizations with the British Development Minister, Claire Short, many participants expressed their deep apprehensions about the impact of funding from the multilateral institutions and the repressive regime that the Madhya Pradesh government will wreak on the people of the state in order to defend and protect corporate interests. Phagram of Kisan Adivasi Sangathan and Suddobai of Shramik Adivasi Sangathan vehemently insisted that “all international agencies have hitherto only pauperized the common people of Madhya Pradesh. These agencies must now leave Madhya Pradesh and leave the development of the state and the country to the people of the state.”

Source: One World: www.oneworld.net

Those who keep silent on disappeared to face penalties

By Gustavo Gonzalez

Santiago, Chile, Jan. 16 (IPS)— The Chilean government has announced it will enact a law to punish those who hold information on the fate of people who were “disappeared’’ under the Gen. Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) if they refuse to hand over such data to the authorities.

Claudio Huepe, Minister of the Presidency, made the announcement following a ministerial committee policy meeting with President Ricardo Lagos in which officials discussed the failure of the initial search for the victims of forced disappearances.

The hunt for victims’ remains was based on reports drafted by the Chilean armed forces.

The disappointing search occurred in Cuesta Barriga, a rural site outside Santiago where special judge Juan Carreño led an unsuccessful dig last Friday and Saturday for the bodies of six communist leaders an army report said were buried there.

Since last July, the armed forces have been gathering information about the victims of forced disappearance, in accordance with a law of “professional confidence,’’ which stipulated that the identity of the informants would be protected and set a six-month time-frame, expiring January 6.

The military personnel protected by the law provided information about 200 of the approximately 1,000 people who were disappeared under the Pinochet dictatorship. They identified 151 people by name whose bodies were thrown into the sea or rivers, and another 29 allegedly buried in several different graves.

According to reports president Lagos received, a mass grave exists that holds the remains of 20 unidentified victims of the dictatorship.

Lagos then passed on the information to the courts for in-depth investigations, based on a mechanism established under the professional confidence act.

The victims’ families were deeply disappointed by the little information produced over the last six months, data that covered just 20 percent of the disappeared.

Many also reacted with scepticism about the reliability of the records on political prisoners reportedly dumped at sea.

The failed excavation at Cuesta Barriga fed doubts about the reports on where the disappeared were buried, as indignation rose among victims’ family members and human rights lawyers who accuse the military of mounting a “farce’’ as they hide behind the law of professional confidence.

Attorney Carmen Hertz, one of the most vocal critics of the law, stated Sunday that the search for the disappeared is also being used to help former dictator Pinochet “elude justice.’’

Pinochet, 85, is scheduled to face questioning January 23 by judge Juan Guzmán, who is expected to pursue a lawsuit involving 17 kidnappings and 57 homicides committed in September and October 1973 by a special army mission known as the “caravan of death.’’

The cases in which the disappeared person was never located, dead or alive, are treated as kidnappings under Chilean law.

Of the 17 “caravan’’ kidnapping victims, 13 appear on the list provided by the army of those who were dumped at sea, meaning the military will likely ask the courts to change the crime to homicide.

The amnesty law Pinochet expedited during his rule in April 1978 exonerates any deaths linked to human rights violations under the dictatorship, but recent court rulings set precedents opening the way for kidnappings to be prosecuted as long as the victim’s body is not found.

Judge Carreño reported Monday that he would not order further digs at Cuesta Barriga as long as he does not receive “concrete data.’’

The government, meanwhile, through minister Huepe, maintains that “it is premature to evaluate the veracity of the information’’ handed over by the army.

But defense minister Mario Fernández, on behalf of the government, asked the armed forces to turn over more information to aid in the search for the disappeared, thus responding to the disappointment and criticisms of the victims’ families and human rights organizations.

The government’s request also applies to the ‘Carabineros,’ the militarized police force, which reports indicate was involved in forced disappearances alongside the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the dictatorship’s secret police force that was dissolved in 1978.

Huepe said the government would announce in March a series of support measures for families of the disappeared and present a bill before Parliament to penalize those who withhold or hide information on the whereabouts of the bodies of the dictatorship’s victims.

“Either a stimulus is generated for people who hold information so that they turn it in, or a penalty is established for those people who withhold information,’’ stated the minister.

According to Huepe’s statements, the government is willing to promote the stimulus option through the Reparation and Reconciliation Corporation, a governmental assistance agency serving families of victims of human rights violations.

But the authorities also appear ready to push through the bill to punish those who withhold information, a law targeting former DINA agents -- many of whom are retired military officers -- who did not provide information on the disappeared during the six months provided under the law of professional confidence.

Cubans protest US law

Havana, Cuba, Jan. 19-- More than a million Cubans marched outside the US Interests Section offices to protest the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, a US law which opponents say encourages risky attempts by Cubans to reach the US.

The march was led by Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruiz, who waved a small Cuban flag. The protest was prompted by the deaths of teenagers Alberto Vazquez and Maikel Fonseca, who attempted to stow away in a British Airways Havana-London flight on Dec. 24. They died from cold and lack of oxygen; their bodies were returned to Cuba on January 18.

Diplomats suggested that the Cuban government also wanted to warn incoming US president George W. Bush that it intends to continue its campaign against the US economic embargo. Bush is the 10th US president to hold office since Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

During a speech in Little Rock, Arkansas, on January 17, outgoing US president Bill Clinton announced that he was once again suspending Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (“Helms-Burton”), a 1996 law tightening and extending the embargo. Rightwing Cuban-American Rep. Ileana Ros- Lehtinen (R-FL) said that she expects a different approach from Bush, who “supports our cause and has indicated that he will review the decisions made by Clinton regarding the island.”

Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas: wnu@igc.org

Depleted uranium shells held “cocktail of nuclear waste”

By Jonathon Carr-Brown

London, England, Jan. 21— Shells fired in the Gulf War and Kosovo were made out of material contaminated by a potentially lethal cocktail of nuclear waste, according to a book published this week.

The claim, supported by American army and government documents, suggests that the military in Kosovo and Iraq used depleted uranium (DU) shells containing traces of elements that indicate the probable presence of plutonium and other highly toxic nuclear by-products.

The allegations contained in Depleted Uranium: The Invisible War will embarrass the British and American governments, which have consistently denied DU is harmful, and enrage veterans of the Gulf and Kosovo.

Martin Messonnier, Frederick Loore and Roger Trilling, the authors of the book, are convinced that the Pentagon has misled the world with claims that its DU is safe.

Until now, the Pentagon has maintained that DU shells are safe because they contain only mildly radioactive uranium. But the authors claim the shells were made with uranium contaminated with more toxic elements.

DU was first used in the Gulf War where the dense metal proved deadly against Iraqi tanks. The American army is determined to keep the shells in its arsenal despite the fact that the American navy has withdrawn them on health grounds.

The authors’ claims are based on papers that have led them to three nuclear plants in Paducah, Kentucky; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- the main makers of DU.

Last January Bill Richardson, the energy secretary, accepted after decades of denials that thousands of workers at Paducah “had been exposed to radiation and chemicals that produced cancer and early death.”

Most of the victims display symptoms similar to Gulf War veterans - particularly chronic fatigue and joint pain. The authors claim the workers had been handling uranium contaminated with plutonium, which was then used to make DU.

Documents from August 1999 show that workers at Paducah had been inhaling plutonium as part of a “flawed government experiment to recycle used nuclear reactor fuel.” The first sign was employees with a string of cancers in the 1980s.

In October 1999 the energy department reported that “during the process of making fuel for nuclear reactors and elements for nuclear weapons, the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant ... created depleted uranium potentially containing neptunium and plutonium.”

Plutonium can cause cancer if ingested even in minute quantities. What the workers at Paducah and its sister plants were dealing with were recycled uranium stocks already contaminated during the enrichment process at other nuclear plants.

The workers, like the soldiers in Iraq and Kosovo, were not equipped to deal with these hazards. Paducah was designed to handle uranium, not plutonium, which is about 100,000 times more radioactive per gram.

Last week United Nations officials investigating the effects of DU in Kosovo confirmed they had found traces of elements indicating plutonium. According to the authors, the only possible sources for DU containing plutonium are Paducah, Portsmouth and Oak Ridge, which used the contaminated uranium.

Source: The Independent (UK)

World Economic Forum to meet with opposition in Davos

By Gumisai Mutume

Washington, DC, Jan. 23 (IPS)— This week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland will be the center of attention of non-governmental groups opposed to the negative consequences of globalization on the majority of the world’s population.

Every year in the Swiss resort town of Davos, an exclusive club of chief executives of the world’s largest and most influential transnational corporations meets with academics and political leaders to chart the global economic agenda.

This year, non-governmental organizations will be holding their own “social forum’’ alongside the main event.

Militant anti-globalization groups are also threatening to shut down the January 25-30 meeting of the “capitalist club” with street protests.

Over the years, the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has become the world’s global business summit. This year 1,000 top business leaders, 750 political leaders, academics, and media moguls plus a sprinkling of invited NGO representatives are expected to attend.

“The WEF is a meeting primarily of corporate elites,’’ says Peter Bosshard of the Swiss non-governmental group, Berne Declaration. “As private institutions, they have no legitimacy to set the global public agenda ... We feel there is need for an alternative voice to influence globalization and monitor the actions of the transnational corporations.’’

Since last year, a joint NGO project made up of the Berne Declaration, South American network Asociación Lationamericana de Organizaciones de Promoción, Friends of the Earth International, and others have been building up towards Davos.

The NGO campaign, titled “Public Eye on Davos” will bring activists and academics to Davos to explore questions such as what sort of global governance is desirable to ensure respect of human rights and environmental sustainability.

The NGOs say their conference will explore ways of regulating private companies and “propose mechanisms by which citizens and democratic governments can regain control.’’

The WEF says while it welcomes responsible voices on both sides of the globalization debate it feels “no obligation, however, to take these thoughtful discussions into the streets.’’

“After protests in Seattle, Bangkok, Prague, and, more recently, Nice, rather than letting the gap get wider, we believe there is a need for civilized public dialogue on the future of globalization,’’ notes the Bangkok-based think tank Focus on the Global South.

The average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average in the poorest 20 -- a gap that has doubled in the past 40 years. Some 2.8 billion people -- almost half the world’s population -- live on less than two dollars a day.

Movements opposed to the unfettered global expansion of private capital scored a major victory in 1999 when they influenced the failure of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks in Seattle. They have become a feature of every major global economic forum since then.