Secret graves found in Honduras
At least four secret cemeteries used by soldiers to bury victims of the repression of the 1980s have been discovered in Honduras, prosecutors say.

Aida Romero, the government’s human rights ombudsman, said excavation of the graves would begin shortly.

She said the cemeteries had been found in a forested area in the east of the country, but refused to be more precise in case attempts were made to sabotage the work.

Excavations of cemeteries found last year in the eastern jungle region of El Patuca, and near the Nicaraguan border are being stepped up, said Romero.

The remains of six people have been exhumed over the past year, and secret cemeteries have been found in six of the country’s 18 provinces, as Hondurans continue to grapple with the legacy of years of military rule.

A 1993 Honduran truth commission blamed Honduran death squads, which it said were funded and trained in part by the US, Taiwanese, and Argentine governments, for the murders of at least 184 activists and trade unionists between 1979 and 1990. (BBC)

Light sentences for military killers of Papua campaigner
Seven members of Indonesia’s feared special forces were convicted Apr. 21 of causing the death of Papua’s pro-independence political leader in November 2001, but only sentenced to a maximum of three and a half years in prison.

Most Papuans and analysts, while welcoming the convictions, said the light sentences and the way the case was handled show that Indonesia’s armed forces still enjoy a large degree of impunity.

A military tribunal in Surabaya, East Java, declared the four officers and three soldiers guilty of causing the death to Theys Eluay, the head of the non-violent pro-independence Papuan Presidium, on Nov. 10, 2001. Eluay was found strangled and beaten in his car after the officers insisted on driving him home from a dinner at their base. Eluay’s driver is still missing.

Sidney Jones, who heads the Jakarta office of the conflict-resolution think tank the International Crisis Group, believes the decision reflects the collapse of virtually all efforts to reform Indonesia’s much-criticized military. (GuardianUK)

Marines land at Okinawa airport without permission
Six Marine helicopters and a refueling aircraft landed at a civilian airport in Miyakojuma island, Okinawa Prefecture, on Apr. 26, prompting protests from residents and the prefectural government.

The aircraft were taking part in military exercises in the Philippines, and left the airport 90 minutes later after refueling. The refueling took place despite requests by the government to refrain from landing at the facility, Japanese officials said.

The Marines had asked for permission but were turned down. The Corps nevertheless conducted the landing, citing the US-Japan Status of Forces Agreement as grounds for its legality.

About 100 residents, including Hirara mayor Akira Ishimine, gathered outside the airport to protest the landing. They fear that US military use of the airport will become constant. “We feel the front gate to Miyako has been kicked in by army boots. We cannot forgive this,” said Ishimine.

The city of Hirara, in which the airport is located, has urged the Naha Regional Defense Facilities Administration Bureau to revise the Status of Forces agreement, which allows the US military to use the airport without permission of the municipal government.

The US military has been ignoring the prefectural government’s request to refrain from making landings at civilian airports and has used Shomojijma airport in the town of Irabu, on Irabujima Island near Miyakojima, the officials said. (The Japan Times)

Israeli ambassador to US calls for ‘regime change’ in Iran, Syria
The Israeli ambassador in Washington on Apr. 28 called for “regime change” in Iran and Syria through diplomatic isolation, economic sanctions, and what he called “psychological pressure.”

Ambassador Daniel Ayalon said that the US invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein helped create great opportunities for Israel, but that it was “not enough.”

Ayalon said he did not advocate or foresee the invasion of Syria and Iran, but said that there were “other means that can be exhausted … The way to deal with Iran for instance is to delegitimize its regime and the way to do that is applying political pressure … and to really apply economic sanctions.” He said that governments should not allow visits by Iranian leaders, and that foreign leaders should not visit Iran. He also criticized the European Union for encouraging commercial relations with the country. (Reuters)

Rebels hold 60 percent of Liberia, UN reports
Rebels have seized a stunning 60 percent of Liberia, including most of its diamond-mining areas, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Apr. 25, citing West African government sources.

The impoverished West African nation of three million people has also acknowledged importing arms and ammunition, despite a UN arms embargo, in response to rebel offensives, Annan said in his latest report to the UN Security Council. The rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, or LURD, has been fighting to oust President Charles Taylor on and off for the past three years.

A new rebel group calling itself the Movement for Democracy in Liberia, of MODEL, appeared recently in the southeast, near the border with Ivory Coast, itself in the throes of a civil war closely linked to the one in Liberia. Liberia also accuses neighboring Guinea and Ivory Coast of giving “active support” to anti-government forces, Annan said. (Reuters)

Montreal G20 trial verdict: not guilty
After deliberating for more than one day, a Montreal jury returned an emphatic verdict of “not guilty” Apr. 24 in the riot trial of activists Jonatnan Aspireault-Masse, Jaggi Singh, and Christina Xydous. The charges date back to Oct. 23, 2000, more than two-and-a-half years ago, when over 1,000 people gathered in downtown Montreal to protest a meeting of the G-20 (which includes the heads of the IMF and World Bank). The trial lasted three weeks.

The defendants were also cleared of the lesser charge of “unlawful assembly” which has been used against hundreds of Montreal protesters in the past decade. The crown’s case relied heavily on the testimonies of several senior officers of the Montreal police. Their accounts were soundly rejected in favor of the defense, which consistently challenged police behavior, as well as the targeting of outspoken political activists for their beliefs, and not their acts. The trial also revealed the widespread use of undercover agents, as well as significant police surveillance of political activists, including persons with no history of arrest or criminal records. (A-Infos News Service)

Fate on N. Ireland election in doubt
Britain and Ireland met Apr. 28 to discuss postponing an election in Northern Ireland because of fears that it could poison efforts to revive power sharing.

There was some hope for progress Sunday after the Irish Republican Army (IRA), through its allied Sinn Fein party, said it would disarm if power sharing resumes. But its chief rival, the Ulster Unionist Party, said the offer did not go far enough.

Northern Ireland’s divided political parties, which already have produced posters and ads for broadcast, launched their campaigns for the election in a cloud of uncertainty. The May 29 vote would determine whether moderates of hard-liners wield a majority in Northern Ireland’s legislature, which has been shut down since October because of arguments over IRA activities.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to say whether the vote would be delayed. The election has already been postponed once because of the government’s fears that the vote could reward the most hard-line parties, the Catholics of Sinn Fein and the Protestants of the Democratic Unionist Party. (AP)

New president, same party, for bankrupt Paraguay
The candidate of Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, handily won Apr. 27’s presidential elections, according to the official preliminary vote count, Awaiting the new president is a country on the verge of economic paralysis.

Duarte Frutos received 37.7 percent of the vote, assuring the continuation of the Colorado Party’s nearly six-decade run in power.

The Paraguayan constitution establishes Aug. 15 as the inauguration date for the presidency, but Duarte Frutos apparently intends to take the post much sooner, May 14 or 15, marking the country’s independence day. He has announced that he will order investigations into several public entities that have been denounced on corruption charges, and also that a mission to Washington is being planned to renegotiate payment of Paraguay’s massive debt to multilateral finance institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank.

Unemployment in Paraguay surpasses 15 percent of the economically active population, while underemployment reaches 22 percent. More than a third of the country’s 5.4 million people live in poverty. (IPS)

US soldiers killed in Afghan clash
Two American soldiers have been killed and several wounded in a gunfight with suspected Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan. An Afghan government soldier was also injured in the clash at Shkin in Paktia province, near the border with Pakistan.

There have been frequent rocket attacks on American bases in eastern Afghanistan, where remnants of the Taliban are believed to be active. Afghan officials have reported an upsurge in activity by Taliban fighters who, they say, are attempting to regroup following their defeat by US-led forces.

Last month, two US special forces soldiers were killed and another wounded in an ambush in the south of Afghanistan said to have been carried out by Taliban members.

About 11,500 US-led coalition troops are in Afghanistan, pursuing remnants of the former Taliban government. The latest incident comes ahead of this weekend’s planned trip to Afghanistan by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (BBC)

Opium production soars again in Afghanistan
In the one-and-a-half years since the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the initiation of rule under the US-supported administration of Hamad Karzai, the country has once again become the center of the world’s poppy cultivation and the focus of associated mafias who have reopened smuggling routes closed by the Taliban. According to Pakistani narcotics intelligence agents, the world’s many international drug cartels have become active in the region, notably those from Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan itself, all of them attracted by the abundance and low price of the cultivated opium. Recently, a United Nations-funded anti-narcotics agency reported that Afghanistan had regained the top spot as the world’s largest producer of opium in 2002, with 3,400 tons generating revenue of more than US $1.4 billion. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has urged the world community to do more to help eradicate poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, which are used to make opium and its derivative, heroin. (Asia Times Online)

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