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Costa Rica govt. concedes to highway
blockades
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Sept. 1 (AGR) — For ten days Costa Rica was paralyzed by
nationwide strikes, protests and highway blockades organized to demand
lower fuel prices, higher salaries, and an end to the nation’s
involvement in a proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
The widespread actions had an immediate effect, crippling the nation’s
economy and forcing the government to grant at least a few concessions
to the workers and students who had frozen the gears of this popular
tourist mecca.
Isolated protest measures at strategic points around the country organized
by truck drivers known as traileros began on Aug. 23, to demand that
the government put an end to the three-year monopoly by Riteve, a Spain-based
company contracted to conduct the mandatory technical inspections of
all Costa Rican vehicles. The truckers organized highway blockades which
brought commerce to a standstill.
But the conflict grew and spread, and the protest by the truck drivers’
union and the Chamber of Transport turned into a springboard for organizations
voicing a wide range of political, economic and social grievances. The
government of Abel Pacheco was suddenly facing demands from farmers,
public employees, high school teachers and social organizations, all
of which declared a strike against the approval of a free trade treaty
with the United States and anti-inflationary measures.
The way the protest developed, Riteve was the prime target. But not
long after the truckers took direct action, many public employees joined
in the protests and marches, and then salary increases were insisted
upon next.
The organizations that joined the protest included the National Civic
Committee umbrella group, the Union of Small and Medium Farmers, the
National Association of Public Employees (ANEP), and the Internal Front
of Workers of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), the state-owned
power and telecoms company.
In the early hours of Aug. 25, the government called out the police
to break up the protests in the central province city of Alto de Ochomogo,
as well as those occurring in the eastern province of Limón,
on the Atlantic coast.
But the unrest continued in the north, south and central regions of
this normally quiet country of 4.2 million. By the end of the day, sixty
demonstrators had been arrested by police and remained in jail. As the
hours went by, new groups in different parts of the country continued
to join the demonstrations, each with its own specific grievances and
demands.
Negotiations between the government and the National Civic Committee,
brokered by the Catholic Church and the ombudsman’s office, went
nowhere and were suspended.
Marjorie Lizano, president of the Chamber of Transport, issued a new
call to engage in talks, but tempers flared after the Aug. 25 police
crackdown on demonstrators.
Edgar Brenes, assistant secretary of ANEP, said that in a meeting that
morning, several organizations decided to join the protests, including
the Union of Employees of Costa Rica’s Social Security Institute
(UNDECA), ICE employees, and students from the state University of Costa
Rica and the Technological Institute.
Protests were then planned to demand that the government put an end
to the Riteve monopoly and that it pull the country out of CAFTA, said
Brenes.
The US government has already reached agreement on CAFTA with Costa
Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, but the accord
is pending parliamentary approval in the participating countries.
“It’s time for President Pacheco to pay attention to the widespread
discontent among the Costa Rican people, who are opposed to the neo-liberal
[free market] measures applied to the economy by a group of people who
govern the country as a parallel” power structure, said the trade
unionist.
“Many Costa Ricans already have to give up products like milk in
order to pay their electricity bill,” due to the high cost of living,
he added. “The people can’t take any more, and the government
has to understand that.”
By Aug. 31, semi-trucks had blockaded the Caribbean ports of Moín
and Limón and the Central Pacific port of Caldera, as well as
the Inter-American Highway, and Costa Rica’s main border crossings
with Nicaragua and Panama. Press reports indicated that 19 areas were
blocked by as many as 1,000 trucks by that evening. Semis surrounded
National Oil Refinery facilities at Ochomogo, effectively blocking petroleum
distribution to the greater metropolitan area.The demonstrations also
caused the closure of three Riteve offices.
Hundreds of trucks carrying export goods to be shipped from the country’s
ports were parked along the country’s roads, unable to deliver
their cargo. Five to ten percent of Costa Rican workers were unable
to get to their workplaces, according to the Union of Private Sector
Chambers and Associations (UCCAEP).
Finally, the Pacheco administration caved in on Sept. 1 and gave the
strikers some of what they wanted. The country’s contract with
Riteve, though not anulled, will be re-examined to see if there is a
loophole so that the inspection work can be spread around to local mechanics
shops. Pacheco also agreed to hike the salaries of public employees
a half of a percent. Now public workers will get a 5 percent raise retroactively
instead of 4.5 percent.
However, Pacheco said that his government would continue to seek ratification
of the proposed free trade treaty with the United States and other Central
American nations.
Pacheco’s concessions to the protesters produced the resignation
of the country’s Treasury Minister, Alberto Dent, who felt snubbed
because he wasn’t consulted before the decision.
“A fundamental obligation of the government is to listen to the
people. In this case, the government listened to this group, as it will
with others in the future”, Rogelio Ramos, Costa Rica’s Minister
of Public Security, told the Spanish daily Diario Extra.
“Today there are no more organizations. There are not separate
movements. There is one single body, one soul, one spirit that is defending
the sovereignty of this country,” said union leader Floribel López,
Secretary General of the Costa Rican Education Workers Syndicate, on
Sept. 1.
Sources: AM Costa Rica, Associated Press,
Diario Extra, Insidecostarica.com, Inter Press Service, Tico Times
Bolivians rise up against Mesa administration’s
gas policies
Compiled by Willy Rosencrans
Sept. 1 (AGR) — A little more than a month after the July
18 referendum on the future of Bolivia’s natural gas industry,
President Carlos Mesa’s “victory” has begun to unravel.
According to Bolivian news service Econoticas, an estimated 100,000
people marched on August 25 in protest at Mesa’s hydrocarbons policy.
A “moving blockade” by transport workers totally paralyzed
the capital city of La Paz. Residents of the city of El Alto marched
en masse toward the highway. Men, women, children, and elders marched
to demand nationalization as the only option to control the wealth provided
by natural gas. And, they said, the government must freeze the price
of fuel “because when it rises it affects the economy of our homes.”
The referendum had been pitched as an unprecedented historical opportunity
for the Bolivian people to decide the fate of their natural resources,
one that they, as citizens of the world’s second-most unequal country
measured in terms of the distribution of wealth and income, could not
afford to miss.
Around 60 percent of eligible voters abstained or cast blank or spoiled
votes in protest at the failure to include the option of nationalization,
demanded by over 80 percent of Bolivians.
According to social movement leaders, dominated by but not limited to
indigenous people, Mesa’s referendum offered only the appearance
of sovereignty, insofar as it neglected to revise the 78 contracts signed
with multinationals under the 1997 Hydrocarbons Law — brainchild
of former president Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada,
who authored the decree two days before leaving office for the first
time.
Opposition movement leaders contended that the referendum, since it
was not retroactive, would leave Bolivian gas and oil in the same multinational
hands that acquired it before neoliberalism fell into the crisis that
led to Sánchez de Lozada’s downfall on Oct. 17, 2003.
On that day, the most eventful of the so-called “Gas War,”
demands for nationalization culminated in Sánchez de Lozada’s
ouster by popular force and widespread violence between an outraged
citizenry and the state. According to family organizations, 70 people
died, and more than 400 were wounded, tortured, or disappeared.
Social movements are now carrying out actions to express their discontent
with the policies of Carlos Mesa’s administration pertaining to
land, water, electricity, fuel, justice, and the criminalization of
social protest.
One of the main issues that caused the transport workers strike in La
Paz, El Alto, and Cochabamba is the constant raising of fuel prices
– subject to changes in the international price – which, in
turn, raises the cost of transportation and basic products like bread.
The transport workers demand that fuel prices be frozen.
The government announced on Aug. 11 it would implement a price freeze,
but then backed down under pressure from the oil corporations. On Aug.
23, Mesa announced a two-month freeze, keeping the price of fuel to
$27 a barrel.
Many neighbors who went out to march on Aug. 25 called on the government
to comply with the mandate of the July 18 referendum, which the public
interprets as “the recuperation of the property that is used in
fuel production,” immediately, to be able to control domestic prices.
Protesters took special issue with the government’s failure to
install gas lines in homes, which was harshly criticized by the marchers,
especially in El Alto. “Instead of installing gas lines, the government
is selling [gas] to Brazil and Argentina at the price of a dead chicken,”
said one woman.
Popular outrage was added to by the president’s minister, José
Galindo, who said that the transport workers’ leadership –
now a week into a hunger strike – is receiving money from “some
sectors interested in creating chaos in the country.” In response,
the strike in El Alto has been extended indefinitely.
The Landless Peasant’s Movement (MST) marched from Collana and
Batatallas to La Paz where police attacked them, and some members of
MST were arrested.
MST leader Gabriel Pinto and nine others were arrested two weeks ago,
accused of having participated in the lynching of the mayor of the rural
town of Ayo Ayo, who had been widely accused of corruption. MST is demanding
the liberation of Pinto and the others.
The march was joined by Angel Duran, national leader of the MST, and
Felipe Quispe, of the Farmworkers Federation of Bolivia, and was tear-gassed
when it came near the San Pedro Penitentiary, where 14 of the marchers
were arrested. Duran said that the government is trying to decapitate
the MST movement to stop its occupations of land (including Sánchez
de Lozada’s). Quispe threatened to capture and detain government
ministers and other officials until the prisoners are released.
In Cochabamba, thousands of people demanded the nationalization of gas
in a large rally held in the city’s central plaza.
Around midday, a National Police vehicle was captured and set afire
in the city’s south end. According to food vendors there, the drivers
decided to burn the car because, nearby, police tried to break up the
blockades along the avenues that connect the south end with downtown.
The women said that the drivers were protesting, also, because the police
had an order to break up the blockade so that President Carlos Mesa
would be able to drive from his house, located nearby, to the National
Palace.
Also, around midday, above La Paz, the march headed by the Federation
of Neighborhood Councils (FEJUVE) of El Alto arrived chanting “Up!
Down! We want the head of Goni, dammit!” and “Nationalization
now!”
The FEJUVE president warned President Mesa and Congress that the neighborhood
councils of El Alto will not wait any longer for them to put Sanchez
de Lozada and his collaborators on trial for the October 2003 massacres.
“Once more, we remind the president not to forget his promise made
to the people of El Alto on October 18. He said, ‘Neither forget,
nor revenge, but justice.’”
Sources: GreenLeft Weekly, Narco News Bulletin,
Z-Net
Tentative peace agreement reached in
Najaf
Compiled by Greg White
Sept. 1 (AGR)— A settlement was reached last week in
the strife-torn city of Najaf after three weeks of fierce fighting.
US marines withdrew from the southern Iraqi city on Aug. 26 after
the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani brokered a peace agreement between
US forces and the Mahdi Army.
The ayatollah set out from the southern city of Basra for the eight-hour
journey in a convoy of cars and buses packed with his own supporters.
Sistani’s arrival in Najaf with thousands of supporters in his
wake triggered a 24-hour ceasefire in the city where talks began with
representatives of rebel cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Under the agreement the Mahdi army and US forces agreed to leave Najaf
and Kufa; the Iraqi police took over security in both towns; and the
Iraqi government agreed to compensate those whose property was destroyed
in the fighting. Kasim Daoud, minister of state, said Sadr would not
face arrest.
The agreement also called on “armed elements” in Najaf and
Kufa to give up their weapons in exchange for amnesty. Dozens of militants
were seen piling their weapons onto carts as they filed out of the
Imam Ali shrine where they had been holed up for weeks.
However, a reporter for the Agence-France Presse news agency said
some fighters were carrying Kalashnikovs home in plastic bags and
heavier weapons wrapped in canvas were being hidden in private houses
in the old city.
Police claimed to have found the remains of 10 “charred and bloated”
bodies in what they called a court that was run by the Madhi Army.
Sadr’s spokesman said they were its own casualties and dead civilians.
While the citizens of Najaf have welcomed peace, whole areas of the
city are now in ruins and tens of thousands of people have left —
or lost — their homes.
The hotels and restaurants that serve the pilgrim trade to the ancient
town are smashed rubble, the roads are littered with ordnance, and
much of the world-famous cemetery has been shot to pieces. Electricity
lines lay strewn across the shattered road surfaces, water spurted
from smashed pipes.
American commanders claimed to have killed as many as 1,000 guerrillas
in Najaf since early August, while the Madhi Army contends that the
number is much lower. Scores of civilians were killed.
While fighting came to halt in Najaf, clashes continued between US
forces and the Madhi Army in the Baghdad area of Sadr City, with militants
firing mortars and automatic weapons at US troops and tanks in the
impoverished neighborhood.
Talks between US military officials and Sadr aides failed to bring
a peace agreement. Sadr’s aides demanded a US pullout from the
neighborhood, a condition US officials rejected. The agreement brokered
by Sistani to end the Najaf crisis had made no mention of the Shia
militants’ stronghold in Sadr City, or other areas they hold
elsewhere in Iraq.
Fighting on Aug. 28 in Sadr City killed 10 people and wounded 126,
according to a Health Ministry official. At least 17 Iraqis were killed
and 96 wounded in fierce clashes between US soldiers and the Madhi
Army on the night of Aug. 29.
On Aug. 26 violence in and around the southern city of Kufa claimed
the lives of 74 people while wounding more than 350 others.
As supporters of both Sistani and Sadr prepared to march to Najaf,
a mortar attack hit the main mosque in Kufa. Some witness claimed
one mortar shell hit the mosque compound itself and two others hit
near the mosque gates. Others said there were only two explosions.
“We were gathering outside and inside the mosque preparing to
head to Najaf when two mortar shells landed, one inside the mosque
and the other on the main gate,” said Hani Hashem, bringing an
injured friend to the hospital. “This is a criminal act. We just
wanted to launch a peaceful demonstration.”
Soon after the explosions at the mosque, Iraqi national guardsmen
fired on thousands demonstrators marching towards Najaf, killing and
wounding dozens, according to journalists and medics who were at the
scene. The national guard also fired on demonstrators from Diwaniya,
who tried to enter Najaf from the east.
Thousands of people chanting their solidarity with Sadr and denouncing
Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi were heading from Kufa for
nearby Najaf when they came under fire from national guardsmen as
they passed a military base, an Agence-France Presse photographer
said.
The demonstrators came under fire from a base between the two cities
housing Iraqi national guardsmen and US troops, witnesses said. The
marchers scattered when the gunfire broke out. Casualties were carried
away in private civilian vehicles and ambulances.
The day before, gunmen shooting from the same base killed eight people
and wounded 56 others who were taking part in what appeared to be
a peaceful demonstration supporting Sadr, according to footage from
Associated Press Television News and hospital officials.
Attacks on oil pipelines continued throughout the week, slowing down
production levels that had already been effected by earlier bombings.
A cluster of pipelines was attacked on the night of Aug. 25 in Berjasiya,
20 miles southwest of the southern city of Basra. The pipelines, which
connect the Rumeila oil fields to Berjasiya, were still ablaze the
next day.
Saboteurs hit a pipeline on Aug. 27 that runs within the West Qurna
oilfields, 90 miles north of the southern city of Basra, sending plumes
of fire and smoke leaping into the air, said a South Oil Co. official
in West Qurna.
Separately, a domestic oil pipeline in Nahrawan, a desert region 20
miles east of Baghdad, was attacked Aug. 28.
Strikes on Aug. 29 against five pipelines linked to the southern Rumeila
oil fields immediately shut down the Zubayr 1 pumping station. By
the following day, oil exports from southern Iraq were brought to
a complete halt.
No oil was being pumped through Iraq’s northern export lines
to the Turkish port of Ceyhan as well, according to an oil official
in Ceyhan. Those lines have also been repeatedly attacked in recent
months.
The southern pipelines account for at least 90 percent of Iraq’s
oil exports, and operations are not expected to continue until next
week. A halt in southern oil exports costs Iraq about $60 million
a day in lost income at current global crude prices.Pipeline attacks
in July cost the government $1 billion in sales over 10 days.
President Bush this week acknowledged for the first time that he had
miscalculated post-war conditions in Iraq. He was quoted as saying
during an interview that he made “a miscalculation of what the
conditions would be” in post-war Iraq. According to the Pentagon,
969 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the invasion, 828 of them
since Apr. 30, 2003. An additional 6,690 service members have been
wounded, most of them during the occupation.
Sources: Agence-France Presse, Al Jazeera,
Associated Press, BBC, Financial Times, Guardian (UK), Observer (UK),
Reuters
Riot police turn violent on protesters
in Athens
Powell cancels trip to Olympics
Compiled by Finn Finneran
Sept. 1 (AGR) -- Thousands of anti-war demonstrators clashed
with Greek riot police in Athens’ main tourist district Aug.
28 after a rally to protest US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s
expected visit on Aug. 30 to attend the Olympics’ Closing Ceremonies
and meet with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. An estimated
5,000 people joined in the demonstration, including labor unions,
anarchists, Marxists and others opposed to US foreign policy in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Israel.
Protests continued into Aug. 29 with nearly 700 demonstrators rallied
in central Athens.
Shortly following these protests the US state department said that
Powell had informed Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis that
he would not be able to travel to Athens.
A spokesman for the department, Kurtis Cooper, was quoted by the Associated
Press news agency as saying the anti-American protests in Athens had
“played no role” in Powell’s decision.
One of the organizers of the demonstrations, Yiannis Sifakakis, said
the cancellation of the visit marked a “huge victory.”
“Of course, the cancellation was linked to our protests,”
he told Reuters news agency.
“It is very clear why he is not coming even if he is trying to
come up with excuses. But whenever he should decide to come we will
lay on the same welcome.”
There were fears that Powell’s appearance at the closing ceremony
would have been booed by spectators, marring the festivities.
The Independent newspaper from the UK also speculated that the prospect
of television pictures of anti-US demonstrations on the eve of the
Republican Convention in New York may also have been a factor in Powell’s
sudden decision not to make an appearance in Athens.
Beyond its antiwar stance, the protests on Aug. 28 and 29 also had
an anti-Olympic sentiment.
According to the Athens Indymedia dozens of workers died in work-related
accidents during a huge pull by the city to finish construction of
Olympic structures in time for the opening games. Stray animals were
poisoned en masse and homeless people, drug addicts and immigrants
have been “disappeared” in Athens in what Athens Indymedia
calls a push to make Athens “ ‘clean’ and ‘civilized’
like some of the western cities.”
Outside the parliament during the recent protest, the police blocked
the march from continuing onwards to the American Embassy. The demonstrators
refused to accept the ban, and confronted the police, which used chemicals
and direct physical violence, resulting in the injuries of several
protesters.
The protesters, who were holding banners saying “Powell Out”
and “US out of Iraq,” were surrounded by large numbers of
police.
In the ensuing ruckus, marchers set fire to trash cans and smashed
some storefront windows before dispersing about an hour later.
Maria Styllou, a teacher at a local technical college, called Powell
“a murderer” and said the vast majority of Greeks are vehemently
against the US presence in Iraq. In an interview beforehand, she predicted
the demonstration would turn ugly and the police would response with
gas, adding that such outcomes are routine in Athens.
“That’s what they’re going to do,” she said. “We
push, and they tear gas.”
Skiadas, 18, a recent high school graduate from Athens, said many
Greeks were fed up with the Olympics and upset the government has
devoted so much money to the Games. “You can buy so many cameras
and so many police officers, but we need the money for schools and
hospitals,” he said.
Greece has spent $1.5 billion on security for the Olympics and have
deployed about 70,000 police officers, soldiers and other forces.
Sources: AFP, Athens IMC, BBC, The Independent
(UK), Washington Post
California court to rule on 1980 death
squad killing
By Dan Glaister
Los Angeles, California, Aug. 25— The alleged mastermind
behind the 1980 killing of Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador
was due to be tried in his absence in California yesterday on charges
of extra-judicial killing and crimes against humanity.
An anonymous relative of the archbishop has brought the charges in
the hope of winning substantial damages against the man, a former
Salvadoran air force captain.
Alvaro Rafael Saravia, who until last year was a used-car salesman
in Modesto, California, is charged with planning and facilitating
the murder of the archbishop as he celebrated mass in San Salvador
on Mar. 24, 1980.
But Saravia, who has lived in the US since at least 1987, is unlikely
to be in court. He disappeared after a complaint was filed against
him in September last year.
Saravia was the right-hand man of Maj. Roberto D’Aubisson, then-leader
of El Salvador’s death squads; D’Aubisson ordered the assassination
as part of a “counterinsurgency” campaign, for which he
had been trained, like tens of thousands of other Latin American officers,
at the US Army’s School of the Americas (renamed WHISC).
The School’s graduates have been implicated in virtually every
major human-rights violation in Latin America. Critics of the School
describe such assassinations as an integral part of US foreign policy
there.
Archbishop Romero was a charismatic and influential figure in the
turbulent politics of El Salvador at the end of the 1970s. As an outspoken
defender of the rights of the poor and a critic of the right-wing
death squads, he was the target of death threats.
The UN has estimated that between the late 1970s and 1992, right-wing
death squads killed 75,000 civilians in El Salvador. The day before
his assassination, Archbishop Romero addressed his sermon to the soldiers
involved in the killings.
The next day, the lawsuit alleges, Saravia met with D’Aubuisson.
Saravia ordered his driver to take an unknown assassin to the church.
The shot that killed the archbishop was allegedly fired from the car,
parked 80 to 100 feet away.
Saravia then allegedly reported the successful murder to D’Aubuisson
and paid the gunman in cash. D’Aubuisson died in 1992.
“This is the first court hearing that’s going to examine
the personal responsibility of those who planned the assassination,”
said Sandra Coliver, director of the Center for Justice and Accountability,
which brought the case.
Saravia, who is in his 60s, is thought to have initially entered the
US on a visitor’s visa and stayed in the country when the visa
expired. In 1987, he was detained in Miami when Salvadoran prosecutors
sought his extradition in connection with the murder of the archbishop.
But the extradition request was withdrawn and he was released.
In the early 1990s he is thought to have moved from Florida to California,
settling in Modesto. He set up a business, the Modesto Auto Mart,
but left more than a year ago, leaving a trail of debts and lawsuits.
Under a 1993 Salvadoran amnesty he cannot be tried for his part in
the killing in his home country.
This week’s trial will hear testimony from many who were close
to the archbishop and to the political situation in El Salvador at
the time of his murder, including a former US ambassador, Robert White.
Coliver said prosecutors hoped information would emerge in the trial
that would lead them closer to the killer. “We are using this
hearing as a step,” she said. “We believe there are other
people who live here or regularly travel through the US with equal
degrees of responsibility.”
Additional material from AGR staff
Source: Guardian (UK)
Pinochet stripped of immunity by
court
By Andrew Buncombe
Aug. 27— The Supreme Court of Chile yesterday stripped
Augusto Pinochet, the country’s former military dictator, of
his immunity from prosecution - opening the way for him to be charged
with human rights abuses and the alleged death and disappearance
of more than 3,000 people.
The court in Santiago, the capital, voted 9-8 to lift the immunity
protecting the former president, overruling its own previous decisions
that the 88-year-old was too physically and mentally ill to face
prosecution. Two years ago, court-appointed doctors determined that
General Pinochet had a mild case of dementia, used a pacemaker and
suffered from diabetes and arthritis. He has had at least three
mild strokes since 1998.
Human rights activists yesterday applauded the ruling.
Neil Durkin of Amnesty International said: “We absolutely welcome
this decision. It is long overdue as far as we are concerned. This
is the first real opportunity to ensure that those who commit human
rights abuses are [brought] to justice.”
Gen. Pinochet ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, having seized power
in a coup, supported by the CIA, in which he overthrew Salvador
Allende, who had been democratically elected. In the years of suppression
that followed and during which time was he supported by the governments
of the US and Britain, Gen. Pinochet’s regime was responsible
for the deaths of more than 3,000 people, according to the civilian
government which followed him. Yesterday’s ruling was in regard
to a lawsuit brought on behalf of 19 victims of “Operation
Condor”, which campaigners say was a brutal plan of repression
against opponents of the dictatorship. A government spokesman said
the ruling cleared the way for an investigation into the general’s
role in the suppression.
Francisco Vidal, a cabinet minister, said: “Nobody is above
the law.” Lawyers had presented the Supreme Court with new
evidence that suggested Gen. Pinochet was capable of being put on
trial. Part of this evidence was a television interview Gen. Pinochet
gave last year to a Miami-based, Spanish-language television station,
in which he calmly talked about his rule, described himself as a
“good angel” and blamed the abuses of his regime on others.
Lorena Pizarro, head of group that represents the relatives of victims
of repression under Gen. Pinochet’s dictatorship, urged prosecutors
to move quickly. “Pinochet has to be tried,” she told
the Associated Press. “He must pay for all the crimes for which
he is responsible. This has to be the window of opportunity to bring
human rights violators to justice.”
The ruling — and the likely legal battle that will follow it
— is one of several legal problems facing the ageing dictator.
Earlier this month he was questioned by a judge about money being
held on his behalf by the Washington-based Riggs Bank. Investigators
say he may be implicated in corruption, money laundering and possibly
arms and drug trafficking.
Gen. Pinochet has long been running from prosecution. In 2000 he
was allowed to return to Chile from Britain where he had been under
house arrest. He was arrested in London, where he was receiving
medical treatment, at the request of a Spanish judge. During his
16 months in Britain, Gen. Pinochet was visited by former prime
minister Lady Thatcher.
Gen. Pinochet’s spokesman, General Guillermo Garin, said: “This
does come as bit of a surprise since the health of the ex-president
has not changed.”
Source: Independent (UK)
Margaret Thatcher’s son
implicated in African coup plot
Compiled by Jodi Rhoden
Sept. 1 (AGR) -- On August 31, the trial of 19 people accused
of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea was suspended indefinitely
to take into account new developments including the arrest of former
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s son in South Africa.
Mark Thatcher is under house arrest at his Cape Town home on charges
that he was one of the men who bankrolled the plot to oust President
Teodoro Obiang Nguema and install an exiled opposition leader, Severo
Moto, in return for lucrative oil contracts.
Thatcher is due in court in South Africa in November to answer charges
he paid $275,000 to Simon Mann, a former SAS (British Special Air
Service) officer and alleged British mastermind of the coup. On
August 27, Mann, who is also the founder of mercenary firm Executive
Outcomes, was convicted in Zimbabwe of attempting to illegally buy
weapons for the suspected plotters. Mann had insisted that the weapons
were intended for guarding a mine in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, but his case was rejected by the Zimbabwean court and he
now faces up to 15 years in prison in Zimbabwe. His position could
worsen if he is extradited to Equatorial Guinea, where he could
face the death penalty.
Thatcher, 51, was in his pajamas when South Africa’s FBI-style
Scorpions unitburst into his $3.5 million home in the Cape Town
suburb of Constantia on Aug. 25 and arrested him. Thatcher planned
to flee South Africa before his arrest; he had failed to respond
quickly enough to a police request for information upon returning
from a trip to the United States.
While in Texas, he settled a racketeering lawsuit for an undisclosed
sum. He was also investigated by the Internal Revenue Service over
his role with a Dallas-based home security company that went bankrupt.
He has lived in South Africa since 1995 when he left the US amid
a number of investigations into his business dealings there.
His court appearance was delayed after he was robbed of his mobile
telephone, jacket and shoes while in custody in a crowded police
cell. Police officials said he was uninjured and they hoped to recover
his property.
After being released on bail of $300,000 but confined to house arrest
until September 8, Thatcher denies the allegations.
A police spokesperson, Sipho Ngwema, said: “We have evidence,
credible evidence, and information that he was involved in the attempted
coup.”
Nick du Toit, a former South African special forces soldier and
arms dealer, is among 19 others charged in the Equatorial Guinea
capital, Malabo, for their alleged involvement in the coup attempt.
Du Toit, who faces the death penalty if convicted, has told the
court he met Thatcher in the run-up to the coup attempt. He said
the British businessman was interested in purchasing military hardware
but was not involved in the plot. He was also allegedly keen to
buy military helicopters for a mining deal with Sudan.
Other names linked with the alleged plot include Ely Calil, a London-based
oil trader who made his fortune in Nigerian oil but was questioned
by police in 2002 in connection with commission paid by the French
oil company Elf Aquitaine to Sani Abacha, the former dictator of
Nigeria. Calil is a former financial adviser to Jeffrey Archer,
the disgraced former Tory deputy chairman. Lord Archer allegedly
paid Mann $144,000 but he denies knowledge of any coup plot.
One of Mark Thatcher’s key business partners, Crause Steyl,
is believed to have handed over details of Thatcher’s investment
in an aviation firm that had contracts with Mann. Mann’s associates
say he relied increasingly on Steyl’s experience in running
air operations as plans for the coup plot played out this year.
The two first met when Mann established Executive Outcomes in South
Africa in the early 1990s and won a contract to run military operations
in support of the Angolan government’s operations against Unita
rebels. Steyl worked on several other private military operations
such as the Executive Outcomes contract in Sierra Leone.
Many in the intelligence community are asking whether a hidden hand
was played by Western powers. Some suggest US, Spanish and British
interests offered their backing to Moto. On the other side were
the French, who believed a successful coup would have cemented US
domination in the country, where US oil giant Exxon Mobil already
enjoys the most important drilling concessions.
British intelligence sources have suggested that the French learned
of the plot and helped to sabotage it. Spanish intelligence sources
have made similar claims.
Former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar was
a close ally of the exiled Moto, who lived in Madrid. Simon Mann
confessed to Spanish involvement in plot, but the Spanish government
has denied the claims. But it has emerged that earlier this year
two Spanish warships left the Nato naval base based near Cadiz with
500 elite troops on board; the soldiers are reported to have been
told they were heading for Equatorial Guinea.
It was Du Toit who named Thatcher in a statement last week that
led to his arrest. Thatcher’s alleged involvement first emerged
when The Observer obtained details of two letters written by Mann
from prison referring to the former Prime Minister’s son as
“Scratcher.”
The relatives of the 19 men whose trial has been suspended due to
the revelations about Thatcher’s involvement in the coup plot
say the accused have been tortured while being held in Malabo’s
notorious Black Beach prison. A German arrested in March along with
the other suspected mercenaries has died while in custody. Officials
say he succumbed to cerebral malaria, but rights groups say he died
from torture.
On Aug. 24, lawyers for the accused objected to the suspension of
the trial, saying their clients had already been in prison since
their arrest in March.
Sources: AFP, BBC, Guardian (UK), Independent
(UK), Observer (UK)
India cracks down on media, NGOs
in disturbed northeast
By Syed Zarir Hussain
Imphal, Manipur, Aug. 25 — The banning of a private
television channel in the northeast Indian state of Manipur combined
with the federal government’s accusation Aug. 24 that at least
five nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the region have links
with militants has triggered a controversy in this already volatile
region.
The twin moves have come as thousands of angry protesters hit the
streets in Manipur, demanding the withdrawal of a federal anti-terror
law that gives sweeping powers to the military to shoot at sight
and arrest anybody without a warrant.
What has riled people in India’s neglected northeast is the
federal Home Ministry’s decision Aug. 24 to place five NGOs
working in the region on the watchlist for suspected links with
rebel armies.
“All the five NGOs have some links with terrorist organizations
in the northeast,” India’s junior Home Minister Sri Prakash
Jaiswal told the Indian Parliament.
The organizations are the United Committee of Manipur (UCM), the
Manab Adhikar Sangram Samity (MASS), the Northeast Coordination
Committee of Human Rights (NECCHR), the Naga People’s Movement
for Human Rights (NPMHR), and the Naga Students’ Federation
(NSF).
The UCM is a rights group in Manipur which came into the limelight
in 2001 after it spearheaded a violent agitation to oppose the extension
of the jurisdiction of a cease-fire by New Delhi with a Naga tribal
separatist group in Nagaland state.
MASS, NECCHR and NPHMR are all rights groups in Assam and Nagaland,
while the NSF is an influential students group in Nagaland.
The NGOs, of course, vehemently deny any truck with terrorists.
“It is very easy for the government to dub us pro-militant.
But the fact is that whoever raises the banner of revolt against
the government invites New Delhi’s wrath and that is precisely
what has happened to us,” claims UCM leader S. Singh.
“We don’t have any links with militant groups. We have
the support of the people and it was proved when the whole of Manipur
was with us during the anti-cease-fire agitation in 2001,”
he adds.
The other NGOs have also lashed out at the government’s statement.
“It is nothing but an attempt to defame rights groups like
us who always espouse the cause of innocent civilians who are tortured
and harassed by security forces in the name of curbing militancy,”
declares NPMHR spokesman N. Krome.
The state governments in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland are tightlipped
about New Delhi’s move to paint the five NGOs in militant colors.
“Perhaps the federal intelligence agencies may have given the
Home Ministry some inputs and so the minister made such a statement,”
remarks a senior Nagaland police official.
“We are yet to get details of the home ministry report and
so cannot comment on the charges. Unless we get specific reports
it is difficult for us to act or take any action against the NGOs
in question,” says Nagaland home minister T. Lotha.
Similar views were echoed by the Assam and Manipur government’s
on the federal home minister’s statement.
The drive against the NGOs followed pot shots at the media. On August
14, a day before India’s Independence Day, the Manipur government
asked the Information Service Television Network (ISTN) to shut
down transmission with immediate effect.
“The district magistrate issued an order prohibiting the transmission
of ISTN under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995,
in the name of public interest,” says a government spokesman.
ISTN is a popular — and the only independent — television
network in Manipur, which borders Myanmar. The channel produces
news bulletins in the local Metei dialect, besides the usual entertainment
fare.
“We were showing the protests and the agitation in Manipur
over the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in our news bulletins like
normal professionals. We did not exaggerate but were very objective
in our reporting and showed events as they happened,” says
ISTN secretary Khagendro Singh.
“The order barring us from transmitting news and entertainment
programs is nothing but an infringement on the freedom of expression
and attempts at gagging the freedom of the press,” he protests.
What seems to have angered the government are visual images of thousands
of people taking to the streets to protest the law and the subsequent
incidents of the military firing rubber bullets at protestors and
bursting teargas canisters to scatter the mobs.
“The authorities thought ISTN was the only channel viewed by
the locals as we tried to come up with exclusive visuals of the
developments. The government-run television network, Doordarshan,
was showing nothing. So they tried to stop us,” explains ISTN
president T. Kulesho.
But ISTN was not cowed. The channel’s management hit back on
August 18 by filing a petition in the high court and on Aug. 24
an interim order was passed where the court decided to “suspend”
the government order barring the channel from transmission.
“The court says we can broadcast or transmit news as long as
we do not disturb public tranquillity,” contends the channel’s
legal counsel B.B. Sahu. “The court’s order vindicates
our claim that we were airing news in an objective manner as the
people of Manipur have the right to information.”
Though ISTN has got a lifeline, the journalist fraternity is not
mollified. The All Manipur Working Journalists Union has asked the
state government to come up with an explanation for trying to gag
the freedom of the press by banning ISTN.
Local journalists have for long complained about the dangers of
being a media person in the insurgency-hit region. “Journalists
in Manipur have always been at the receiving end from both the government
and rebel armies,” says a senior journalist.
At least half-a-dozen journalists were killed in the northeast by
rebels during the past five years, while more than a dozen were
arrested on charges of aiding and abetting militancy.
“Journalists in the northeast are always under tremendous pressure
from both the state machinery and the underground groups,”
says Pradip Phanjoubam, the editor of Imphal Free Press, the leading
English daily from Manipur’s capital, Imphal.
There are more than 30-odd rebel armies in India’s restive
northeast with demands ranging from secession to greater autonomy
and the right to self-determination. More than 50,000 people have
lost their lives to insurgency in the region since India’s
independence in 1947.
Source: OneWorld.net
Torture investigations widen circle
of blame
Compiled by John Brinker
Sept. 1 (AGR) -- Over the past week, many new details have
surfaced in the widening scandal concerning US military and intelligence
involvement in torture of detainees in Iraq and elsewhere.
On Aug. 24 lawyers at a pretrial hearing for Spc. Javal Davis, asked
the judge to enable them to interview Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone,
his undersecretary for intelligence.
Lawyer Paul Bergrin, representing Davis, said that Rumsfeld had
signed off on a military document in 2002 authorizing severe interrogation
techniques on prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that were later imported
to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bergrin claimed that an initialed sentence added to the document,
presumably by Rumsfeld, read: “However I stand for eight to
10 hours a day, why should the stress positions be limited to four
hours?”
The same day, a report was released by a panel named by Donald Rumsfeld
to look into the abuse. The panel, headed by former Defense Secretary
James Schlesinger, found that Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff
failed to exercise proper oversight over confusing detention policies
at US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo.
The panel concluded that Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, commander of
the 800th MP Brigade, and Col. Thomas Pappas, commander of the 205th
Military Intelligence Brigade, knew or should have known that the
abuses were taking place and should have taken measures to prevent
them.
The Schlesinger report accuses Karpinski of leadership failures
that set the conditions that led to the abuses. However, Karpinski
said in an interview broadcast with the BBC that there had been
a conspiracy to prevent her from knowing about the abuse.
On Aug. 25, the US Army’s investigative commission led by Maj.
Gen. George R. Fay and Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones released their
own findings on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the
prison abuse.
The Fay-Jones report indicates that MPs used unmuzzled military
police dogs to make juveniles as young as 15 years old urinate on
themselves as part of a competition.
The commission also found that CIA operatives hid inmates and flouted
rules at Abu Ghraib. Agents kept at least eight so-called ghost
detainees, including three Saudis who were working with the US as
part of a medical team. A CIA officer brought a weapon into the
interrogation booth with him to intimidate a detainee he was questioning,
and a prisoner died while being interrogated by an agency officer
in November.
At a news conference, Gen. Fay indicated that investigators had
been blocked from pursuing these allegations against CIA employees.
The Fay-Jones report laid much of the blame at the feet of Lt. Gen.
Ricardo Sanchez, the top US commander in Iraq at the time of the
abuses. However, the report does not recommend holding Sanchez criminally
accountable for the abuse.
“We did not find General Sanchez culpable, but we did find
him responsible,” a panel member said.
Decrying the government’s failure to comply with a court order
requiring it to respond to a request for information about prisoner
mistreatment abroad, the American Civil Liberties Union said on
Aug. 25 that it would raise the issue with the court in a hearing
scheduled for Sept. 9.
At issue is a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other groups to force
the Bush administration to comply with a Freedom of Information
Act request filed in Oct. 2003 about the government’s treatment
of detainees held in Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York had
already ordered the agencies named in the request, including the
FBI, CIA and the Departments of State and Defense, to begin complying.
In his first comments on the two investigative reports, Donald Rumsfeld
on Aug. 26 incorrectly described one of the reports’ central
findings by saying there was no evidence that prisoners had been
abused during interrogations.
In an interview in Phoenix, Rumsfeld said, “I have not seen
anything thus far that says that the people abused were abused in
the process of interrogating them or for interrogation purposes.”
Rumsfeld repeated the assertion a few hours later at a news conference.
After an aide slipped him a note, Rumsfeld corrected himself, noting
that an inquiry by three Army generals had, in fact, found “two
or three” cases of abuse during interrogations or the interrogation
process. The Fay-Jones report found that 13 of 44 instances of abuse
involved interrogations or the interrogation process.
Rumsfeld also missated an important finding of the Schlesinger panel,
saying, “The interesting thing about the Schlesinger panel
is their conclusion that, in fact, the abuses seem not to have anything
to do with interrogation at all.”
But the first paragraph of the Schlesinger panel report says, “We
do know that some of the egregious abuses at Abu Ghraib which were
not photographed did occur duing interrogation sessions and that
abuses during interrogation sessions occured elsewhere.”
The next day, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita sought to play
down Rumsfeld’s comments, saying, “He misspoke, pure and
simple. But he corrected himself.”
Sources: ACLU, AFP, AP, Guardian (UK),
Knight-Ridder, LA Times, MSNBC, NYT, Reuters, Washington Post
Argentina: making those
responsible for the dirty war pay
By Marcela Valente
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug. 24 (IPS) — Daniel Tarnopolsky
was 18 years old when the security forces in Argentina took away
his father, mother, sister, brother, and sister-in-law one night
in 1976. He never saw any of them alive again.
Today, at the age of 46, he has achieved what he has been fighting
for since 1987: a former member of the military junta has been forced
to pay compensation out of his own pocket.
“This is the only case in Argentina in which a former repressor
was directly sued, because for my client it was very important that
one of them pay,” Tarnopolsky’s lawyer Betina Stein told
IPS.
After a lengthy trial for moral and economic damages based on a
lawsuit originally filed by Tarnopolsky in 1987, the courts ordered
the payment of indemnification by the state and former navy admiral
Emilio Massera, one of the first three commanders of Argentina’s
1976-1983 dictatorship.
But while the state paid its part, Massera appealed the verdict
over and over again until finally forking over the payment Aug.
23 to prevent the courts from auctioning off the apartment where
he is serving house arrest in connection with the theft of the babies
of victims of forced disappearance.
The Tarnopolsky case is a prominent symbol of the de facto regime’s
“dirty war” not only because of the magnitude of the suffering
caused by the forced disappearance and murder of five members of
a family of six, but also because it is the only one in which a
civil lawsuit has been brought with the specific aim of making those
responsible for the dirty war literally “pay.”
The disappearance and murder of the Tarnopolsky family was among
the crimes for which the former members of the military junta were
convicted and sentenced by the federal courts in 1985.
But two amnesty laws passed in the mid-1980s, which put an end to
prosecutions against members of the military, made it impossible
for Tarnopolsky to see those directly responsible for the disappearance
of his family thrown into prison. He then decided to sue for reparations,
in 1987.
According to his lawyer, Tarnopolsky would have preferred that Massera
pay 100 percent of the indemnification set in 1994 at $1.2 million.
But the state decided to pay one million — in bonds that form
part of the public debt that it defaulted on in December 2001 —
leaving the rest to Massera.
The former dictator appealed. But in 1999 the Supreme Court upheld
the sentence, ruling that the statute of limitations does not expire
in cases of forced disappearance until the victim — or the
body — appears.
In 2000, a judge accepted Stein’s request to declare Massera
in bankruptcy, which would have led to the auction of all of his
assets. Although Massera — who was left bedridden by a stroke
two years ago — is wealthy, the only property in his name is
the flat where he lives, which was to be auctioned on Sept. 23.
The final amount paid was just over $67,000. “They wanted a
reduction, but we flatly refused, because this payment is symbolic,”
said Stein.
The money was donated to Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo,
a human rights group dedicated to finding the children of the disappeared.
For years, the Abuelas have been seeking the children of the disappeared,
who were born to political prisoners in captivity, stolen, and illegally
adopted, many of them by military families.
“The payment of indemnification not only amounts to reparations
for the victim, but is also a strong condemnation for these people
who believe there is nothing worse than having to pay out of their
own pockets,” said Stein.
Between 11,000 and 30,000 people — depending on the source
of the estimate — became victims of forced disappearance at
the hands of the de facto regime.
The law that recognizes the right of the families of the disappeared
to financial reparations for their loss requires them to officially
accept that their missing loved ones are dead, something that many
families have not been willing to do.
Stein believes the 1999 Supreme Court ruling on the case opened
up a new route for those families to demand economic compensation.
In a moving press conference granted with Estela Carlotto, the president
of the Abuelas, Tarnopolsky expressed his hope that the money would
be “purified” through the activities of the human rights
group. He also showed photos of his family “for you to see
that the disappeared are people, not ghosts.”
“This was Hugo, my father. He was an industrial chemist,”
said Tarnopolsky, holding up a black-and-white photo.
He then presented photos of his mother, Blanca, an educational psychologist;
his sister Bettina, who was 15 the night the family was taken away;
his brother Sergio, 21; and his brother’s wife Laura De Luca,
also 21.
In a conversation with IPS, Tarnopolsky pointed out that Massera
was convicted in 1985 for the abduction of his family, among other
cases. But in 1990, the pardon issued by then-president Carlos Menem
(1989-1999) left Massera and other former junta members free.
However, the pardon did not cover the civil lawsuit brought by Tarnopolsky
in 1987.
For the only survivor of the Tarnopolsky family, the struggle is
not over. He said he is waiting for the Supreme Court to uphold
the revocation of the amnesty laws, which Congress annulled in 2003.
If the Supreme Court ratifies the parliamentary decision, the perpetrators
of the dictatorship’s crimes against humanity could be tried
in court.
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