Would-be Castro assassin detained

Panama City, Panama, Nov. 15— As Latin American and European leaders met to discuss their problems, Panamanian police on Saturday were trying to decide what to do with a shadowy former CIA agent accused of trying to kill Fidel Castro.

Luis Posada Carriles was detained Friday evening a few hours after the Cuban leader accused him of plotting an assassination during the two-day Ibero-American Summit, which was to conclude Saturday.

Posada escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting retrial on charges of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in 1976 that killed 73 people.

Police Chief Carlos Bares said Posada had been using a Salvadoran passport in the name of Franco Rodriguez Mena.

Castro claimed Posada was working for the Miami-based Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), which immediately denied any connection with Posada.

However, the fugitive himself says his efforts were supported financially for more than a decade by leaders of CANF.

In a series of tape-recorded interviews at a walled Caribbean compound, Posada said the hotel bombings and other operations had been supported by leaders of the exile group founded and headed by Miami businessman Jorge Mas Canosa until his death last year.

Although the tax-exempt foundation has declared that it seeks to bring down Cuba’s Communist government solely through peaceful means, Posada said leaders of the foundation discreetly financed his operations. Mas personally supervised the flow of money and logistical support, he said.

“Jorge controlled everything,” Posada said. “Whenever I needed money, he said to give me $5,000, give me $10,000, give me $15,000, and they sent it to me.”

Over the years, Posada estimated, Mas sent him more than $200,000.

“He never said, ‘This is from the foundation,’” Posada recalled. Rather, he said with a chuckle, the money arrived with the message, “This is for the church.”

Foundation leaders did not respond to telephone calls and letters from The New York Times requesting an interview to discuss their relationship with Posada. But in a statement faxed to The Times and The Herald, the group denied a role in his operations, saying “any allegation, implication, or suggestion that members of the Cuban American National Foundation have financed any alleged ‘acts of violence’ against the Castro regime are totally and patently false.”

Posada, 70, agreed through an intermediary to meet with The New York Times, provided that his current residence, alias and the location of the interviews were not divulged. In two days of interviews, he talked openly for the first time about his dealings with the foundation’s leaders.

Castro’s dramatic announcement and the subsequent detention of Posada overshadowed the summit of 19 Latin American leaders, along with those of Spain and Portugal.

For decades, Cuba has accused Posada of terrorist acts against the communist island nation and assassination attempts against Castro himself.

Born in 1928, according to Cuban sources, Posada fled Cuba after the 1959 revolution led by Castro and was involved in US-backed efforts to topple the communist government.

After working at least briefly for the CIA, Posada went to Venezuela where he rose to become director of operations for the country’s intelligence agency, which was monitoring leftist rebels. He lost the job after a change in the presidency in 1974.

Prosecutors accused him of masterminding the October 1976 bombing of a Cubana de Aviacion jetliner. He was acquitted twice, but officials were making a third try to convict him when he escaped from prison in 1985. Venezuelan officials say he still faces charges there.

After Posada’s escape, he allegedly helped send guns to the US-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Honduran officials also have identified him as the associate of an alleged arms dealer in that country.

The Miami Herald reported in 1998 that he had been living off and on in El Salvador and had close ties with current or retired military figures in the region. Salvadoran officials said in 1998 they were unable to locate him.

In a 1998 interview with The New York Times, Posada was quoted as admitting involvement in the bombing of hotels in Cuba in 1997. A Salvadoran man who planted one of the bombs, Raul Ernesto Cruz Leon, was sentenced to death for killing an Italian tourist.

The Herald reported that Posada had been involved in several other attempts to disrupt Cuba’s socialist economy or kill Castro at other international summits.

Police in the Dominican Republic intensified security for a Caribbean summit in August 1998 after the Herald reported that the FBI had received a warning that Posada planned to have Castro assassinated at the event.

Source: Associated Press, Miami Herald

Chiapas government to provide legal aid for paramilitary prisoners

Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, November 14— In a “secret” meeting held in Tuxtla Gutiérrez on October 29, top leaders of the state legislature promised PRI deputy Raymundo Hernández Trujillo -- the current head of the “Paz y Justicia” paramilitary organization -- that the state government would hire former state Supreme Court judge Federico Corzo to defend Paz y Justicia leaders Samuel Sánchez Sánchez and Marcos Albino Torres, two of the paramilitary leaders arrested in late October on terrorism, organized crime, and weapons charges.

Details of the meeting were later leaked to the press, although they were subsequently denied by Sánchez Sánchez and Albino Torres. The government sources who leaked the information also said that the legislators planned to “pressure” the campesinos in northern Chiapas whose accusations lead to the unprecedented arrests of eleven members of the paramilitary group.

Meanwhile, Paz y Justicia itself issued a communiqué, signed by Cristóbal Gómez Torres and Diego Martínez Martínez, insisting that while Sánchez Sánchez and Albino Torres were “historical” leaders of the group, they no longer belong to the organization as they were “expelled some years ago for the actions they undertook” while directing the organization.

Similar statements were later affirmed by Samuel Sánchez Sánchez, who said that Paz y Justicia split down the middle approximately one year ago, and that the group is currently lead by “municipal presidents and some state government officials.”

Some human rights and non-governmental organizations have begun to warn that the detentions of the paramilitary leaders may have been planned all along by the state government and the armed anti-Zapatista groups themselves in order to create social pressure for a dialogue leading to a full amnesty for those civilians who have participated in the government’s counterinsurgency strategy against the EZLN.

Source: Mexico Solidarity Network: www.mexicosolidarity.org

Gaza and West Bank under embargo

Gaza City, Nov. 15— By land, air, and sea, Israel has imposed a strict embargo on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank that severely constricts the Palestinians’ ability to travel, trade and work.

In normal times, more than 150,000 Palestinians travel to and from Israel each day mostly for work.

Israel cites security reasons for the embargo.

“Of course the closure creates a lot of problems,” said Mr. Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Israeli government office overseeing activities in the Palestinian territories. “But if we allow 150,000 Palestinians into Israel each day, among them will be terrorists.’’

The Gaza airport was closed last week after a female Israeli Customs worker was shot dead only a few kilometers away, raising concerns about the safety of Israeli security personnel at the airport, he said.

However, the Palestinians claim the measures are a collective punishment that squeezes them economically, pressures them politically and keeps them from trading, traveling and working.

“This is a comprehensive siege that we’ve never experienced before,’’ said Mr. Ali Badwan, planning director at the Palestinian Ministry of Industry.

“It’s not a matter of security, it’s just punishing the people.’’

The embargo costs the anemic Palestinian economy about $13 million a day, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Labor.

Source: Associated Press

Fox confirms his intention to implement San Andreas Accords

Mexico City, Mexico, Nov. 16— President-elect Vicente Fox Quesada announced this week that following his inauguration on December 1, his first act of government will be to formally send the COCOPA proposal on indigenous rights and culture to Congress for its approval.

The proposal is a legal initiative of constitutional reforms originally drafted in late 1996 by the congressional Commission on Concordance and Pacification (COCOPA), for the partial implementation of the San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights and Culture.

The COCOPA was asked to write the initiative at the request of both the federal government and the rebel Zapatista Army (EZLN) as a way of breaking the deadlock in the peace process. The EZLN accepted the COCOPA’s proposal, but it was rejected by the federal government.

Since that time, the Zapatistas and their supporters have insisted on congressional approval of the COCOPA’s proposal before any further peace talks can begin, a demand which was rejected out of hand by the Zedillo administration. In reiterating his support for the COCOPA proposal, Fox insisted that it is the only initiative on the table (there are two others, one written by the Zedillo administration and one by Fox’s National Action Party) which fully reflects the agreements signed in February 1996 between the EZLN and the federal government in the Chiapas town of San Andrés Larráinzar.

“This action,” said Fox, “will demonstrate my administration’s will to establish the conditions for a peace with justice and dignity in Chiapas, and to begin a great national dialogue.”

Meanwhile, Rodolfo Elizondo Torres, the coordinator of political issues in Fox’s transition team, said that the implementation of the COCOPA proposal on indigenous rights and culture will not be the only element of Fox’s pacification strategy in Chiapas. Rather, he said, the president-elect has prepared a comprehensive “strategic plan” for peace which will seek to eradicate the root causes of the conflict while simultaneously engaging in dialogue with the belligerent parties.

While Elizondo hinted that the details of the “strategic plan” would not be made public until after December 1, Fox gave a general outline to the press: “First,” he said, “we must return to a dialogue, that has to be the starting point. Without dialogue there will be no solution to the conflict. I am confident that we will soon be sitting at that dialogue. I have hope that the EZLN is reflecting on this, engaging in analysis, and is now predisposed to have chats and conversations toward returning to a dialogue.”

“All the actors must be there,” he continued, “all of those who have had something to do with the problem, and all of those who have had something to do with the solution, must be there. That is the first step.”

Then, he added, “we must work decidedly to eliminate the ‘white guards’ [guardias blancas] and all forms of violence which exist in the state of Chiapas, and once this scenario of peace and tranquillity is in the foreseeable future, we must make a serious and unprecedented push for economic and human development. We are going to generate many jobs in Chiapas.”

“Only by bringing education, health care, roads, and other forms of human development to every one of the communities,” Fox concluded, “will we be truly advancing.”

Source: Mexico Solidarity Network: www.mexicosolidarity.org

Poll indicates women are seen as better leaders in Latin America

By Jim Lobe

Washington, DC, Nov. 15 (IPS)-- Urban dwellers in Latin America -- both male and female -- see women leaders as more capable than men of dealing with the problems of poverty, corruption, education, the economy, and environmental protection in their societies, according to a new poll by the Gallup organization released here Tuesday by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based hemispheric think-tank.

The poll, based on responses by more than 2,000 adults in the capital cities of Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, El Salvador, and Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil, suggests that attitudes on gender equality have changed rapidly over the last few years as women have risen to positions of power in many parts of Latin America.

In Colombia, Mexico, and El Salvador, for example, 40 percent of respondents agreed four years ago that, apart from physical and biological differences, men and women were basically the same in their interests and abilities. In the most recent poll, taken earlier this year, 60 percent agreed.

The new poll also showed rising consciousness about gender discrimination in society. While four years ago, about 70 percent of respondents in Mexico and El Salvador said there was equality in the way men and women were treated in the workplace, half of respondents in those countries agreed with that assertion this year.

The poll, which was the focus of two days of discussion by women leaders convened here by the IDB and the Women’s Leadership Conference of the Americas (WLCA), was conducted after several years during which women have made strong gains in representation within political parties and in local and national elections. Some countries have enacted laws which require that 30 percent of party candidates for elections be women.

By margins ranging from 50 percent to 72 percent, respondents in the five countries agreed that this was a good idea.

A clear majority of respondents agreed that women were more honest and better able than men to deal with problems, such as reducing poverty (62 percent), improving education (72 percent), combating corruption (57 percent), protecting the environment (64 percent), managing the economy (59 percent), and conducting diplomatic relations (53 percent).

Forty-four percent of respondents thought that women were also better at defending public security, compared to only 18 percent who thought men could do better and 34 percent who said it made no difference.

Indeed, the only area where men were considered superior to women was in “directing the military.” In that case, 50 percent of respondents said men were better, while 20 percent preferred women and 23 percent said it made no difference.

In addition, two-thirds of respondents said they considered women to be more honest than men, 85 percent agreed with the statement that “women are good decisions makers.”

Fifty-seven percent disagreed with the assertion that “men are better leaders than women.” Among men, 45 percent agreed with the statement, while 48 percent disagreed; among women only 28 percent agreed, while almost two-thirds disagreed.

Religious leaders vow to conserve

By Sushil Sharma

Kathmandu, Nepal, Nov. 15— Representatives of 11 major faiths of the world have jointly pledged to work for the protection of the global environment.

They made the pledge at a colorful ceremony during a three-day conference being held in an ancient Nepalese town, Bhaktapur, near the capital, Kathmandu.

The conference has been organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is being attended by over 500 delegates from 56 countries.

The religious leaders -- who represent Islam, Hinduism and Christianity among other religions -- have also pledged to take actions “dedicated to the planet.”

The religious leaders vowed to combat forest and marine destruction, climate change and other environmental concerns.

Their pledges range from the restoration of sacred forests in India to the reinstatement of a Buddhist hunting ban that will help protect Mongolia’s endangered snow leopard.

The New York-based Methodist Church announced that it would launch a global campaign to promote environmental sustainability.

The multinational and multi-religious event, said to be the first of its kind, has been organized by the WWF with the UK-based international organization, Alliance of Religion and Conservation (ARC).

The faiths represented in the landmark event have a following of more than four billion people.

Source: BBC News Service