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AMLO'S ADELITAS SAVE THE DAY

2008-04-24T22:08:00.001-07:00

AMLO'S ADELITAS SAVE THE DAY

FROM: JOHN ROSS
011-5255-5518-1213 X102
johnross@igc.org
Blindman's Buff #208

AMLO'S "ADELITAS" SHUT DOWN MEXICO'S CONGRESS TO PREVENT SNEAK PRIVATIZATION OF
OIL

MEXICO CITY (April 22nd) - "The Adelitas have arrived/To defend our oil/Whoever
wants to give it to the foreigners/ Will get the shit kicked out of him!"
yodeled the brigades of women pouring onto the esplanade of the Mexican senate
to protest a petroleum privatization measure President Felipe Calderon insists
is not a petroleum privatization measure and which he sent onto the Senate for
fast-track ratification at the tag end of the winter-spring session this April.

Inside the small, ornate Senate, leftist legislators aligned in the Broad
Progressive Front (FAP), some dressed in white oil workers overalls and hard
hats, were camped out under pup tents arranged around the podium for the eighth
straight ni ght, paralyzing legislative activities and demanding an ample
national debate on Calderon's not-so-veiled plans to open up the nationalized
petroleum corporation PEMEX to transnational investment.

The hullabaloo, which has been brewing for months, exploded when rumors
circulated that Calderon's right-wing PAN party and allies in the once-ruling
(71 years) PRI had cooked up a secret vote approving the privatization measure -
such covert maneuvering is called an "albazo" or "madruguete" here, a pre-dawn
ruse to approve legislation in the dark when there is significant opposition,
often behind locked doors and military and police barricades. Seizing the
podiums in both houses of congress and the timely arrival of the Adelitas
prevented a madruguete and derailed Calderon's plans to fast-track the
privatization of PEMEX.

Under the President's "energy reform" package, building and operating refineries
and pipelines will be opene d up to the private sector - 37 out of PEMEX's 41
divisions would be subject to partial privatization. One example: a modified
form of "risk" contract, which relegates a percentage of the petroleum brought
in to the private driller, and which is outlawed under Article 27 of the Mexican
Constitution, would become the law of the land.

In an analysis anti-privatizers label "catastrophic" which Calderon sent on to
congress to back up his initiative, the President pinned salvation of PEMEX on
deep water ("aguas profundas") drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that would
necessitate the "association" of private capital.

Mexico's petroleum industry was expropriated from an array of oil companies
known collectively as the "Seven Sisters" in March 1938 by then-President Lazaro
Cardenas, an act that remains a paragon of revolutionary nationalism throughout
Latin America. But down the decades, PEMEX has subcontracted out important
parts of its structure - the Exploration or PEP division in particular - to
transnational drillers and service corporations like Halliburton, now its number
one subcontractor, that suck billions of dollar in profits from Mexican oil each
year.

The appearance of the Adelitas and their male counterparts ("Los Adelitos") is
the latest gamble by the left populist leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)
who many Mexicans feel was defrauded out of the presidency by Calderon in
tainted 2006 elections, to monkey wrench the right-wing government's plans to
return PEMEX to the contemporary version of the Seven Sisters. The PAN was
indeed founded in 1939 to oppose Cardenas's nationalization of the oil industry.

Organized by neighborhoods and by workplaces, the Adelita brigades are the
lineal descendents of the groups of anguished AMLO supporters who came together
after the stolen 2006 election in a seven-week sit-in that shut down the
capi tal's main thoroughfares. At last count (Friday April 14th), there were 41
registered brigades - 28 Adelitas and 13 Adelitos, about 50,000 citizens in all.
Operating in shifts, 13,000 "brigadistas" have been encamped off and on for a
week in front of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

The brigades are named after significant political events - "18th of March",
marking the day Cardenas expropriated the oil - or to honor social activists
such as Jesus Piedra, the long-disappeared son of left senator Rosario Ibarra,
and Arturo Gamiz, a 1960s guerrilla fighter. Women warriors like Leona Vicaria
and Benita Galeana are similarly remembered. One brigade of Adelitas tag
themselves "Enaguas Profundas" or "Deep Petticoats" - Calderon wants to drill in
deep water or "aguas profundas."

The creation of so large a citizens' army pledged to carry out civil
disobedience to prevent the passage of legislation it thinks detrimental to the republic is unprecedented in Mexico's political history. As thousands sat down
in the street to block the automobiles of PAN and PRI senators from entering the
precinct last Thursday, AMLO, who often cites Dr. King and Gandhi as role
models, urged non-violence: "not one window broken, not one stone thrown."

"Tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo!" the Adelitas sang back in a call and
response that is always a feature of Lopez Obrador's mobilizations, "They are
frightened because we are not afraid."

Similar brigades, led by women, have invaded local congresses outside of Mexico
City and one band of activists closed Acapulco's busy airport last week.
Shutting down Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport is the Adelitas'
ultimate threat.

The Adelitas, like most of the weapons in AMLO's arsenal, are drawn from
Mexico's revolutionary history. Las Adelitas were "soldaderas" or women
soldiers who fought shoulder t o shoulder with the men in Pancho Villa's
"Division del Norte" (Northern Division) during the 1910-1919 revolution. With
their long skirts, broad sombreros, bandoleers strung across their chests, and
toting .22 carbines, the Adelitas were emblematic of the many courageous women
who participated in that epic struggle. The first Adelita is thought to have
been Adelita Velarde, a nurse from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.

Like "La Cucaracha", another popular anthem of Pancho Villa's irregulars, "La
Adelita" is now a mainstay of Mexican folk music. The song tells of "Adelita"
who fell in love with the "Sargente" (Sergeant) and went to fight with him on
the frontlines against the "Federales" (government troops.) In the final verse,
the Sargente swears that if Adelita should leave him, he will come for her in a
"war ship" or "military train" - which may be prophetic of the Adelitas' pursuit
of Calderon and his oil privatization scheme.
AMLO's crusade has not been confined to one house of congress. On April 8th
when the President sprung his initiative on the legislature, FAP members stormed
the tribune in the Chamber of Deputies (Mexico's version of the U.S. House of
Representatives)
while lawmakers were preparing to grant Calderon permission to travel to New
Orleans for the April 21st-22nd summit of the ASPAN (The North American Security
and Prosperity Agreement) - Mexican presidents must solicit congress for
permission to travel.

ASPAN is a corollary of NAFTA that projects North American security and energy
integration and Calderon was eager to attend the summit with the
re-privatization of Mexican oil in hand.

Suddenly, the FAPOs unfurled a 60-foot banner that announced Congress had been
closed ("Clausurado") and cast it over the entire presidium, trapping president
Ruth Zavaleta, who occupies Nancy Pelosi's position in the Mexican house, in its
folds. Struggling to free herself of the fabric, Zavaleta reappeared with her
gavel in hand but the ensuing chaos prevented her from calling for a vote on the
President's travel arrangements.

Eight days later, the tribune was still draped in the banner and FAP deputies
had chained shut the doors of the chamber and moved the desks of the PAN
legislators to the podium to barricade themselves from attempts to take it back.
Zavaleta, a member of AMLO's Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) but not
friendly to Lopez Obrador, has called for the use of "public force" (police,
military) to remove the rebel lawmakers.

Thrust back into the national spotlight by the battle to head off privatization,
Lopez Obrador is the target of extravagant vitriol delivered by the nation's
electronic and print media reminiscent of the public lynching he was subject to
during the tumultuous 2006 presidential campaign. TV tyrant Televisa's coverage of the takeover of congress (a "kidnapping") was so venomous that thousands of
Adelitas, wearing bandaleros and wielding facsimile .22s, descended on the
conglomerate's Mexico City headquarters, provoking one prominent PAN politico to
label them "paramilitaries."

In violation of constitutional amendments banning "black" political hit pieces,
a PAN front group "Better Society, Better Government", is running primetime
Televisa spots comparing Lopez Obrador to Hitler, Mussolini, and Pinochet. PAN
party president German Martinez accuses Lopez Obrador of "hiding under the
skirts of women" and the Empresorial
Coordinating Council, the nation's most elite business federation, takes out
full-page ads blasting the AMLOs for staging a coup d'etat ("golpe de estado.")

Despite the anti-AMLO media blitz - or perhaps because of it - Lopez Obrador
remains the only figure on the Mexican political stage who is able to convoke
tens of tho usands of supporters, often with virtually no notice. Three times
since March 18th when he kicked off this crusade, AMLO has filled the great
Zocalo plaza, the heart of Mexico's body politic. What makes the turnouts even
more impressive is the fact that Lopez Obrador has built this massive movement
while his Party of the Democratic Revolution has been reducing itself to rubble.

In-fighting since a corrupted March 16th party presidential election has divided
the PRD down the middle - the party is roughly split between an activist wing
headed by Lopez Obrador and his candidate Alejandro Encinas, and party
bureaucrats who see the PRD as an instrument for political and personal
advancement and seek to demobilize the Adelitas.

The "Chuchus" or "New Left" eschew AMLO's rallies and sit-ins and instead
conduct their own private hunger strikes to protest privatization. The Chuchus
(many of their leaders are named Jesus) portray themsel ves as the "reasonable"
left and are only too willing to "dialogue" with Calderon, a president Lopez
Obrador resolutely refuses to recognize.

Whoever wins, the tussle over the bones of the PRD may be a moot one - after two
years of campaigning down at the grassroots, Lopez Obrador's base has grown
wider than that of the party.

Although Calderon's scam to fast track privatization through congress was
blunted by the Adelitas and the FAPs, the PAN and the PRI - the latter a
repository of seven decades of dirty tricks - still have plenty of room in which
to connive. Now the PRI, seconded by Calderon's right-wing minions, proposes an
uninterrupted 50 day "national" debate to be restricted to the two houses of
congress with a congressional vote by mid-summer. Calderon's initiative can
only pass if at least half of the PRI's 120-vote delegation goes along with the
game.

Even if the privatization measure eventually passes, the legislation is bound to
wind up in the Mexican Supreme Court the moment it clears congress. Ironically,
the Supreme Court was the instrument by which Cardenas nationalized the oil
industry in the first place.

Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador's people are clamoring for a very different kind of
debate, one that would unfold over the next four months - 120 days - and be
conducted inside and outside congress in every state and municipality in the
country with the prospect of a national referendum in the fall to decide the
issue - one poll has 62% of those questioned opposed to the privatization of
Mexico's oil. Such grassroots decision-making would be a revolutionary strophe
here in the land of the "albazo" and the "madruguete."

Out on the esplanade of the Senate, the Adelitas were shaking their boodies to
"La Cumbia del Petrolio." There were enough pink "gorras" (baseball caps), pink
hankies, and pink parasols that read "Defend Our Oil" to make Code Pink blush.
Brigadista Berta Robledo, a nurse about to retire from the National Pediatric
Hospital, hugged a blade of shade under the punishing mid-day sun.

"Are you tired, companeras?" the companera with the bullhorn asked and Berta
came to her feet with a loud "No!" "Sure the sun is hot but so what?" she
responded to a gringo reporter's stupid question, "the sun can't stop us, the
rain can't stop us, the cold can't stop us and you know why? Because we are
right! We are fighting for our oil and for our country. This is the
resistance. We don't get tired."

John Ross is at home in the belly of the Monstruo writing a book about the belly
of the Monstruo. If you have further information write johnross@igc.org

Puerto Rican Nationalist Tied To San Juan Attacks

2008-04-15T21:48:00.000-07:00

courant.com/news/local/hc-ctfargo0415.artapr15,0,5521230.story

Puerto Rican Nationalist Tied To San Juan Attacks

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

April 15, 2008

Federal prosecutors tried to link Puerto Rican nationalist Avelino Gonzalez Claudio to two rocket attacks in San Juan as they began an effort Monday to have him jailed as a threat and a flight risk while he awaits trial on charges of robbing $7 million from an armored car depot in West Hartford in 1983.

The hearing began late Monday in U.S. District Court in Hartford and was scheduled to resume today. Prosecutors, who opened the contentious hearing, said they will make additional arguments today, and Gonzalez's defense team is awaiting their chance to rebut the government claims.

Prosecutors said that Gonzalez is a leader of the violent Puerto Rico pro-independence group Los Macheteros and that he played a key role in approving the group's robbery of the Wells Fargo terminal — then the largest cash robbery in U.S. history.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry K. Kopel said Monday that the FBI found Gonzalez's fingerprint in a mobile home used to move $2 million of the money and Victor M. Gerena, Los Machetero's inside man, to Mexico.

Gonzalez was indicted on charges related to the robbery in 1985, but disappeared until his arrest on Feb. 7. He is believed to have lived in Puerto Rico under assumed names and, at least part of the time, taught a computer course at a private school.

Prosecutors are arguing that Gonzalez should be jailed while awaiting trial because he is likely to flee and because he has a violent history that makes him a threat to public safety. Although Gonzalez had no chance to offer rebuttal arguments during Monday's truncated hearing, his chief defense lawyer, James W. Bergenn, repeatedly tried to pick apart the government's evidence — much of it from the early 1980s.

Kopel said the FBI in Puerto Rico found fingerprints matching those of Gonzalez on the arm rest of a Chevrolet parked near the site of a rocket attack on the FBI offices in the Hato Rey district of San Juan on Oct. 30, 1983. Kopel said the Chevrolet was one of two suspicious cars reported by witnesses not far from the scene of the attack.

But under combined questioning by Bergenn and U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith, Kopel conceded he could not conclusively tie Gonzalez's fingerprints to the attack. Kopel did say that witnesses reported seeing a suspicious character wiping fingerprints from the outside of one of the cars before fleeing.

"Maybe that person fired the rocket," Bergenn said.

Kopel also tied Gonzalez to a second rocket attack on the federal courthouse and U.S. post office building in old San Juan in 1985. He said that time, Gonzalez's fingerprints were found on part of the weapon left behind at the scene of the launch.

Contact Edmund H. Mahony at emahony@courant.com.

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

2008-04-15T21:17:00.003-07:00

courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hcu-wellsfargo0415,0,6304474.story

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

1:56 PM EDT, April 15, 2008

Gonzalez, 65, is one of 19 members of the militant pro-independence group Los Macheteros indicted for planning and carrying out the $7 million robbery on Sept. 12, 1983. At the time, it was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. Records seized in the case show that Los Macheteros planned to use the money to finance a revolutionary war against the United States.

Gonzalez disappeared in 1985 after his indictment in the case but before authorities could arrest him. He remained a fugitive until his capture by the FBI on Feb. 7 in the Puerto Rican north coast town of Manati, where he lived with his wife.

Prosecutors said during Gonzalez's two-day detention hearing in U.S. District Court that he lived in Puerto Rico under the name Jose Ortega Morales.

Other court records show that, during several of his years as a fugitive, Gonzalez worked as an instructor at a private computer institute in Puerto Rico. As part of his work, Gonzalez instructed federal court employees in Puerto Rico on computer use, according to a friend and fellow Machetero member.

After his apprehension, Gonzalez was transferred to Connecticut to stand trial on 15 charges associated with the robbery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on Feb. 15.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith agreed with prosecution arguments Tuesday and concluded that no bail terms could be created that would guarantee Gonzalez's appearance at a trial. His lawyer, James Bergenn, said earlier that Gonzalez's family members and a close friend had agreed to post $500,000 in equity from their homes. In addition, Bergenn said Gonzalez would agree to house arrest, electronic monitoring and daily reporting to court supervisors.

"These charges just by themselves are incredibly serious," Smith told Gonzalez. "They are aggravated bank robbery charges, the largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Frankly, I'm not inclined to release you. The fact that you managed to escape the charges for 23 years does not give you a free pass."

Gonzalez's wife wept at the decision and was comforted by his three sons, all of whom had flown from Puerto Rico to Hartford for the hearing.

"We are sad he didn't get out," said one of the sons, Oscar Gonzalez Pedrosa, a child pyschiatrist. "We thought the defense lawyer made a very good case."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry Kopel had argued for Gonzalez's detention on two grounds -- flight risk and dangerousness. Kopel said the FBI had tied Gonzalez to two Machetero Rocket attacks on federal buildings in Puerto Rico and found bomb making and military manuals in his home.

Smith said their was enough evidence to detain Gonzalez as a flight risk. He said he did not need to consider evidence that he might pose a threat to the public if released.

Los Macheteros is a clandestine group which has taken credit for several robberies and violent attacks on U.S. targets in Puerto Rico. The Wells Fargo robbery, in which more than $7 million was stolen, was the most dramatic.

The group, in which Gonzalez held a senior position, recruited a young man from Hartford, Victor M. Gerena, to obtain a position with Wells Fargo and act as an inside man. At the close of business on Sept. 12, 1983, Gerena -- at gun point -- disarmed two co-workers, tied them up, and attempted to render them unconscious by injecting them with a still-unknown substance.

Gerena then stuffed a rented automobile with all the cash it could hold, summoned at least one Machetero who was waiting outside the Wells Fargo terminal and disappeared. Kopel said Tuesday Gerena is till believed to be hiding in Cuba.

According to FBI sources, Cuban intelligence officers provided training and financial support to Los macheteros, which is Spanish for machete-wielders or cane cutters. The former Cuban government of Fidel Castro helped smuggle the Wells Fargo money into Mexico. Cuba is believed to have kept about half the money.

With Gonzalez's arrest, only one other Wells Fargo suspect remains at large, his brother Norberto Gonzalez Claudio. Kopel said Norberto Gonzalez is believed to be hiding in Puerto Rico. A third fugitive, Machetero founder Filiberto Ojeda Rios, died in a shoot-out with FBI agents in the remote, southwest corner of the island in September 2005.

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

2008-04-15T21:17:00.001-07:00

courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hcu-wellsfargo0415,0,6304474.story

Courant.com

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

1:56 PM EDT, April 15, 2008

A federal magistrate ruled Tuesday that Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, a militant Puerto Rican nationalist charged in the 1983 robbery of a West Hartford armored car depot, is a flight risk and should be imprisoned without bail while awaiting trial.

Gonzalez, 65, is one of 19 members of the militant pro-independence group Los Macheteros indicted for planning and carrying out the $7 million robbery on Sept. 12, 1983. At the time, it was the largest cash robbery in U.S. history. Records seized in the case show that Los Macheteros planned to use the money to finance a revolutionary war against the United States.

Gonzalez disappeared in 1985 after his indictment in the case but before authorities could arrest him. He remained a fugitive until his capture by the FBI on Feb. 7 in the Puerto Rican north coast town of Manati, where he lived with his wife.

Prosecutors said during Gonzalez's two-day detention hearing in U.S. District Court that he lived in Puerto Rico under the name Jose Ortega Morales.

Other court records show that, during several of his years as a fugitive, Gonzalez worked as an instructor at a private computer institute in Puerto Rico. As part of his work, Gonzalez instructed federal court employees in Puerto Rico on computer use, according to a friend and fellow Machetero member.

After his apprehension, Gonzalez was transferred to Connecticut to stand trial on 15 charges associated with the robbery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on Feb. 15.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Smith agreed with prosecution arguments Tuesday and concluded that no bail terms could be created that would guarantee Gonzalez's appearance at a trial. His lawyer, James Bergenn, said earlier that Gonzalez's family members and a close friend had agreed to post $500,000 in equity from their homes. In addition, Bergenn said Gonzalez would agree to house arrest, electronic monitoring and daily reporting to court supervisors.

"These charges just by themselves are incredibly serious," Smith told Gonzalez. "They are aggravated bank robbery charges, the largest bank robbery in U.S. history. Frankly, I'm not inclined to release you. The fact that you managed to escape the charges for 23 years does not give you a free pass."

Gonzalez's wife wept at the decision and was comforted by his three sons, all of whom had flown from Puerto Rico to Hartford for the hearing.

"We are sad he didn't get out," said one of the sons, Oscar Gonzalez Pedrosa, a child pyschiatrist. "We thought the defense lawyer made a very good case."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Henry Kopel had argued for Gonzalez's detention on two grounds -- flight risk and dangerousness. Kopel said the FBI had tied Gonzalez to two Machetero Rocket attacks on federal buildings in Puerto Rico and found bomb making and military manuals in his home.

Smith said their was enough evidence to detain Gonzalez as a flight risk. He said he did not need to consider evidence that he might pose a threat to the public if released.

Los Macheteros is a clandestine group which has taken credit for several robberies and violent attacks on U.S. targets in Puerto Rico. The Wells Fargo robbery, in which more than $7 million was stolen, was the most dramatic.

The group, in which Gonzalez held a senior position, recruited a young man from Hartford, Victor M. Gerena, to obtain a position with Wells Fargo and act as an inside man. At the close of business on Sept. 12, 1983, Gerena -- at gun point -- disarmed two co-workers, tied them up, and attempted to render them unconscious by injecting them with a still-unknown substance.

Gerena then stuffed a rented automobile with all the cash it could hold, summoned at least one Machetero who was waiting outside the Wells Fargo terminal and disappeared. Kopel said Tuesday Gerena is till believed to be hiding in Cuba.

According to FBI sources, Cuban intelligence officers provided training and financial support to Los macheteros, which is Spanish for machete-wielders or cane cutters. The former Cuban government of Fidel Castro helped smuggle the Wells Fargo money into Mexico. Cuba is believed to have kept about half the money.

With Gonzalez's arrest, only one other Wells Fargo suspect remains at large, his brother Norberto Gonzalez Claudio. Kopel said Norberto Gonzalez is believed to be hiding in Puerto Rico. A third fugitive, Machetero founder Filiberto Ojeda Rios, died in a shoot-out with FBI agents in the remote, southwest corner of the island in September 2005.

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

2008-04-15T21:17:00.000-07:00

courant.com/news/custom/topnews/hcu-wellsfargo0415,0,6304474.story

Courant.com

No Bail For Accused Wells Fargo Robber

By EDMUND H. MAHONY

Courant Staff Writer

1:56 PM EDT, April 15, 2008

Venezuela accuses U.S. oil company of "judicial terrorism"

2008-02-15T11:37:00.001-08:00

Venezuela accuses U.S. oil company of "judicial terrorism"

www.chinaview.cn 2008-02-15 12:51:55

CARACAS, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Venezuelan government Thursday accused the U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil of carrying out "judicial terrorism" against the sovereign interests of the South American nation, which has decided to nationalize its oil industry.

Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez, also president of Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA, said a court decision ordering the freezing of 12 billion U.S. dollars of PDVSA assets is "judicial terrorism."

Ramirez made the remarks in a speech to Congress, referring to Exxon's judicial demand against PDVSA that began last week in the U.S., British and Dutch courts.

The U.S. Exxon Mobil Corp. is demanding more than 10 times the compensation for its losses after Venezuela nationalized one of its oil ventures, Ramirez said.

Exxon Mobil's loss "wouldn't even reach 10 percent" of the 12 billion U.S. dollars in assets the company has sought to freeze in court, Ramirez said.

"They ask for too high an amount for their compensation," he added.

Venezuela announced Tuesday that the PDVSA has stopped oil sales to Exxon Mobil in retaliation for its securing court orders for the asset freezing.

The U.S. government Wednesday voiced support for the company's compensation bid. "We fully support the efforts of Exxon Mobil to get a just and fair compensation package for their assets according to the standards of international law," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

Another U.S. oil company, Conoco Phillips, opted for arbitrage without "using terrorist justice," Ramirez said.

"Conoco has asked for and maintained a level of communication that allows a friendly solution to our dispute," Ramirez said. "We are on the way to reaching an agreement."

Last year, Venezuela singled out Conoco Phillips for not cooperating with the state takeover that pushed the company out of two heavy crude upgrading projects, leading it to take an asset write-down of 4.5 billion dollars.

Exxon is interested in causing an alarming situation rather than securing compensation payment for not participating in the Orinoco Oil Strip project after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nationalized the country's oil industry.

The Orinoco Oil Strip's nationalization, which began on May 1, 2007, ended Exxon's participation as a main associate of PDVSA and British Petroleum for extracting and producing 120,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day.

Editor: Bi Mingxin

US diplomat faces spying charges in Bolivia

2008-02-15T11:36:00.001-08:00

US diplomat faces spying charges in Bolivia

The Associated Press

Friday, February 15, 2008

LA PAZ, Bolivia: Criminal charges of espionage have been filed against a U.S. Embassy official accused of asking an American student and Peace Corps volunteers to keep tabs on Venezuela and Cuban workers in the country.

Vice Minister of Government Ruben Gamarra, who filed the charges this week, said Thursday that Bolivia may ask the U.S. to provide a statement from the embassy security official, Vincent Cooper.

Also on Thursday, the Bolivian Senate said it will form a committee to investigate the charges against Cooper.

The charges carry a sentence of 30 years in prison without parole. It was unclear Thursday whether diplomatic immunity would protect him under Bolivian and international law.

In a Wednesday meeting, U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca agreed that Cooper would not return to Bolivia.

Fulbright scholar Alex van Schaick told The Associated Press last week that during a one-on-one security briefing in November, Cooper asked him to pass along information on Venezuelan and Cuban workers he encountered in the country.

Four months earlier, according to embassy officials, Cooper mistakenly gave a group of newly arrived Peace Corps volunteers a security briefing meant only for embassy staff, asking them only to report "suspicious activities."

President Evo Morales on Thursday praised van Schaick for coming forward despite the risk to his reputation.

"I salute this American for denouncing the spying (his government) does," the president said.

The embassy case has fed an ongoing spying controversy in Bolivia.

Last month, materials anonymously leaked to various media appeared to show police spying on prominent, anti-Morales politicians.

Morales, in turn, shut down a U.S.-backed police intelligence unit he accused of operating outside Bolivian government control.

The senate commission intends to investigate all aspects of the controversy. But government officials complained Thursday that the opposition-controlled senate had improperly wrapped the Cooper investigation into the politically charged police spying cases.

RIGHTS-LATIN AMERICA: ‘Operation Condor’ Was No Mystery to Washington

2008-01-17T16:36:00.001-08:00

From the old counter insurgency campaigns of the 70s:

RIGHTS-LATIN AMERICA: ‘Operation Condor’ Was No Mystery to Washington
By Ángel Páez

Credit:Courtesy of La República

Harry W. Shlaudeman

LIMA, Jan 12 (IPS) - The intelligence services of Peru and Argentina kept Washington informed in real time about a 1980 joint clandestine operation in which four alleged members of Argentina’s Montoneros guerrilla movement were "disappeared," according to documents declassified in the United States.

The incident forms part of the case opened in December by Italian Judge Luisianna Figliola, who issued arrest warrants for those responsible for this and other actions carried out in the framework of Operation Condor, a coordinated plan among the military governments that ruled Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, aimed at tracking down, capturing, torturing and eliminating left-wing opponents.

Townsend B. Friedman, political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, revealed in a secret Aug. 19, 1980 memo to Claus Ruser, the ambassador’s number two man, details about the operation involving the supposed Montoneros in Lima, and the fatal outcome.

In that memo, which has now been declassified thanks to the efforts of the National Security Archive, an independent Washington-based non-governmental research institute, Friedman told his superior that an Argentine intelligence official had provided them with details of the Lima operation on Jun. 16, 1980.

The date is key: the joint action by the Batallón 601, a special Argentine army intelligence unit, and Peru’s Army Intelligence Service (SIE) was recorded four days earlier, and the purported Montoneros were turned over by Peruvian agents on Jun. 17 to Bolivian military personnel, in the presence of agents from Argentina.

The documents show that the U.S. government was fully aware of what was happening, at the time it was occurring, and that it knew ahead of time that the alleged Montoneros would be killed.

"A member of an Argentine intelligence service who has been quite reliable in these matters told the (U.S.) Embassy that the four individuals were apprehended in Peru, that they were still being held there but that they would be expelled to Bolivia from where they would be handed over to Argentina; once in Argentina they would be interrogated and then disappeared," Friedman reported to Ruser.

The capture in Lima and forced disappearance of Noemí Gianetti de Molfino, a member of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Argentine human rights group, María Inés Raverta and Julio César Ramírez was planned by Batallón 601 after the seizure in Argentina of Federico Frías, who was going to take part in Lima in a meeting with high-level members of the Montoneros, the armed branch of the leftist wing of Argentina’s Peronist party.

After he was brutally tortured, Frías was taken by his captors to Peru, where he had agreed to tell them the names and addresses of supposed guerrillas, according to the testimony of a former Peruvian agent who took part in the operation, which appears in the book "Muerte en el Pentagonito" (Death in the Little Pentagon: The Secret Killing Fields of the Peruvian Army) by journalist Ricardo Uceda.

According to the declassified Aug. 19, 1980 memo, the U.S. ambassador to Argentina at the time, Harry W. Shlaudeman, spoke of the case of the supposed "Montoneros" with General Pedro Richter, at the time prime minister, minister of war and commander of the Peruvian army.

"Peruvian Prime Minister Richter Prada told Ambassador Shlaudeman in July (1980, a month after the kidnappings) that the Argentines had been expelled to Bolivia and that he believed the Bolivians had probably handed them over to the Argentines," Friedman told Ruser.

"In addition, (Richter) revealed to Ambassador Shlaudeman that he had been in personal touch with Argentine Army Commander (Leopoldo Fortunato) Galtieri on the matter.

"Galtieri had informed Richter that there could be ‘an interesting development’ in the case early the week of July 14. Richter suggested to Ambassador Shlaudeman that Galtieri’s comment might foreshadow a live appearance of the three Montoneros who the Peruvians claimed they handed over to the Bolivians," the memo adds.

The "interesting development" came to light on Jul. 21, 1980, when the murdered body of Gianetti de Molfino, one of the women kidnapped in Lima, was found in a hotel in Madrid. Nothing was ever heard of again about Raverta, Ramírez or Frías. The general, who is now dead, became the head of Argentina’s military junta in November of the following year.

Shlaudeman had close ties with the Peruvian dictatorship of General Francisco Morales Bermúdez (1975-1980), as confirmed by the declassified documents. When the alleged Montoneros were abducted in Lima, he was already in Buenos Aires.

The path followed by Shlaudeman’s career is particularly interesting. He was U.S. State Department Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile from 1969 to 1973, during which time the coup d’etat that overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), ushering in a 17-year dictatorship, was being planned.

He then served as State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs, from 1973 to 1975, under President Richard Nixon; in 1977 he was appointed ambassador to Peru; and in 1980 he became ambassador to Argentina, a post he held until 1983, when democracy was restored in that country.

In 1992, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George Bush, the current U.S. president’s father.

The June 1980 operation in Lima was neither the first nor the only one carried out as the result of coordination between the de facto military regimes of Peru and Argentina -- something that Shlaudeman was clearly aware of.

According to another declassified secret document, dated Jul. 11, 1977, Shlaudeman reported the Apr. 12, 1977 kidnapping of Argentine citizen Carlos Alberto Maguid, who had been granted political asylum in Peru, to then U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Shlaudeman told Vance that a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official, Lone Hogel, had informed him that Maguid had been seized by members of the Peruvian military in coordination with agents from Argentina.

The Peruvian government, "in the persons of the minister of the Interior (General Luis Cisneros Vizquerra) and the son of president Morales Bermúdez, has denied that any agency of the (government) was responsible for his disappearance," Shlaudeman wrote, before stating that Hogel had accurate information on the case.

"Hogel said that it was her personal opinion, based on anonymous but apparently well-documented letters, that Maguid was arrested by the Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN)," perhaps at the urging of the Argentine government, and that he was being held somewhere in Peru, Shlaudeman wrote to Vance.

The cases of Maguid, as well as those of Gianetti de Molfino, Raverta, Ramírez and Frías, were not isolated ones, but formed part of a coordinated strategy by the military intelligence services of the South American dictatorships. This is made clear by a joint Jun. 25, 1980 report by the U.S. embassies in Argentina and Peru, drafted a week after the kidnapping of Gianetti de Molfino and the others in Lima.

"This incident is not unique. In recent years there have been several similar cases that attest to a high degree of cooperation among the intelligence and security agencies of the southern South American countries and to their tendency to resort to illegal means in treating suspected subversives," says the document.

Nevertheless, U.S. authorities continue to deny that they were aware of the coordinated criminal activities committed under Operation Condor.

In 2005, J. Patrice McSherry, a political science professor at Long Island University in New York, published a revealing document in her book "Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America".

The document was a declassified memo by James Blystone, a former regional security officer (RSO) in the U.S. embassy in Argentina, in which he reported to his superiors that an Argentine intelligence source had informed him of the kidnapping of four "Montoneros" in Lima, and had told him that they would be "disappeared."

"Clearly, the RSO (Blystone) had been briefed on a top-secret Condor operation involving the intelligence services of three separate countries (Argentina, Bolivia and Peru); he was accepted as a trusted member of Condor's inner circle," wrote McSherry.

Blystone wasted no time responding. In January 2006, he published his version of the events in the "Foreign Service Journal", in an article titled "The Domino Effect of Improper Declassification".

"During the time that I was in Argentina (1978-1980)…I stumbled onto the fact that the Argentine security services were carrying out some operations in neighbouring countries. But I do not recall ever hearing the term ‘Operation Condor’ used, either there (Buenos Aires) or in Santiago, by any of my contacts or embassy colleagues," the former foreign service officer wrote.

But Blystone could have asked Shlaudeman, who was perfectly well informed of Operation Condor, as shown, for example, by an Aug. 30, 1976 report he sent from Chile to then secretary of state Henry Kissinger on the characteristics and scope of the coordination between intelligence and security agencies in the Southern Cone region.

There is also the Oct. 8, 1976 declassified briefing from Shlaudeman to Kissinger in which he reports on a meeting with Colonel Manuel Contreras, the powerful chief of the now dissolved National Directorate of Intelligence (DINA) -- the Chilean dictatorship’s secret police -- and the true head of Operation Condor.

"As expected, Contreras denied that Operation Condor has any other purpose than the exchange of intelligence," says the cable.

But the U.S. government knew that Contreras was lying. "Operation Condor" had already taken off on its death flight. (END/2008)

President of MEChA club at Palomar College deported

2008-01-17T16:27:00.000-08:00

President of MEChA club at Palomar College deported

By Linda Lou
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

5:48 p.m. January 16, 2008

NORTH COUNTY– The president of the MEChA club at Palomar College has been deported to Mexico, immigration officials said Wednesday. Paola Oropeza, 22, was arrested Jan. 8 by a
fugitive operations team with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Lauren Mack, a
spokeswoman for the department in San Diego.

Oropeza had been ordered to leave the country by an immigration judge, but failed to comply with that order, Mack said. At the time of her arrest, Oropeza was in the country illegally and was taken to Tijuana, Mack said.

Oropeza did not have a criminal record, Mack said, but could not provide details about her
immigration background. Oropeza was arrested along with three other people who are believed to be her family members, Mack said. One is still in deportation proceedings.

When reached on a cell phone Wednesday, Oropeza declined to comment. She said her attorney has advised her not to talk to the media.

MEChA, or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, is a Latino student group with chapters
in high schools and colleges. It focuses on empowerment through education as well as
political, cultural and social awareness.

A staff assistant in Palomar College's student affairs office who works with student clubs said
Oropeza was president in 2007 and remained in that role this year. She said MEChA is fairly
active on campus, especially in the fall. The group holds a cultural event on campus each
winter called a “Night of Culture” and collects toys for the needy through the event.

Linda Lou: (760) 737-7574;
linda.lou@uniontrib.com

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20080116-1748-bn16mecha.html

México: The NAFTA, crude oil and something else

2008-01-17T16:13:00.001-08:00

PROGRESO WEEKLY
January 17-23, 2008

México: The NAFTA, crude oil and something else

“Without corn there is no homeland, neither without bean.” And without petroleum?

By Eduardo Dimas

Ordinarily, little is said in the international media about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and Mexico, which became effective Jan. 1, 1994.

Recently, more has been printed about the ASPNA (Alliance for the Security and Prosperity of North America), a monstrosity intended to strengthen the neoliberal model and U.S. domination over the other two partners.

The enactment of the NAFTA coincided with the uprising of the Zapatistas in Chiapas and a major crisis in the Mexican economy, which provoked an urgent intervention by the government of William Clinton, which provided a loan of more than $14 billion so Mexico could get out of its mess.

The consequences of that economic disaster ("the tequila effect") lasted for a long time. Today, 14 years and a few days later, very few people remember those events. The Zapatistas make the headlines once in a while.

Now, the NAFTA has again attracted the attention of the media, as one of the clauses of the treaty takes effect in Mexico. That clause frees from import tariffs several agricultural products from the United States and Mexico, among them corn and beans, two of the main products of Mexican agriculture.

The media attention is directed not so much at the activation of that clause but at the protests it has raised among peasant organizations and agrarian labor unions, which see competition from U.S. and Canadian products as a serious threat to their economies.

To them, it is impossible to compete, because of the differences in technical development and because U.S. agricultural products are subsidized.

In 2006 alone, the U.S. government distributed $18 billion among U.S. farmers.

According to leaders of peasant organizations, since the NAFTA was signed, two million jobs have been lost in Mexican farms, the prices of farm products fell between 40 percent and 70 percent, and Mexico's alimentary dependence on the United States rose by 40 percent in 2006.

So far, the mobilization of farmers throughout Mexico to demand a renegotiation of the NAFTA, including a demonstration in the capital and a human wall in the city of Juárez, on the border with the U.S., have been unsuccessful.

Through its Secretary of Agriculture, the Mexican government has said that the NAFTA has brought more benefits than ills, and that Mexican production and the agricultural industry are doing well. Many analysts and observers counter that that assertion is either wrong or does not match reality.

According to some critics of the Mexican governments (from Salinas de Gortari to this date), it was no coincidence that the signing of the NAFTA was preceded by an amendment to Article 27 of the Constitution, which forbade the sale of the "ejidos," or communal lands.

Those critics say that the objective of Salinas de Gortari, Zedillo, Fox and now Felipe Calderón was -- and is -- to remove the largest possible number of people from the countryside, thus permitting the food transnational corporations to assume control of the Mexican agricultural industry.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but if we analyze how the big U.S. food producers and marketers today control the distribution of food in Mexico, it might be true. Only one of those companies is Mexican-owned.

In an article published in the daily La Jornada, titled "Agriculture and free trade: a fallacy," journalist Luis Hernández Serrano points out that "According to information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agricultural food trade balance between Mexico and the United States clearly represents a deficit for our country. It has been so ever since the start of the NAFTA. Until October 2007, Mexican imports totaled more than $10.487 billion, while exports barely added up to $8.479 billion.

"The same has happened since 1994. National purchases of food products to our neighbor totaled about $10.881 billion in 2006 and sales rose to $9.39 billion. In 2005, we imported $9.429 billion and exported $8.33 billion."

Hernández Serrano adds that what somewhat saves Mexico's food trade balance with the United States is the sale of beer, which in 2006 amounted to $1.3 billion. One might inquire if beer production remains in Mexican hands or if it went to foreign hands, like almost all other industries.

Even before the clause on the most sensitive farm products went into effect, the NAFTA had caused the ruination of 40 percent of Mexican farmers, several million people and a massive exodus from the countryside to the cities. Not to mention an increase in the number of people who want to enter the U.S. illegally.

According to some Mexican media, beginning in 1994, the Mexican authorities permitted the importation of corn and beans from the United States and Canada without charging tariffs, thus violating the rules established in the NAFTA itself. The same happened with rice, cotton and milk, products that Mexico used to export.

So, it is difficult to think that the current Mexican government will renegotiate the NAFTA with the United States and Canada. Rather, it may do everything possible to comply with the accord, no matter what the consequences.

The small and midsize farmer (with less than 100 hectares of land) is sentenced to ruination, because he cannot compete with U.S. farmers, particularly with the big producers and marketers of food, who are investing large sums of money in the Mexican agriculture.

Another issue at hand is the complaint by Mexican farmers about the use of genetically modified seeds, to the detriment of the homegrown seeds, which are beginning to disappear. To utilize those seeds means to depend, from now on, on companies like Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer or BASF, because the resulting product is a hybrid seed, that is, it cannot be planted again.

If you think of a policy designed so that the big transnational corporations may control Mexican agriculture, in collusion with the Mexican oligarchy, you will not be far from the truth. The NAFTA is the best expression of neoliberalism; the ASPNA is its purest application.

"The fields can take no more," says one of the slogans of the peasant protests. The next most used is "without corn, there is no country; without beans, the same." The slogans are accurate. But, what about without crude oil?

For years now, Mexican personalities from all political parties have been denouncing the systematic policy of the government to privatize Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), an endeavor prohibited by the Constitution and something that no government has convinced the Congress to amend.

Nevertheless, the different governments have created the conditions for such a privatization in a not-too-distant future. For example, little by little, they have postponed the necessary repairs and expansions of the industries that carry out the extraction, transportation and refinement of crude oil and natural gas.

They have also plunged PEMEX into debt, with the objective of eventually provoking the "necessary" intervetion of private enterprises. Last year, PEMEX's debt amounted to $107 billion. A paradoxical fact about that policy of privatization is that PEMEX contributes more than 50 percent of the state budget.

On Jan. 9, the Coordinating Commission for the Defense of Petroleum (CCDP) called for a national movement to denounce the delivery of Mexican crude to the foreign transnational corporations, even when the Constitution forbids it.

The reason for the call was the enactment of a contract given to Energy Maintenance to provide security to more than half of PEMEX's oil pipeline. According to the CCDP, the transaction initiated the transfer of PEMEX's strategic zones to private companies -- a concession that violates the Mexican Constitution.

The CCDP also pointed out that, for the past 25 years, the neoliberal governments have been looking for a pretext to privatize crude oil and electricity and that now they are drafting laws to permit a greater private participation in that industry.

The most significant aspect of the complaint is that PEMEX's leadership has kept secret its links to five foreign oil companies. PEMEX directors even made a commitment to those foreign firms not to report those links to the Federal Institute of Access to Information.

According to the CCDP, PEMEX signed the accords and agreed to pay a fine if it broke its pact of silence with Royal Dutch Shell (Anglo-Dutch), Chevron (U.S.), Nexen (Canada) and Statoil (Norway).

I think you will agree with me that PEMEX"s privatization is closer at hand than most people think, unless the Mexican people and progressive organizations form a common front to prevent that event.

The tendency of some sectors of the oligarchy and bourgeoisie to sell their country away is surprising. But let's not forget what happened in Argentina during the military dictatorship and later, during the 10 years of Carlos Menem's administration. They simply sold everything to foreign companies.

Sometimes we forget that neoliberalism is not only an economic model. It is also an ideology that places the free market, business, above any other consideration, be it nationalist or patriotic.

If the alimentary transnationals manage to control the Mexican agriculture and oil is privatized, how much economic and political independence would Mexico retain? It would become practically annexed to the United States, but with a dividing wall that would prevent Mexicans from crossing the border.

The people of Juárez do not deserve that fate.

Institutionalized Spying on Americans

2008-01-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

Institutionalized Spying on Americans - by Stephen Lendman

This article reviews two police state tools (among many in use) in America. One is new, undiscussed and largely unknown to the public. The other was covered in a December article by this writer called Police State America. Here it's updated with new information.\

The National Applications Office (NAO)

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established a new domestic spying operation in 2007 called the National Applications Office (NOA) and described it as "the executive agent to facilitate the use of intelligence community technological assets for civil, homeland security and law enforcement purposes within the United States." The office was to begin operating last fall to "build on the long-standing workof the Civil Applications Committee (CAC), which was created in 1974 to facilitate the use of the capabilities of the intelligence community for civil, non-defense uses in the United States."\
\
With or without congressional authorization or oversight, the executive branch is in charge and will let NAO use state-of-the-art technology, including military satellite imagery, to spy on Americans without their knowledge. Implementation is delayed, however, after Committee on Homeland Security Chairman, Bennie Thompson, and other committee members raised questions of "very serious privacy and civil liberties concerns." In response, DHS agreed to delay operating (officially) until all matters are addressed and resolved. \
\
Given its track record post-9/11, expect little more than pro forma posturing before Congress signs off on what Kate Martin, the director of the Center for National Security Studies, calls "Big Brother in the Sky" and a "police state" in the offing.\
\
DHS supplies this background information on NAO. Post-9/11, the Director of National Intelligence appointed an Independent Study Group (ISG) in May, 2005 to "review the current operation and future role of the (1974) Civil Applications Committee and study the current state of Intelligence Community support to homeland security and law enforcement entities." \
\
In September 2005, the Committee produced a "Blue Ribbon Study," now declassified. Its nine members were headed by and included three Booz Allen Hamilton officials because of the company's expertise in spying and intelligence gathering. Its other members have similar experience. They all have a vested interest in domestic spying because the business potential is huge for defense related industries and consultants. \
\
ISG members included:\
\
Keith Hall, Chairman\
Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton\
\
Edward G. Anderson\
LTG US Army (Ret)\
Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton\
\
Thomas W. Conroy\
Vice President\
National Security Programs\
Northrop Grumman/TASC\
\
Patrick M. Hughes\
LTG US Army (Ret)\
Vice President, Homeland Security\
L-3 Communications\
\
Kevin O'Connell\
Director of Defense Group Incorporated (DGI)\
Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis (CIRA)\
\
CIRA is a think tank that calls itself "the premier open source and cultural intelligence exploitation cell for the US intelligence community." Its business is revolutionizing intelligence analysis.\
\
Jeff Baxter\
Independent Defense Consultant with DOD and industry ties\
\
Dr. Paul Gilman\
Director\
Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies\
Oak Ridge National Laboratory\
US Department of Energy\
\
Kemp Lear\
Associate\
Booz Allen Hamilton, and\
\
Joseph D. Whitley, Esq\
Alston & Bird LLP, Government Investigations and Compliance Group, former Acting Associate Attorney General in GHW Bush administration, and former General Counsel for DHS under GW Bush\
\
The ISG's report produced 11 significant findings and 27 recommendations based on its conclusion that there's "an urgent need for action because opportunities to better protect the nation are being missed." It "concluded a new management and process model (is) needed to effectively employ IC (Intelligence Community) capabilities for domestic uses."\
\
In March 2006, DHS unveiled the new agency to implement ISG's recommendations called the National Applications Office. In May, 2007, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Michael McConnell, named DHS as its executive agent and functional manager. At least in principle according to DHS, Congress agreed with this approach and to provide funding for it, beginning in the fall of 2007. \
\
The public knew nothing about this until a feature August 15, 2007 Wall Street Journal story broke the news. It was headlined "US to Expand Use of Spy Satellites." It noted that for the first time the nation's top intelligence official (DNI's McConnell) "greatly expanded the range of federal and local (civilian law enforcement agencies that) can get access to" military spy satellite collected information. Until now, civilian use was restricted to agencies like NASA and the US Geological Survey, and only for scientific and environmental study.\
\
The Journal explained that key objectives under new guidelines will be:\
\
-- border security, \
\
-- securing critical infrastructure and helping emergency responders after natural disasters, \
\
-- working with criminal and civil federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and \
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-- unmentioned by the Journal, the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere, anytime domestically for any reason - an unprecedented act using state-of-the-art technology enabling real-time, high-resolution images and data from space. \
\
NAO will also oversee classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and other US agencies involved in dealing with all aspects of national security, including "terrorism."\
\
NSA was established in 1952, is super-secret, and for many years was never revealed to exist. Today, its capabilities are awesome and worrisome. It eavesdrops globally, mines a vast amount of data, and does it through a network of spy satellites, listening posts, and surveillance planes to monitor virtually all electronic communications from landline and cell phones, telegrams, emails, faxes, radio and television, data bases of all kinds and the internet. \
\
NGA is new and began operating in 2003. It lets military and intelligence analysts monitor virtually anything or anyone from state-of-the-art spy satellites. Both NSA and NGA coordinate jointly with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) that designs, builds and operates military spy satellites. It also analyzes military and CIA-collected aircraft and satellite reconnaissance information. \
\
Combined with warrantless wiretapping, pervasive spying of all kinds, the abandonment of the law and checks and balances, intense secrecy, and an array of repressive post-9/11 legislation, Executive Orders and National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, NAO is another national security police state tool any despot would love. It's now established and may be operating without congressional approval.

Using spy satellites domestically "is largely uncharted territory," as the Wall Street Journal noted. Even its architects admit there's no clarity on this, and the ISG's report stated "There is little if any policy, guidance or procedures regarding the collection, exploitation and dissemination of domestic MASINT (Measurement and Signatures Intelligence)."

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is the main DOD spy agency. It manages MASINT that's ultra-secret and sophisticated. It uses state-of-the-art radar, lasers, infrared sensors, electromagnetic data and other technologies that can detect chemicals, electro-magnetic activity, whether a nuclear power plant produces plutonium, and the type vehicle from its exhaust. It can also see under bridges, through clouds, forest canopies and even concrete to create images and collect data. In addition, it can detect people, activity and weapons that satellites and photo-reconnaissance aircraft miss, so it's an invaluable spy tool but highly intrusive and up to now only for military and foreign intelligence work.

Further, military spy satellites are state-of-the-art and superior to civilian ones. They record in color as well as black and white, use different parts of the light spectrum to track human activities and ground movements and can detect chemical weapons traces and people-generated heat in buildings.

This much we know about them. Their full potential is top secret and available only to the military and intelligence community. The Journal quoted an alarmed Gregory Nojeim, senior counsel and director of the Project on Freedom, Security and Technology, that advocates for digital age privacy rights saying: "Not only is the surveillance they are contemplating intrusive and omnipresent, it's also invisible. And that's what makes this so dangerous."

Anyone for any reason may be watched at all times (through walls) with no way to know it, but a June 2001 (before 9/11) Supreme Court decision offers hope. In Kyllo v. United States, the Court ruled for petitioner 5 to 4 (with Scalia and Thomas in the majority). It voided a conviction based on police use of thermal imaging to detect heat in his triplex to determine if an illegal drug was being grown, in this case marijuana.

The Court held: "Where, as here, the Government uses a device that is not in general public use, to explore details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion, the surveillance is a Fourth Amendment 'search," and is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant....To withdraw protection of this minimum expectation would be to permit police technology to erode the privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment" protecting against "unreasonable searches and seizures."

In 1981, Ronald Reagan seemed to agree in Executive Order 12333 on United States Intelligence Activities. It bars the intelligence community from most forms of home eavesdropping while providing wide latitude to all government agencies to "provide the President and the National Security Council with the necessary information (needed to) conduct....foreign, defense and economic policy (and protect US) national interests from foreign security threats. (Collecting this information is to be done, however,) consistent with the Constitution and applicable law...."

That was then, and this is now. It's hard imagining congressional concern or DHS meaning that NAO will "prioritize the protection of privacy and civil liberties" and citing the Reagan Executive Order and the 1974 Privacy Act. That law mandates that no government agency "shall disclose any record (or) system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains." The Privacy act requires the US government to maintain an administrative and physical security system to prevent the unauthorized release of personal records.

Post-9/11, the Patriot Act ended that protection, so DHS is shameless saying NAO must comply with civil liberties and privacy laws and be subject to "oversight by the DHS Inspector General, Chief Privacy Officer, and the Officer for Civil Rights and Liberties" plus additional oversight. No longer post-9/11 when the national security state got repressive new tools to erode the constitution, ignore democratic principles, and give the President unrestricted powers in the name of national security. NAO is the latest one watching us as our "Big Brother in the Sky." Orwell would be proud.

Real ID Act Update - Another Intrusive Police State Tool

The Read ID Act of 2005 required states to meet federal ID standards by May, 2008. That's now changed because 29 states passed or introduced laws that refuse to comply. They call the Act costly to administer, a bureaucratic nightmare, and New Hampshire said it's "repugnant" and violates the state and US Constitutions.

The federal law mandates that every US citizen and legal resident have a national ID card that in most cases is a driver's license meeting federal standards. It requires it to contain an individual's personal information and makes one mandatory to open a bank account, board an airplane, be able to vote, get a job, enter a federal building, or conduct virtually all essential business requiring identification.

States balked, and that doomed the original version. On January 11, changes were unveiled when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued binding new rules. Under them, states have until 2011 to comply (instead of 2008), until 2014 to issue "tamper-proof licenses" to drivers born after 1964, and until 2017 for those born before this date. DHS said the original law would cost states $14 billion. The new regulations with an extended phase-in cuts the amount to around $3.9 billion or $8 per license.

These numbers may be bogus, however, the true costs may be far higher, and that's why the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) is lobbying for Real ID's passage. Its members include high-tech card makers like Digimarc and Northrup Grumman and data brokers like Choicepoint and LexisNexis that profit by selling personal information to advertisers and the government.

Under new DHS rules, licenses must include a digital photo taken at the beginning of the application process and a filament or other security device to prevent counterfeiting. They must also have three layers of security that states can select from a DHS menu. In addition, states must begin checking license applicants' Social Security and immigration status over the next year.

As of now, a controversial radio frequency identification (RFID) technology microchip isn't required. It may come later, however, and here's the problem. It'll let cardholder movements and activities be tracked everywhere, at all times - in other words, a police state dream along with other pervasive spying tools.

Even worse would be mandating human RFID chip implants. It's not planned so far (but not ruled out), and three states (California, Wisconsin and North Dakota) preemptively banned the practice without recipients' consent.

Think it can't happen? Consider a January 13 article in the London Independent headlined "Prisoners 'to be chipped like dogs.' " The article states that civil rights groups and probation officers are furious that "hi-tech 'satellite'.... machine-readable (microchip) tagging (is) planned (for thousands of offenders) to create more space in jails." Unlike ankle bracelets now sometimes used, tiny RFID chips would be surgically implanted for monitoring the way they're currently used for dogs, cats, cattle and luggage. They're more reliable, it's believed, as current devices can be tampered with or removed.

Ken Jones, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), was quoted saying: "We have looked at....the practicalities and the ethics (and we concluded) its time has come." The UK currently has the largest prison population per capita in western Europe. It sounds like authorities plan to expand it using fewer cells. It also sounds like a scheme to tag everyone after testing them first on prisoners. And consider the possibilities. RFID technology is advancing, and one company plans deeper implants that can vibrate, emit electroshocks, broadcast a message to the implantee, and/or be a hidden microphone to transmit conversations. It's not science fiction, and what's planned for the UK will likely come to America. In fact, it's already here.

In 2004, the FDA approved a grain-of-rice sized, antenna-containing VeriChip for human implantation that allows vital information to be read when a person's body is scanned. The company states on its web site that it's "the world's first and only patented, FDA-cleared, human-implantable RFID microchip....with skin-sensing capabilities." Reportedly, about 2000 test subjects now have them, but it may signal mandatory implantation ahead. Consider for whom for starters - prisoners, military personnel and possibly anyone seeking employment. After them, maybe everyone in a brave new global surveillance world.

It gets worse. Katherine Albrecht authored a report called "Microchip-Cancer Report - Microchip-Induced Tumors in Laboratory Rodents and Dogs: A Review of the Literature 1990-2006." After reading it, Dr. Robert Benezra, Director Cancer Biology, Genetics Program, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said: "There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members. Given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there's definitely cause for concern."

Albrecht's report evaluated 11 previously published toxicology and pathology studies. In six of them, up to 10.2% of rats and mice developed malignant tumors (typically sarcomas) where microchips were implanted. Two others reported the same findings for dogs. These tumors spread fast and "often led to the death of the afflicted animals. In many cases, the tumors metastasized and spread to other parts of the animals. The implants were unequivocally identified as the cause of the cancers."

Report reviews, conclusions and recommendations were to immediately stop further human implantations, inform people with them of the dangers, offer a microchip removal procedure, and reverse all animal microchipping mandates.

Debate Ahead on New DHS ID Rules

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said new ID rules require states to verify each cardholder's personal information (including a person's legal status in the country) by matching it against federal Social Security and passport databases and/or comparable state ones.

States have time to adjust, but Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy wasted no time saying he'll recommend legislation to ban Real ID drivers' license provisions because "so many Americans oppose" them. They're intrusive, burdensome, and federal databases are full of false or out-of-date information that's hard to disprove, but unless it is Americans will be denied their legal right to a driver's license.

The ACLU also strongly opposes Real ID because it violates privacy, lets government agencies share data, and its "tortured remains" represent an "utterly unworkable" system that will "irreparably damage the fabric of American life." An ACLU January 11 press release further states that DHS "dumped the problems of the statute on future presidents like a rotting corpse left on (its) steps (and) whoever is president in 2018." Congress must "recognize the situation and take action." The Real ID Act and new DHS rules must be "repealed and replaced with a clean, simple, and vigorous new driver's license security law that does not create a national ID" or violate Americans' privacy.

Futuristic Hi-Tech Profiling

On January 14, Computerworld online revealed more cause for concern in an article called "Big Brother Really is Watching." It's about DHS "bankrolling futuristic profiling technology...." for its Project Hostile Intent. It, in turn, is part of a broader initiative called the Future Attribute Screening Technologies Mobile Module. It's to be a self-contained, automated screening system that's portable and easy to implement, and DHS hopes to test it at airports in 2010 and deploy it (if it works) by 2012 at airports, border checkpoints, other points of entry and other security-related areas.

Here's the problem. If developed (reliable or not), these devices will use video, audio, laser and infrared sensors to feed real-time data into a computer using "specially developed algorithms" to identify "suspicious people." It would work (in theory) by interpreting gestures, facial expressions and speech variations as well as measure body temperature, heart and respiration rate, blood pressure, skin moisture, and other physiological characteristics.

The idea would be detect deception and identify suspicious people for aggressive interrogation, searches and even arrest. But consider what's coming. If developed, the technology may be used anywhere by government or the private sector for airport or other checkpoint security, buildings, job interviews, employee screening, buying insurance or conducting any other type essential business.

Aside from Fourth Amendment issues, here's the problem according to Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at security consultant BT Counterpane: "It's a good idea fraught with difficulties....don't hold your breath" it will work, and a better idea is to focus on detecting suspicious objects. Schneier further compares the technology to lie detectors that rely on "fake technology" and only work in films. They're used because people want them although it's acknowledged, even when well-administered, their median accuracy percentage is 50% at best.

This technology is worse, it may never be reliable, but may be deployed anyway in the age of "terror." Something to consider next time we blink going through airport security, and ACLU Technology and Liberty Project director Barry Steinhardt states the concern: "We are not going to catch any terrorists (with it), but a lot of innocent people, especially racial and ethnic minorities, are going to be trapped in a web of suspicion." Even so, DHS spent billions on this and other screening tools post-9/11. Expect lots more ahead, and here's the bottom line:

As things now stand, Washington, post-9/11, suspended constitutional protections in the name of national security and suppressed our civil liberties for our own good. This article reviewed their newest tools and wonders what's next. This writer called it Police State America in December that won't change with a new White House occupant in 2009 unless organized resistance stops it. Complacency is unthinkable, and unless we act, we'll deserve Aleksandr Herzen's curse of another era - to be the "disease," not the "doctors."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

San Diego Minutemen Adopt a Freeway

2008-01-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Fwd: Re: San Diego Minutemen Adopt a Freeway

San Diego Minutemen adopt a freeway

Email Picture

Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Opponents of the adoption say Caltrans ignored its own rule barring groups that advocate discrimination.

Caltrans grants a stretch of I-5 that includes a border patrol checkpoint to the foes of illegal immigration, a move some critics call "unfortunate."

By Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 12, 2008

SAN DIEGO -- The Knights of Columbus have adopted a highway. So have the Japanese American Citizens League, biker groups, Indian casinos and the International House of Pancakes.

Now add the San Diego Minutemen.

Caltrans has granted an Adopt-A-Highway stretch of Interstate 5 to the ardent foes of illegal immigration -- and not just any stretch. The two miles of freeway the Minutemen will be charged with beautifying include the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint near San Clemente.

"How great is that," Jeff Schwilk, the group's founder, told his members in an e-mail.

Critics disagreed, saying the California Department of Transportation ignored its own rule that bars groups that advocate violence or discrimination from participating in the program.

"The Adopt-A-Highway program was designed to allow organizations to show pride in the state of California . . . and it is unfortunate that the Minutemen, whose approach . . . includes advocating violence, have been allowed by Caltrans into the program," said Tina Malka, associate director of the San Diego branch of the Anti-Defamation League.

Schwilk denied Friday that his group advocates violence and said no member has ever been arrested for immigrant-related violence.

Caltrans spokesman Edward Cartagena said the Minutemen got the stretch of I-5 purely by chance. The group submitted its application in November, he added, and it was reviewed and found to comply with the rule. According to the agency's website, it bars "entities that advocate violence, violation of the law, or discrimination based upon race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry" and other factors.

"The Department will not discriminate against groups that otherwise meet the program criteria based on the fact that some members of the public might disagree with the particular group's agenda or reputation," Caltrans said in a prepared statement.

The group's two signs -- one on each side of the freeway -- went up in late December. Members have been given a safety course on how to clean the freeway. Their first cleanup day is set for next Saturday.

Schwilk said Caltrans rules bar demonstrations, and he and his crew would just be beautifying the roadway. "We'll be out there in dorky-looking vests, hard hats and goggles, picking up trash," he said. "We're a community activist group, so why wouldn't we take other steps to help our communities?"

Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, a San Diego-based immigrant rights group, questioned the Minutemen's motives and called Schwilk's move a publicity ploy.

"They're desperate to get attention, even if it means sweeping the freeway," he said.

The San Diego Minutemen operate mostly in north San Diego County, where members often demonstrate at day labor sites and trade accusations of violent behavior with anti-immigrant groups. Schwilk says the group has 600 members. Others say membership has dwindled to no more than 30.

A former Marine, Schwilk says on his website that he worked alongside hardworking Mexicans in a carwash for more than three years in the 1980s and that his best friend in school was half Mexican.

Andy Ramirez, chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol, congratulated Schwilk on his great freeway location. It's entirely fitting, he said, that a group like his that supports the border patrol's mission be given the area near the checkpoint.

In fact, he said, "The irony is killing me. . . . Why didn't I think of that?"

richard.marosi@latimes.com

Director de FBI niega que supo sobre las citaciones de los Macheteros

2008-01-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

SAN JUAN/corresponsal EDLP — El congresista José Serrano (D-NY) expresó ayer su preocupación por lo que esté pasando en el Buró Federal de Investigaciones luego que el director de esa agencia, Robert Mueller, dijera que “no sabía” sobre las citaciones a tres independentistas boricuas de Nueva York para una supuesta pesquisa sobre los Macheteros.

“Como que hay dos FBI, uno en los cincuenta estados y otro en Puerto Rico, que hace lo que quiere”, comentó Serrano, quien indicó que está consciente de que Mueller pudo no haberle dicho todo lo que sabía en la conversación telefónica que sostuvieron el martes en la noche.

Serrano agregó que “si es cierto (lo que Mueller le dijo), ahora lo sabe” y puntualizó que le hizo saber al jefe del FBI que en su opinión “esto es más de lo mismo” en referencia a “los sesenta años de abusos” de esa agencia en Puerto Rico. Esa historia está documentada en los dos millones de folios que se están desclasificando desde el año 2000, precisamente por su gestión desde el Congreso.

El informe de Serrano sobre la conversación con Mueller resulta insólito debido a que se supone que el FBI lleva a cabo una investigación sobre terrorismo doméstico contra el Ejército Popular Boricua-Macheteros y que, como parte de esa pesquisa, al menos un agente de San Juan viajó a Nueva York y participó junto con agentes de esa otra oficina en las gestiones para emplazar a los tres independentistas. Además, a éstos se les mostró una veintena de fotografías de individuos sobre los cuales se les pidió información.

Sobre ese particular, también Serrano cuestionó la acción del FBI y comentó que le hizo saber a Mueller que le parecía “un abuso” porque conoce a los citados y que todo aparenta que “se están empezando a ver de nuevo” las persecuciones contra los independentistas.

Los nuevos emplazamientos, para el día 11 de los corrientes, han provocado una fuerte reacción en el movimiento independentista, que ha convocado manifestaciones para mañana y el viernes en San Juan, Nueva York, Chicago, Cleveland, Filadelfia, Orlando, Los Ángeles y San Francisco.
Serrano comentó que es de la opinión que el FBI no sólo está dispuesto a perseguir a los independentistas sino a los también a los anexionistas. Sobre el caso de Puerto Rico en el Congreso, dijo que “cada vez que los federales dan la impresión” negativa sobre los puertorriqueños “eso no ayuda a la causa de la independencia y tampoco ayuda a la causa estadista”. Explicó que eso puede provocar la preocupación de que no conviene un Puerto Rico independiente hostil a EEUU.

MEXICO: Army, Paramilitary Build-Up in Zapatista Stronghold

2008-01-10T13:26:00.001-08:00

MEXICO: Army, Paramilitary Build-Up in Zapatista Stronghold
By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Jan 10 (IPS) - The Zapatista guerrillas and their supporters in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas are experiencing the worst onslaught by state forces in the last 10 years, although most people are unaware of the fact, according to reports from a research centre working in the area.

On Monday, in the area under Zapatista influence, "we rescued a wounded Indian grassroots supporter of the guerrillas who had been shot by paramilitaries. The situation is serious," Ernesto Ledesma, head of the Chiapas-based non-governmental Centre for Political Analysis and Social and Economic Research (CAPISE), told IPS.

According to CAPISE, which has had brigades out for the past five years, monitoring military movements in areas held by the barely-armed Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), in recent weeks there has been an increased presence of uniformed soldiers who are acting in concert with paramilitary groups.

Also, agrarian reform institutions have initiated an "irregular" distribution of land that had been occupied by indigenous people when the EZLN rose up in arms for two weeks in January 1994, according to CAPISE.

Title deeds to about 250,000 hectares are being distributed, but Zapatista sympathisers are being excluded, Ledesma said.

"Around 30 Zapatista communities are under enormous pressure from the military, the paramilitaries and the authorities, with the intention, we presume, to undermine the strength of the EZLN. This has not happened since 1998," said the head of CAPISE.

The Fray Bartolomé de las Casas Human Rights Centre has also been reporting, for months now, that the situation in Zapatista areas is serious, because of the increasing presence of the army and of indigenous groups opposed to the guerrillas.

An anonymous source in the government of conservative President Felipe Calderón told IPS that the reports from Chiapas came as a complete surprise, and stated that the executive branch has no harassment strategy towards the EZLN, who have not fired a single shot since the second week of 1994.

The authorities in Chiapas, headed by Governor Juan Sabines of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), have not reported any changes in the situation in the area, while lawmakers and social activists have lost interest in the once-famous guerrilla group.

Ledesma said that on Monday he travelled through jungle and valley areas in Chiapas, and with the help of several companions rescued a wounded indigenous man who had been shot and pursued by groups that he identified as paramilitaries, in a conflict over land.

"A deliberate concerted action between paramilitaries (who are also indigenous people) and the police, army and authorities is taking place here, the purpose of which is to attack the Zapatistas," Ledesma said.

One of the first actions undertaken by former president Vicente Fox (2002-2006) was to order the withdrawal of the army from the guerrilla-held areas and their surroundings, but human rights organisations say that this was merely a strategic relocation of troops.

Since 2001, when a convoy of EZLN delegates entered Mexico City to the cheers of hundreds of thousands of people, to call for approval of a law on indigenous culture and rights, the guerrillas have gradually faded from the political scene and their leader, ‘Subcomandante Marcos", has distanced himself from the left and the intellectuals who supported him.

In 2006 and 2007, beginning in parallel with the election campaign which brought Calderón to power on Dec. 1, 2006, Marcos travelled the country unarmed, with government permission, leading "The Other Campaign", an attempt to rally non-electoral political actors and press for the drafting of a new constitution.

But most Mexican saw and heard nothing of his cross-country travels.

Before the end of 2007, Marcos announced that he was returning to his stronghold in Chiapas and that he would neither emerge nor speak again until a future unspecified date. He warned, however, that the EZLN would retaliate if attacked.

Fourteen years ago, thousands of Mexicans mobilised against the army attacks on the EZLN, which led to a law declaring a ceasefire.

But now it appears that no one is prepared to react to the information that an onslaught against the rebel group is in progress.

"The situation in Chiapas is serious and violence is on the rise. The public should know this," Ledesma said.

Earlier reports by the Fox administration, confirmed by several researchers, indicate that the EZLN is in administrative and political control of 15 percent of Chiapas, the country’s poorest state, which has a total area of 75,634 square kilometres.

In that area, where government social programmes are inoperative, there are about 100,000 mainly indigenous people, who live in dire poverty, as do most of Mexico’s roughly 10 million Indians.

About 5,000 poorly armed men constitute the military forces of the EZLN. But Zapatistas have forsworn all offensive action.

CAPISE says that indigenous self-rule in the Zapatista area is a reality, and that their own health, education and development programmes are in place. But these achievements are increasingly threatened by the military and paramilitary presence and by pressure from indigenous campesino groups opposed to the guerrillas. (END/2008)

Chiapas: Zapatistas host Women's Encuentro —amid ongoing violence

2008-01-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

Chiapas: Zapatistas host Women's Encuentro —amid ongoing violence

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Sat, 01/05/2008 - 03:30.

Zapatista women at La Garrucha

To celebrate the 14th anniversary of their New Years Day uprising, Mexico's Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) hosted a Women's Encuentro ("encounter" or "meeting") at the jungle settlement of La Garrucha, Chiapas state. Officially dubbed the "Encuentro of the Indigenous Zapatista Women with the Women of the World," the meeting brought together women from throughout Mexico and several other countries around the globe. In a case of self-conscious role reversal, men at the gathering were confined to cooking and cleaning, while women did all the talking. Accounts and images are online at Chiapas IMC.

Meanwhile, Hermann Bellinghausen reports for La Jornada Jan. 2 on further attacks against Zapatista support bases by followers of the ironically-named Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC), which the EZLN charges is a paramilitary group. On Dec. 29, Zapatista supporter Pablo Silvano Jiménez was shot and wounded by an OPDDIC gunman apparently backed up by Chaipas state police officers in the community of Betel Yochiv, near the settlement of Agua Clara. On Dec. 27, Zapatista supporter Julio Hernández Gómez was attacked with machetes by OPDDIC militants at Cascadas de Agua Azul.

See our last posts on Mexico and the struggle in Chiapas.

Women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health and….revolution?

2007-12-30T13:21:00.000-08:00

Women’s rights, sexual and reproductive health and….revolution?

Since 1994, the Zapatista's have placed women's rights and participation at the centre of their social and health agenda, including the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights. Today the Zapatistas run a health system autonomous from the Mexican government that includes community educators, trained midwives, community clinics and an autonomous hospital. This transformation is promoting women's sexual and reproductive health and rights.

(Tamil Kendall
http://chiapas.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=153291)

La Garrucha, Chiapas
December 28, 2007

Mexico’s indigenous people suffer serious disadvantages related to sexual and reproductive health. Most Mexican women in urban areas now have access to modern family planning methods and reasonable hospital care in case of emergencies related to labor and birth. But rural women, and particularly rural indigenous women, lack access to these services to ensure their reproductive and sexual choice and rights. These gaps in services are on of the main reasons that Mexico may not achieve the Millennium Development Goal for reducing deaths associated with labor and birth (maternal mortality).

In indigenous communities, poverty, limited health services, long-distances to hospitals, and in some cases, the lack of value given to women’s health, contribute to these needless deaths. International experts agree that ensuring women’s rights and full participation are cornerstones for improving sexual and reproductive health and promoting human development. The Mexican government has affirmed its commitment to these goals through various international conventions, including the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) and the Millennium Development Goals (2000).

Independent of the Mexican government, Zapatista women and their communities are seeking to improve sexual and reproductive rights on the foundation of women’s rights and participation. Not very long ago, the situation for these rural indigenous women from Chiapas was grim. Adriana, an unmarried Zapastista woman says: “In the past we were only good to look after the family and the house and they sold us like animals.” On the coffee plantations, women suffered sexual harassment from the landowners, and if the women or their parents resisted, they were rounded up and punished and the women were raped. Women weren’t allowed to choose their own husbands. If they were lucky, their father chose their husband. If they were unlucky, a suitor asked the landowner for the woman’s hand. In this case, many of the women had to have sex with the boss until he tired of her and passed her on to the spouse.

Today, Adriana says: “Our parents have started to learn that we have the same rights as men.”
Commander Rosalinda of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) states that before the establishment of the autonomous communities: “Only men had rights, even our parents said that women weren’t worth anything. Our rights were crushed. If we participated in meetings, the men made fun of us. We weren’t allowed to go out in the street. We only worked in the house and taking care of the animals. Our grandmothers worked in the corn field (milpa) and then came home to work and wash the clothes, while the men had time to go out and have fun.” She goes on to say that: “Part of the collective work after the uprising was to help women see that they have rights, the same as the men.” These changes are having an impact in women’s lives, and promoting community respect for their sexual and reproductive rights.
Grandmother Elisa says that today: “Our daughters marry as they wish, they are not forced.

The go where their destiny and their luck leads them. Now we know our rights as women, to go where we want and to work, not only the men.” Mireilla, a young married Zapatista says: “I married after ’94 [the armed uprising] and no one made me marry. I chose my husband. We also give freedom to our children because children also have rights, just like adults”.

Rosaura, a Zapatista community health promoter says that before the 1994 uprising women’s health wasn’t a priority for the government or for the community: “Sometimes the men didn’t worry about our health, they just waited to see if we would get better.” Medical attention in their communities was very limited and many women died during or after labor and birth, or because of sexually transmitted infections. Transporting women to hospitals in obstetric emergencies was and continues to be a problem because of lack of roads and limited radio communication. Traditional midwives lacked training and materials, such as gloves.

Today the Zapatistas run a health system autonomous from the Mexican government that includes community educators, trained midwives, community clinics and an autonomous hospital. Sexual and reproductive health is a priority supported through ongoing community based education on sexually transmitted infections, diagnosis for the human papiloma virus and cervical cancer, family planning, and preventative health care before, during and after pregnancy and birth. However, there are ongoing economic and human challenges: they lack sufficient specially trained personnel, medical equipment and essential medicines. And what about condom use in Zapatista communities? Rosaura says “Yes, they are recognized and some men and women use them, but it is the decision of each individual.”

Armed uprising may not be the path to ensuring women’s rights for all communities, but it is clear that since 1994 the Zapatistas have made considerable gains in transforming an extremely macho indigenous culture into one where women participate fully and their rights, including their sexual and reproductive rights, are promoted.

cenutrio

Report to be released today on ICE raids' impact on kids

2007-10-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

By Harold Reutter
harold.reutter@theindependent.com

The National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute are scheduled to release a report today about how Grand Island children and families were impacted by last December's ICE raid on the local Swift plant.

The report will be released during a presentation to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

In addition to studying the impact on children and families in Grand Island, the report also looked at the effects on children and families following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift & Co. plant in Greeley, Colo., and on the Michael Bianco Inc. plant in New Bedford, Mass.

According to the Boston Globe, the Michael Bianco plant is a leather goods operation. It's also a military contractor that makes backpacks and survival vests.

Grand Island Superintendent Steve Joel, although not involved in the creation of the report, has been invited to be one of the panelists when the report is presented to the National Press Club.

The report had two main researchers from the Urban Institute, which describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy research and educational organization. It says it "investigates the social, economic and governance problems confronting the nation and evaluates the public and private means to alleviate them."

The Urban Institute was commissioned to complete the report by the National Council of La Raza.

The Independent has received an advance copy of the 99-page report and will post excerpts after the embargo has ended at 10 a.m. today.

Marie Watteau, associate director of the Office of Public Information for the National Council of La Raza, said the report deals with current immigration law, which is an enforcement-only policy of deportation when it comes to illegal immigrants.

Watteau said La Raza may favor what some people have called comprehensive immigration reform, but the report makes no recommendations on changing current immigration law.

Instead, it focuses on the impact on children and families when ICE takes work-site enforcement actions in various communities, Watteau said.

That is reflected in the report's title: "Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children."

Freed FARC rebel in Venezuela for hostage talks

2007-10-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

A Colombian guerrilla freed to broker a deal over hostages has travelled to Venezuela to help set up talks with President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking to end a deadlock over negotiations, the government has said.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe in June released from prison Rodrigo Granda, known as the "foreign minister" of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in a gesture to advance talks.

The recent involvement of Chavez raised hopes the leftist may secure a deal to free hostages, including French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans held by the FARC for more than four years in secret jungle camps.

"Rodrigo Granda was authorized ... to seek peace efforts and to move between Havana and Caracas, and he has travelled to Venezuela to serve as a bridge of communication," Colombia's peace commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, told local radio.

Granda travelled to Cuba after his release in Colombia.

The announcement came after a left-wing Colombian senator, who is acting as a facilitator in talks, also said efforts to broker initial negotiations between Chavez and the FARC leadership had advanced, but without giving details.

Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, has said he plans to meet with a representative of the Marxist FARC leadership in Venezuela in an effort to end a stalemate over hostages. Granda is acting as a mediator for possible talks.

Negotiations are stalled over FARC demands Uribe pull troops back from an area the size of New York City and that two guerrilla commanders in US prisons are freed and included in the deal to exchange key hostages for jailed FARC fighters.

Uribe, popular for his hardline stance, has rejected a demilitarized zone under FARC conditions saying that would allow the guerrillas to regroup in an area strategic for arms and cocaine trafficking from the south of the country.

Uribe has employed billions of dollars in US aid to send troops to drive the FARC back into the jungles, but Latin America's longest-running insurgency is still fighting in remote areas, often financed by funds from the cocaine trade.

Venezuela to Give 14.2 Million for Emergency in Nicaragua

2007-10-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

Managua, Oct 30 (Prensa Latina) The Venezuelan government will give 14.2 million dollars to help to fix the damages caused by the recent meteorological phenomena in Nicaragua, as told by President Daniel Ortega.

The Nicaraguan leader made the announcement during his intervention in the plenary of the National Assembly Tuesday to request a budget reform that allows to assign more funds to repair roads damaged by the rains.

Venezuela already approved a help to Nicaragua for 14.2 million dollars to face this emergency, Ortega expressed and said that the good news was told to him on the phone by Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro.

The funds, he added, will be used to guarantee roofs of zinc to 10,000 houses and to buy foods and other materials for those affected by the rains of the last weeks.

Ortega also confirmed that a ship with Venezuelan fuel will arrive in Puerto Cabezas, in the Caribbean north shore of Nicaragua in the next days to supply that area which was desolated by Hurricane Felix on September 4.

The remnant of the help that Caracas will give Nicaragua was determined by a technical mission of the South American country that arrived in Managua on October 19 to evaluate the damages caused by the rains in the area of the Pacific.

The Venezuelan cooperation is coming in the right moment; Ortega assured, in allusion to the emergency that Nicaragua lives as a result of Felix's impact in the Atlantic, the floods in the Pacific and of a leptospirosis sprout in the west.

According to calculations, the three phenomena almost caused in total 250 dead people, more than 215,000 damaged and material damages for about 400 million dollars.

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PL-49

Driver licenses for undocumented: Clinton stumbles

2007-10-31T22:48:00.000-07:00

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the presidential candidates debate in Philadelphia. Photo by Stan Honda//AFP/Getty Images)

By Mark Silva

A potentially dangerous new story-line could be developing in the campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for the White House: Multiple-choice answers to the same difficult question.

Clinton already suffers from a certain “if I had known then what I know now'' syndrome over the war in Iraq – she voted along with an overwhelming majority of senators to authorize military force in Iraq, but now says she opposes the war. She promises to end it, if elected president, but will not commit to when all the U.S. troops deployed there will come home.

Clinton also has voted for a resolution on Iran supported by an overwhelming majority of senators which critics call a predicate to war, but she maintains that she is in no “rush to war'' in Iran. And last night, during a Democratic debate, she refused to pledge that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons during her presidency – her leading rivals also demurred.

But it was a question about driver's licenses for “undocumented workers'' – the politically neutral terminology for “illegal aliens'' which she prefers – that created the most trouble for Clinton during last night's two-hour debate of the Democrats staged in Philadelphia. Her leading rivals pounced on Clinton for her conflicting answers – she supports New York's plan but says it's not the best idea -- and the GOP is pouncing today.

Clinton complained that she is a victim of the “gotcha'' on this controveral question. She may well be right – her rivals seized on a rare debate flub for the candidate who has proven toughest in Democratic encounters. And the GOP today is calling it “Hillary's Debate Dodgeball.''

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, NBC moderator Tim Russert reminded Clinton. “You told the Nashua, N.H., editorial board it makes a lot of sense,'' he said. “Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license? ''

“ Well, what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is fill the vacuum left by the failure of this administration to bring about comprehensive immigration reform,'' she said. “We know in New York we have several million at any one time who are in New York illegally. They are undocumented workers.

“They are driving on our roads,'' she said. “The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability. So what Gov. Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum.

“ I believe we need to get back to comprehensive immigration reform because no state, no matter how well-intentioned, can fill this gap,'' Clinton continued. “There needs to be federal action on immigration reform. ''

“Does anyone here believe an illegal immigrant should not have a driver's license?'' Russert asked the other six Democrats assembled on stage.

“ This is a privilege,'' Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said. “And look, I'm as forthright and progressive on immigration policy as anyone here, but we're dealing with a serious problem here. We need to have people come forward. The idea that we're going to extend this privilege here of a driver's license, I think, is troublesome. And I think the American people are reacting to it. ''

Clinton attempted to clarify her own response: “I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Gov. Spitzer is trying to do it. And we have failed....

“Wait a minute,'' Dodd interrupted. “No, no, no. You said yes, you thought it made sense to do it.

“No, I didn't, Chris,'' Clinton said. “But the point is, what are we going to do with all these illegal immigrants who are (driving )?''

“Well, that's a legitimate issue,'' Dodd said. “But driver's license goes too far, in my view. ''

“ Well, you may say that,'' Clinton said, “but what is the identification if somebody runs into you today who is an undocumented worker?'

“What Gov. Spitzer has agreed to do is to have three different licenses, one that provides identification for actually going onto airplanes and other kinds of security issues, another which is an ordinary driver's license, and then a special card that identifies the people who would be on the road,'' the senator from New York said.

“ That's a bureaucratic nightmare,'' the senator from Connecticut said.

“Sen. Clinton,'' Russert interjected, “I just want to make sure what I heard. Do you, the New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, support the New York governor's plan to give illegal immigrants a driver's license? You told the Nashua, New Hampshire, paper it made a lot of sense. .. Do you support his plan?''

“You know, Tim, his is where everybody plays gotcha,'' she said. “It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with a serious problem. We have failed, and George Bush has failed.

“ Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do?'' Clinton continued. “No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York we want to know who's in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows. He's making an honest effort to do it. We should have passed immigration reform. ''

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina seized the opening in Clinton's defenses.

“ I want to add something that Chris Dodd just said a minute ago, because I don't want it to go unnoticed,'' Edwards said. “Unless I missed something, Sen. Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes just a few minutes ago, and I think this is a real issue for the country.

“I mean, America is looking for a president who will say the same thing, who will be consistent, who will be straight with them,'' Edwards said. “Because what we've had for seven years is double-talk from Bush and from Cheney, and I think America deserves us to be straight.''

And Obama's head-nodding caught the moderator's attention.

“ Well, I was confused on Sen. Clinton's answer,'' Obama said. “I can't tell whether she was for it or against it, and I do think that is important.

“You know, one of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face,'' Obama said. “Immigration is a difficult issue. But part of leadership is not just looking backwards and seeing what's popular, or trying to gauge popular sentiment. It's about setting a direction for the country, and that's what I intend to do as president.''

How about the issue, then. Is Obama “for or against it?''

“I think that it is a -- the right idea,'' Obama said of the New York governor's plan. “And I disagree with Chris, because there is a public safety concern. We can make sure that drivers who are illegal come out of the shadows, that they can be tracked, that they are properly trained, and that will make our roads safer. That doesn't negate the need for us to reform illegal immigration.''

Posted by Mark Silva on October 31, 2007 10:53 AM | Permalink

Large Ancient Settlement Unearthed in Puerto Rico

2007-10-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News

October 29, 2007

Bodies, structures, and rock art thought to belong to an indigenous pre-Columbian culture have been unearthed at an ancient settlement in Puerto Rico, officials recently announced.

Archaeologists say the complex—which dates from A.D. 600 to 1500—could be the most significant of its kind in the Caribbean.

"This is a very well preserved site," said Aida Belén Rivera-Ruiz, director of Puerto Rico's State Office of Historic Preservation.

"The site seems to show two occupations: a pre-Taino and a Taino settlement."

The Taino are thought to be a subgroup of the Arawak Indians who migrated to the Caribbean from Mexico or South America hundreds of years ago, experts say.

(Related news: "Jade Axes Proof of Vast Ancient Caribbean Network, Experts Say" [June 12, 2006].)

They were among the first tribes to encounter Europeans.

Huge Plaza

The ancient Taino settlement was discovered in southern Puerto Rico (see map).

Archaeologists have known since 1985 that the area contained indigenous artifacts.

But the scope of the site became clear only recently, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on a new dam meant to protect the region from flooding.

Perhaps the most significant find is a large plaza covering an area of about 130 by 160 feet (40 by 50 meters).

Rivera-Ruiz said the plaza appears to be a batey, a rectangular area around which the Taino built their settlements.

The plaza, which contains stones etched with ancient petroglyphs, might have been a court used for ceremonial rituals or ball games.

"If this information is confirmed, this would be the largest known indigenous batey in the Caribbean," Rivera-Ruiz said.

Roberto Mucaro Borrero, a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People, agreed.

The site "could be the largest ancient Taino cultural area found not only in Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean," Borrero said.

And petroglyphs of a masculine figure with frog legs could prove especially important in understanding the culture's roots, he added.

"They could reveal evidence of direct links between the Taino and the Mayan peoples," he said, although other experts strongly refute that the two cultures are related.

Storm of Controversy

Confusion and criticisms are already swirling amidst excitement over the findings.

Initial reports about bodies found in several graves at the site suggest that the people were buried in unique positions.

The bodies were "buried facedown with the legs bent at the knees—a style never seen before in the region," the Associated Press reported.

But Miguel Rodriguez, a member of the Puerto Rican government's archaeological council, said the burial positioning isn't unheard of in the area.

Kit Wesler, a Taino expert at Murray State University in Kentucky, also said that the "facedown position is unusual but probably not unprecedented."

Rivera-Ruiz of the state preservation office stressed that any claims about the uniqueness of the burial arrangements must await a full excavation and studies of any funerary objects.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-based New South Associates—a private archaeology company contracted by the Corps of Engineers to salvage the site—is at the center of controversy over their excavation methods.

According to AP, the company had initially been using a bulldozer that caused damage to centuries-old bones.

Members of the Taino who visited the dig on Saturday "witnessed damage to the site, particularly to some human remains and stones" that was apparently caused by a backhoe, Taino representative Borrero said.

Rodriguez was adamant that the company should be pulled off the project.

"This is a textbook case of what they shouldn't do," he said. "They are using mostly diggers and bulldozers and they must stop."

Rodriguez also accused the company of violating Puerto Rican law by failing to register artifacts it had taken off the island.

"They haven't told us anything about the materials, so they are not following the rules," he said.

An official from New South Associates said the Corps did not permit them to answer press inquiries.

But Rivera-Ruiz, of Puerto Rico's historic conservation office, defended the Corps and its contractor.

"The contractor was originally hired by the Corps of Engineers to conduct a salvage data recovery operation on a site that was essentially doomed," she said via email.

"Once preservation became an option, the scope and invasive nature of the project was shifted in favor of the more low-key, less intrusive hand excavation of already exposed features."

About 80 percent of the site will be left intact, Rivera-Ruiz added, allowing for the long-term preservation of most of the site.

She added that Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office has overseen the company's operation, and the parties are complying with the law.

And Corps spokesperson David McCullough told National Geographic News via email that his agency stands behind New South Associates and is reworking its plans based on the new findings.

"When the Corps recognized the extreme significance of this site," he said, "we redesigned the parts of the dam project that would create the greatest adverse effect to the site."

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Glare of Fires Pulls Migrants From Shadows

2007-10-31T22:41:00.000-07:00

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and WILL CARLESS

Published: October 27, 2007

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 26 — Out of the burning brush, from behind canyon rocks, several immigrants bolted toward a group of firefighters, chased not by the border police but by the onrush of flames from one of the biggest wildfires this week.

Skip to next paragraph

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Waiting for work in Rancho Peñasquitos, a part of San Diego affected by the fires.

Multimedia

Interactive Map

The Extent of the Fires

Despite Progress, California Fires Still Pose Threat (October 27, 2007)

News Analysis: A Firestorm, a Deluge and a Sharp Political Dig (October 27, 2007)

Fake News Briefing by FEMA Draws Official Rebukes (October 27, 2007)

Their appearance startled the firefighters, who let them into their vehicles. But with the discovery of four charred bodies in an area of heavy illegal immigration, concern is growing that others may not have survived.

“Their hands were burned, and they were clearly tired and grateful,” Capt. Mike Parkes of the State Department of Forestry and Fire Protection reported on what his firefighting team saw.

Immigrants from south of the border, many illegal, provide the backbone of menial labor in San Diego, picking fruit, cleaning hotel rooms, sweeping walks and mowing lawns.

The wildfires, one of the biggest disasters to strike the county, exposed their often-invisible existence in ways that were sometimes deadly.

The four bodies were found in a burned area in southeastern San Diego County, a region known for intense illegal immigration. It is near Tecate, where a chain securing an evacuated border crossing was cut and people were seen flowing into the United States until the Border Patrol arrived, said Michael J. Fisher, the chief patrol agent in San Diego.

As firefighting continued on Friday, makeshift camps for immigrants in the northern part of the county stood largely abandoned. Some immigrants were said to be hiding in even more remote terrain. Others sought help from churches.

“I was pretty scared. We had to leave in the middle of the night, and we went to the church,” said Juan Santiago, a immigrant worker in the Rancho Peñasquitos neighborhood, just south of the hard-hit Rancho Bernardo area.

Terri Trujillo, who helps the immigrants, checked on those in the canyons, urging them to leave, too, when she left her house in Rancho Peñasquitos ahead of the fires.

Ms. Trujillo and others who help the immigrants said they saw several out in the fields as the fires approached and ash fell on them. She said many were afraid to lose their jobs.

“There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported. Opponents of illegal immigration, including civilian border watch groups, seized on news that immigrants had been detained at the Qualcomm Stadium evacuation center as evidence of trouble that illegal immigrants cause.

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday.

He said that the agency never abandoned enforcing the border and that agents helped with removals and rescues. Fire blocked some access points to border areas, but Agent Fisher said, “We were very conscious in making sure our border security mission was met.”

Some people have speculated, including on the Web, that immigrants might have set some of the fires, as has occurred with campfires lighted in fields.

The authorities have not given any causes linked to immigration.

Two men, one in San Diego County and the other in Los Angeles, who were arrested on arson charges, accused of setting small fires this week, are believed to be deportable, a federal immigration official said.

The San Diego police detained people suspected of stealing at Qualcomm Stadium. Six were handed over to the immigration authorities when it became apparent that they might be in the United States illegally.

The Border Patrol said the six, and at the group’s request, an American juvenile with them, were returned to Mexico.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services.

The concerns of the rights group drew a rebuke from Representative Brian P. Bilbray, a Republican who represents areas along the border.

“People are dying because we can’t control our border,” Mr. Bilbray said. “That’s what they should be screaming about. Anyone who knows the land and the illegal activity in that rugged terrain knows there was no way we would avoid deaths in this.”

Wayne A. Cornelius, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies border questions, said that if the past was a guide there would be more friction over the fires and their effects on illegal immigrants.

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

In one sign of cooperation, a Mexican firefighting team from Baja California helped American firefighters with a major blaze along the border early in the week.

For the immigrants, the fires may have dried up some work. But some speculate on strong work prospects like cleanups. By early afternoon near a heavily damaged neighborhood in the Rancho Bernardo area, four men stood on a corner, waiting for work offers.

“It is a shame what happened,” said a man who gave just his first name, Miguelito. “But we think there will be jobs to clean or build.”

Dan Frosch contributed reporting from Denver, and Carolyn Marshall from San Francisco.

Archaeologists in Puerto Rico surprised by discovery of Indian artifacts

2007-10-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press

Saturday, October 27, 2007

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: U.S. and Puerto Rican archaeologists say they have uncovered what they believe to be one of the most important pre-Columbian sites found in the Caribbean, containing stones etched with ancient petroglyphs and graves that reveal unusual burial methods.

The stones at the site in southern Puerto Rico form a large plaza measuring some 130 feet by 160 feet (40 meters by 50 meters) that could have been used for ball games or ceremonial rites, said Aida Belen Rivera, director of the Puerto Rican Historic Conservation office.

The petroglyphs include the carving of a human figure with masculine features and frog legs. Archaeologists believe the site might belong to the Taino and pre-Taino cultures that inhabited the island before European colonization.

The plaza could contain other artifacts dating from 600 A.D. to 1500 A.D., said Rivera, whose office is receiving general reports about the findings.

"I have visited many sites and have never seen a plaza of that magnitude and of those dimensions and with such elaborate petroglyphs," said Miguel Rodriguez, member of the government's archaeological council and director of a graduate school in Puerto Rico that specializes in history and humanities. He is not involved in the project.

Archaeologists also uncovered several graves where bodies were interred face-down with the legs bent backward at the knees — a type of burial believed to be new to the region.

The site was discovered while land was being cleared for construction of a dam to control flooding in the area. Experts have called for a halt to the excavation, saying the team's use of heavy machinery has exposed the stones and possibly destroyed important evidence.

Jose Oliver, a Latin American Archaeology lecturer at University College London, called the discovery one that archaeologists come across every 50 or 100 years — if they are lucky.

"I'm convinced that a competent investigation of that site will offer us a rare perspective of our Pre-Columbian and Pre-Colonial history," Oliver, who has overseen several high-profile digs in the U.S. Caribbean territory, said by e-mail.

But he warned that the company in charge of the site is not equipped to handle such a massive and complex job.

The lead investigator for Georgia-based New South Associates, the archaeological and historical consulting firm leading the excavation, said a backhoe that scrapes inches (centimeters) at a time did break some bones, but that the same would have occurred through manual excavation.

The company switched to slower and more detailed excavation methods about two weeks ago, after the site's significance became clear and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would preserve the site, investigator Chris Espenshade said.

Experts have suspected since 1985 that the area might yield indigenous artifacts because of its proximity to other archaeological sites.

The Tainos were a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians, native to the Caribbean islands. They migrated to the Caribbean from Mexico's Yucatan centuries before European colonizers arrived.

Four years after Columbus landed in Hispaniola in 1495, one-third of the 300,000 original Indian population was killed or exported. Half a century later, the Tainos there became extinct.

Puerto Rican Leader Backs Cuba

2007-10-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Quito , Oct 27 (Prensa Latina) Puerto Ricans are with Cuba and, as fighters for the independence of our territory, we defend self-determination and sovereignty of that country, Rafael Cancel Miranda stated in this capital Saturday.

Special guest to the Fifth Continental Meeting of Solidarity with the Cuban people, Cancel Miranda talked Prensa Latina of his love for Cuba, saying that he is "a light in Latin America."

"From my land, controlled by the US government, I am ready to fight Cuba , as I have done for the independence of my country," stated the leader, who served 25 years imprisonment in United States for his independentist struggle.

Cancel Miranda was one of the activists that, along with Lolita Lebron and Andres Figueroa, attacked the US Congress in 1954, to demand the end of that northern country's intervention in Puerto Rico.

Expressing his solidarity with five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned by the empire, Cancel Miranda recalled that he and other independentists were also sentenced in manipulated trials full of irregularities.

In addition of Cancel Miranda, nearly 20 Puerto Ricans and representatives from Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina , Chile, Peru, Brazil , Colombia, Nicaragua and Mexico , among others, are attending the event.

ef iff lgo

PL-18

Ecuador wants military base in Miami

2007-10-26T21:02:00.001-07:00

http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKADD25267520071022

Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:38pm BST

By Phil Stewart

NAPLES (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington
must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to
keep using an air base on Ecuador's Pacific coast.

Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air base, set to
expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics
surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.

"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami
-- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.

"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely
they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States."

The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that anti-narcotics flights
from Manta gathered information behind more than 60 percent of illegal drug
seizures on the high seas of the Eastern Pacific last year.

It offers a fact-sheet on the base at:
http://ecuador.usembassy.gov/topics_of_interest/manta-fol.html

Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his arm before
extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called U.S. President George
W. Bush a "dimwit".

But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told Reuters he
believed relations with the United States were "excellent" despite the base
closing.

He rejected the idea that the episode reflected on U.S. ties at all.

"This is the only North American military base in South America," he said.

"So, then the other South American countries don't have good relations with
the United States because they don't have military bases? That doesn't make
any sense."

Sin posición Pelosi sobre el status de Puerto Rico

2007-10-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

Dijo que, aunque cree en la autodeterminación, deberá estudiar cómo quedó el proyecto tras su aprobación en el Comité de Recursos Naturales de la Cámara.

Por NÉSTOR IKEDA (AP)
WASHINGTON — La presidenta de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, dijo hoy que no tiene una posición como para sugerir a Puerto Rico la forma en que debería finalmente resolver su relación política con Estados Unidos.

“No tengo una posición”, dijo en una rueda de prensa en el Capitolio federal. “Amo a Puerto Rico: He pasado mi luna de miel en Puerto Rico y vuelvo cada vez que puedo”.

El comentario fue formulado luego que el Comité de Recursos de la cámara que preside aprobara esta semana un proyecto de ley que permitiría una consulta en la que los puertorriqueños determinarían si quieren o no continuar con su actual status territorial.

“Nunca me involucraría en un argumento entre estadolibrismo, anexionismo o la independencia allí”, dijo Pelosi. “Ése es un nivel de pasión que posiblemente nunca podamos entender en nuestra política en Estados Unidos”, agregó.

“Sin embargo, creo en la autodeterminación y sabía lo que estaba en el proyecto al entrar (al debate). No he visto la forma en que el proyecto ha quedado al salir. Pero, son fuertes los del pro y el contra en nuestro grupo (demócrata) y escucharé cuidadosamente a todos ellos”, adelantó Pelosi.

El Comité de Recursos Naturales aprobó el martes a viva voz el proyecto y en caso de que su contenido fuera preservado al pasar por las dos cámaras, las autoridades puertorriqueñas deberán conducir un plebiscito no más tarde del 31 de diciembre de 2009 sobre si desean seguir con su actual relación de ELA o cambiarla.

Si la mayoría opta por el cambio, Puerto Rico elegiría entonces una Convención o Asamblea Constitucional o iría a un nuevo plebiscito para decidir por “una opción de autodeterminación” entre las cuales figurarían convertirse en un estado de Estados Unidos o en república.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Periodista colombiano abandona su país por amenazas de muerte de paramilitares

2007-10-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/2007/10/74078.php

versión para imprimir - enviar por e-mail
por Telesur Thursday, Oct. 25, 2007 at 3:39 PM

A Hollman Morris le enviaron correos electrónicos que le prometían ''muy pronto'' un ataúd. El comunicador, quien desde hace años trabaja para denunciar los crímenes producto del conflicto armado en Colombia y es crítico del Gobierno del presidente Álvaro Uribe, se toma muy en serio estas amenazas. - Tercera parte de municipios colombianos en riesgo de violencia durante elecciones

El periodista Hollman Morris, destacado activista por los derechos humanos en Colombia y crítico del Gobierno del presidente Álvaro Uribe, abandonó su país junto a su familia, tras recibir reiteradas amenazas de muerte en su contra por parte de paramilitares de ultraderecha, informó su hermano.

"Él tomó la decisión después de recibir nuevas amenazas y en medio de un clima peligroso por recientes enfrentamientos del presidente (Uribe) con varios periodistas (críticos de su Gobierno) y una campaña electoral tremendamente violenta", dijo Juan Pablo Morris, hermano del comunicador.

Morris explicó que su hermano recibió el pasado 26 de septiembre un correo electrónico firmado por un presunto grupo paramilitar autodenominado "Frente Patriótico", donde le decían que se había ganado la rifa para un ataúd y con la leyenda "Por guerrillero, sapo y apátrida".

Al día siguiente recibió otro mensaje. En esta ocasión se había incluido una imagen del periodista tachada con una "X" y el texto: "4,3,2, ya casi".

"Con estas elecciones como están, con esa matazón de gente y las amenazas a los periodistas críticos del Gobierno, Hollman no se sintió con garantías para seguir ejerciendo su profesión y decidió irse junto a su familia", añadió.

Hollman Morris, director del programa televisivo de investigación "Contravía", transmitido por TeleSUR, es conocido por sus críticas al Gobierno colombiano y por denunciar terrorismo de Estado y violaciones de los derechos humanos.

Fue galardonado recientemente con el premio de TV de la Fundación Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano, creada por el también colombiano Gabriel García Márquez.

Además, Hollman Morris ha sido merecedor de los más importantes reconocimientos periodísticos en Colombia, por sus trabajos sobre el conflicto interno.

Asesinados reportero gráfico y su asistente

Este miércoles se conoció que un reportero gráfico y su asistente fueron asesinados en la Cali, en hechos cuyos móviles y autores se ignoran, informó este miércoles la Federación Colombiana de Periodistas (Fecolper).

Carlos Alberto Jaramillo y su colaborador Julio César García, quienes trabajaban en forma independiente, fueron ultimados el domingo cuando se desplazaban en un vehículo hacia la localidad de Palmira para cubrir una competencia de ciclismo, señaló la Federación en un comunicado.

Jaramillo, de 50 años, "murió instantáneamente por varios disparos que lo impactaron en el pecho", mientras que García, de 43, falleció en un hospital adonde alcanzó a ser llevado con vida, agregó el reporte.

De acuerdo con la Federación Internacional de Periodistas (FIP), entre 1993 y 2006 fueron asesinados 111 periodistas en Colombia, crímenes de los cuales está plenamente establecido que 57 están directamente vinculados al ejercicio de su profesión.

Colombia y los periodistas

El director de la Felcoper y director del centro de solidaridad de la FIP, Eduardo Márquez, aseguró a TeleSUR que los profesionales de la comunicación social en Colombia "estamos viviendo una verdadera oleada de agresiones" y a su juicio, la situación "convierte a la autocensura en el chaleco antibalas de los periodistas".

En septiembre pasado, el presidente Álvaro Uribe acusó al corresponsal en Colombia del diario estadounidense "El Nuevo Herald", Gonzalo Guillén, de haber participado en la redacción del libro "Amando a Pablo, odiando a Escobar", cuya autora es una de las ex compañeras sentimentales del capo de la droga, Pablo Escobar.

En la obra se destaca la amistad entre Escobar y Uribe, quienes también, de acuerdo con el texto, fueron viejos socios de negocios.

Guillén negó los señalamientos del jefe de Estado y le envió una carta en la que denunció que las declaraciones del Mandatario lo ponían en "la mira del sicariato y en la picota pública" y, días después, ante nuevas amenazas de muerte en su contra, se fue del país suramericano.

Uribe también se enfrentó públicamente al periodista Daniel Coronell, director del noticiero independiente "Noticias Uno", a quien acusó de difamarlo por indicar en una columna que usó un helicóptero de Escobar para trasladar a su padre y hermanos, heridos en un hecho aún no esclarecido.

Coronell estuvo fuera de Colombia por un año por amenazas de muerte provenientes de paramilitares.

Márquez aseguró que "los periodistas somos puntal de las sociedades" y más en Colombia, donde "la guerrilla, grupos paramilitares, y el propio presidente de la república, hay sectores de poder que no están interesados que los ciudadanos tengan acceso a una información ajustada a la realidad".

Mexicans Miss Money From Relatives Up North

2007-10-26T11:10:00.001-07:00

October 26, 2007

By ELISABETH MALKIN

EL RODEO, Mexico — For years, millions of Mexican migrants working in the United States have sent money back home to villages like this one, money that allows families to pay medical bills and school fees, build houses and buy clothes or, if they save enough, maybe start a tiny business.

But after years of strong increases, the amount of migrant money flowing to Mexico has stagnated. From 2000 to 2006, remittances grew to nearly $24 billion a year from $6.6 billion, rising more than 20 percent some years. In 2007, the increase so far has been less than 2 percent.

Migrants and migration experts say a flagging American economy and an enforcement campaign against illegal workers in the United States have persuaded some migrants not to try to cross the border illegally to look for work. Others have decided to return to Mexico. And many of those who are staying in the United States are sending less money home.

In the rest of the world, remittances are rising, up as much as 10 percent a year, according to Donald F. Terry of the Inter-American Development Bank. Last year, migrant workers worldwide sent more than $300 billion to developing countries — almost twice the amount of foreign direct investment.

But in Mexico, families are feeling squeezed.

Estrella Rivera, a slight 27-year-old in this stone-paved village in Guanajuato state in central Mexico, was hoping to use the money her husband, Alonso, sent back from working illegally in Texas to build a small clothing shop at the edge of her garden.

But a month ago, Mr. Rivera returned home. His hours at a Dallas window-screen factory were cut and rumors spread that he would inevitably have to produce a valid Social Security number. Now, he works odd jobs or tends cornfields. Mrs. Rivera’s shop is indefinitely delayed, a pile of bricks stacked on the grass.

Like Mr. Rivera, some of the men who went to work in the United States illegally have returned discouraged. And less work means less money to send home — particularly from the southern United States and other areas where Mexican migrants are a more recent presence.

“One out of three people in these new states who was sending a year ago is not sending it home today,” Mr. Terry of the Inter-American Development Bank said. “There are some 500,000 families who aren’t receiving this year.”

Until last year, the American housing trades absorbed hundreds of thousands of migrants, and the hardships of the trip north seemed to pale beside the near certainty of finding work.

Now, the construction slump — along with a year-old crackdown on illegal immigration at the border and in the workplace, and mounting anti-immigrant sentiment in places — has made it even harder for Mexican migrants to reach the United States and land well-paying jobs.

Many experts say it is too early to know if the negligible increase in remittances will continue. Some argue it was to be expected: much of the initial spike in money transfers had resulted from better accounting. In addition, earlier waves of migrants are returning to the houses they built, or they have managed to legalize their status in the United States and bring their families, sending less money back.

But the events of the last year in the United States, political and economic, have also clouded the prospects of many illegal Mexican workers. New walls, new guards and new equipment at the border have dissuaded many from trying to cross and raised the cost for those who try to as much as $2,800. Workplace raids and stories of summary deportations stoke fears among Mexicans on both sides of the border.

Referring to tougher measures in the United States, Primitivo Rodríguez, a Mexican immigration expert, said: “Psychologically, they lead you to save money in case of an emergency. You send less, you save more.”

The shakier economy in many states means that migrants have moved from well-paying steady jobs to work as day laborers.

“In our interviews with families, they say that migrants are now working two or three days when before they worked four or five days,” said David Skerritt, a historian at Veracruzana University.

Rodolfo García Zamora , an immigration expert at the University of Zacatecas, said money transfers to Zacatecas state fell by about 25 percent this year.

Here in Guanajuato state, remittances have created a peculiar economy in villages tucked among rolling corn and sorghum fields. There are few jobs, yet many houses have stereo systems, washing machines and three-piece living room sets.

Things are changing, though. Some of the men are back and need cash for seeds and fertilizer to plow long-neglected fields. At the microcredit association operated by a local nonprofit group, the Bajío Women’s Network, loans for agriculture, which barely existed last year, now account for 11 percent of all borrowing.

Women are finding it harder to save, said Evelyne Sinquin, the network coordinator. “The people who have come back can’t work, and the people in the United States are working fewer hours.”

Other than agriculture, the jobs here are in construction, building houses of absentee owners houses along the cobbled streets. Some are modest with a few brick rooms; others are ornate tributes to their absentee owners’ success: gold-painted balconies, the Virgin of Guadalupe etched in a window, Greek columns. Los Emigrantes carpentry shop in nearby La Cuevita sits on a traffic circle adorned with a monument showing several figures, one of them a migrant waving a fistful of dollars.

Not much else flourishes. Three months ago, Mónica Núñez closed her tortilla shop in the village of San Lucas. “Most people went to the United States and sales went down,” she said.

Her husband has been home from Houston for a year, but she has seven brothers and a sister in the United States who still send money. She is planning a new business, perhaps an Internet cafe so people can connect with relatives in the United States.

Less than an hour’s drive away, the city of Querétaro is prospering, turning out home appliances for the world market. But for most people in the villages, education ended after elementary school. An unskilled factory or construction job pays little more than $50 or $60 a week.

With those prospects, the next generation — some of them as young as 15 — seemed to have few doubts about heading to the United States.

Estrella Rivera’s brother Francisco left for the first time when he was 16. Now 21, he recently came home after a year and a half in Orlando, Fla., working in construction. He earned enough to add a floor to his parents’ house, but then he struggled.

“Either there was no work or they did not want to hire somebody without papers,” he said, perched on an old Ford pickup truck with Michigan tags beside his family’s sheep and cow pens.

But he expects to go back again. “To tell the truth, it really is worth the trouble,” he said, recounting a terrifying crossing getting lost in the Arizona desert.

Mrs. Rivera’s husband is not so sure. “It’s really tough to go back,” he said. “Now they lock you up. Before, they grabbed you and sent you back. The laws were never this tough.”

Blackwater's run for the border

2007-10-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/10/23/blackwater_border/

The notorious security contractor has plans for a military-style complex near the U.S.-Mexico border. Critics worry the firm's "mercenary soldiers" could join the U.S. Border Patrol.

By Eilene Zimmerman

Oct. 23, 2007 | There are signs that Blackwater USA, the private security firm that came under intense scrutiny after its employees killed 17 civilians in Iraq in September, is positioning itself for direct involvement in U.S. border security. The company is poised to construct a major new training facility in California, just eight miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. While contracts for U.S. war efforts overseas may no longer be a growth industry for the company, Blackwater executives have lobbied the U.S. government since at least 2005 to help train and even deploy manpower for patrolling America's borders.

Blackwater is planning to build an 824-acre military-style training complex in Potrero, Calif., a rural hamlet 45 miles east of San Diego. The company's proposal, which was approved last December by the Potrero Community Planning Group and has drawn protest from within the Potrero community, will turn a former chicken ranch into "Blackwater West," the company's second-largest facility in the country. It will include a multitude of weapons firing ranges, a tactical driving track, a helipad, a 33,000-square-foot urban simulation training area, an armory for storing guns and ammunition, and dorms and classrooms. And it will be located in the heart one of the most active regions in the United States for illegal border crossings.

While some residents of Potrero have welcomed the plan, others have raised fears about encroachment on protected lands and what they see as an intimidating force of mercenaries coming into their backyard. The specter of Blackwater West and the rising interest in privatizing border security have also alarmed Democratic Rep. Bob Filner, whose congressional district includes Potrero. Filner says he believes it's a good possibility that Blackwater is positioning itself for border security contracts and is opposed to the new complex. "You have to be very wary of mercenary soldiers in a democracy, which is more fragile than people think," Rep. Filner told Salon. "You don't want armies around who will sell out to the highest bidder. We already have vigilantes on the border, the Minutemen, and this would just add to [the problem]," Filner said, referring to the Minuteman Project, a conservative group that has organized civilian posses to assist the U.S. Border Patrol in the past. Filner is backing legislation to block establishment of what he calls "mercenary training centers" anywhere in the U.S. outside of military bases. "The border is a sensitive area," he said, "and if Blackwater operates the way they do in Iraq -- shoot first and ask questions later -- my constituents are at risk."

A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied there are any specific plans to work directly with Blackwater. And Blackwater officials say the complex would be used only for training active-duty military and law enforcement officials, work for which the company has contracted with the U.S. government.

But statements and lobbying activity by Blackwater officials, and the location for the new complex, strongly suggest plans to get involved in border security, with potential contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, Blackwater enjoys support from powerful Republican congressmen who advocate hard-line border policies, including calls for deploying private agents to beef up the ranks of the U.S. Border Patrol. Lawmakers supporting Blackwater include California Rep. and presidential candidate Duncan Hunter -- who met last year with company officials seeking his advice on the proposal for Blackwater West -- and Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama, who is sponsoring a bill to allow private contractors such as Blackwater to help secure U.S. borders.

When questioned at a public hearing with the Potrero planning group on Sept. 13 about Blackwater West, Brian Bonfiglio, a Blackwater spokesman, said, "I don't think there's anyone in this room who wouldn't like to see the border tightened up." Blackwater currently had no contracts to help with border security, Bonfiglio said, but he emphasized that "we would entertain any approach from our government to help secure either border, absolutely." Bonfiglio was responding to questions from Raymond Lutz, a local organizer who opposes the new complex. (Lutz recorded the exchange and posted video of it on Oct. 12 at CitizensOversight.org.) Lutz also asked Bonfiglio if Blackwater West would be used as a base for deployment of Border Patrol agents. "Actually, we've offered it up as a substation to Border Patrol and U.S. Customs right now," Bonfiglio replied. "We'd love to see them there."

Ramon Rivera, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, denied Bonfiglio's claim that the agency is entertaining an offer to use Blackwater West as a substation. "I think that's just Blackwater trying to sell themselves," Rivera said.

In fact, Blackwater has been selling itself for direct involvement in border security at least since May 2005, when the company's then president, Gary Jackson, testified before a House subcommittee. Jackson's testimony focused on Blackwater's helping to train U.S. Border Patrol agents and included discussion of contracts theoretically worth $80 million to $200 million, for thousands of personnel. Asked by one lawmaker if his company saw a market opportunity in border security, Jackson replied: "I can put as many men together as you need, trained and on the borders."

The company has turned to powerful allies on Capitol Hill for support, including Hunter, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee and a longtime proponent of tougher border security. Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter, confirmed to Salon that Blackwater officials sought guidance from Hunter on getting Blackwater West approved for Potrero. Hunter met with Blackwater officials in May 2006, at which time Hunter recommended the firm contact Dianne Jacob, the county supervisor responsible for Potrero and one of five supervisors who would vote on countywide approval for Blackwater West. Blackwater officials then met with Jacob in May, and in June the company submitted its proposal to the county, where it now must go through an approval process.

Rep. Filner says Potrero residents have complained to him that Hunter also brought pressure locally for Blackwater West. "People in the area told me he called the landowner [of the proposed site] to urge him to sell [to Blackwater]. I don't know that he did, but it wouldn't surprise me," says Filner. "That's what people in the area are saying." (Hunter has ties to Potrero, which used to be part of his congressional district; after a redestricting in 2001, Potrero became part of Filner's district, which borders Hunter's district.)

Spokesman Kasper denied that Hunter called the landowner, whose identity remains unclear. But Kasper also said that Hunter "supports Blackwater and other private security contractors in Iraq, and he supports the training facility in Potrero."

One specific concern Potrero residents have raised with relation to Blackwater West is the high risk of wildfires in their part of the county -- a danger on display the last two days as Potrero has been ravaged by fire along with other parts of Southern California. Blackwater has in fact pushed as a selling point that the complex would be a "defensible location" during wildfires. But opponents, including Jan Hedlun, the only member of the Potrero Planning Group opposed to Blackwater West, foresee danger rather than a safe haven. As Hedlun wrote in a recent editorial in the San Diego Union-Tribune, "residents state they would not flee to a box canyon with one access point and an armory filled with ammunition and/or explosives."

Ever since illegal immigration became a top issue for the Bush administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, there have been growing calls for the U.S. to bring private security companies into border enforcement. In September 2006, the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington released a policy paper titled "Better, Faster, and Cheaper Border Security," which urged Congress and the president to beef up forces as fast as possible. "In particular," the report said, "private contractors could play an important role in recruiting and training Border Patrol agents and providing personnel to secure the border." Late last month, one of the report's authors hosted a symposium in Washington for an updated discussion on the topic, for which Rep. Rogers -- a proponent of both Blackwater and DynCorp International, another private security contractor with personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan -- was the keynote speaker.

On June 19 of this year, during a House subcommittee meeting titled "Ensuring We Have Well-Trained Boots on the Ground at the Border," Rep. Christopher Carney, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, acknowledged "it's no secret that CPB [Customs and Border Protection] as a whole lacks the manpower to fulfill its crucial mission." Robert B. Rosenkranz, president of the government services division of DynCorp, presented a plan for putting 1,000 DynCorp employees at the border in 13 months, at a cost of $197 million.

In May 2006, the Bush administration had called for a sharp increase in manpower, at least with the existing federal force. President Bush then signed a bill into law on Oct. 4, 2006, to boost the number of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents on the ground by nearly 50 percent, from approximately 12,300 to approximately 18,300, by the end of 2008.

But even such an ambitious increase would do little to stop the flow of illegal immigrants, says T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents most U.S. Border Patrol agents. Bonner, himself a field agent in east San Diego County, told the House subcommittee in June, "Realistically, there is no magic number of Border Patrol agents required to secure our borders and even if there were, it would certainly be much higher than the 18,000 proposed by the administration."

Scott Borgerson, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in homeland security, says it makes sense that U.S. companies would try to position themselves to fill gaps in national security with lucrative private-sector solutions. "If I was running a company doing private security, it's definitely what I would do," he says of Blackwater's plan to locate near the border.

In an Oct. 15 article in the Wall Street Journal, Blackwater CEO Erik Prince said that the company now sees the market diminishing for the kind of security work its employees have done in Iraq. He said that going forward the company's focus "is going to be more of a full spectrum," ranging from delivering humanitarian aid to responding to natural disasters. But priorities for the Bush administration, including immigration and border security, could also figure into Blackwater's plans -- as Salon reported recently, the company's skyrocketing revenues during Bush's presidency are accompanied by the firm's close ties with influential Republicans and top Bush officials.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said that the notion of Blackwater vying for lucrative border security contracts is "merely speculation," and noted that the location for Blackwater West is close to San Diego's military bases, a major training market for the company. "But hypothetically," Tyrrell added, "if the government came to us and needed assistance with border security, we'd be honored."

Borgerson says there is a role for private contractors in helping keep the United States safe. "But certain jobs belong to trained U.S. government officials -- men and women in uniform who have a flag on their sleeves," says Borgerson, who was a Coast Guard officer for 10 years. "You recite an oath that says you will defend -- not Congress, not the president, not even the people -- but the Constitution. You don't sign that oath when you go to work for Blackwater."

Bonner, of the U.S. Border Patrol, remains skeptical about Blackwater getting involved, and he says others in the upper ranks of the Border Patrol are opposed to private contractors working alongside them. He sees potential problems with both training and patrolling. The much higher pay likely offered to private agents, for example, would threaten an already difficult-to-retain federal force. "It will entice people to jump over to the other side," he says, "especially if they don't have a long-term career in mind." Bonner also says it is crucial to have a single training curriculum, and a single chain of command, to help ensure effective and lawful operations. "This is a bad idea from so many perspectives," he says of potentially privatizing the force.

The issue may be linked to broader problems the U.S. is currently facing with national security. "If we weren't allocating a tremendous amount of our resources in Iraq, we wouldn't have to outsource to companies like Blackwater," Borgerson says. While securing the U.S. borders is an important priority, he adds, "I feel we shouldn't outsource our sovereignty."

-- By Eilene Zimmerman

++++++ 2/2

Justice for Some Restrictions on federal grants starve the poor of much-needed legal representation

2007-10-25T11:44:00.000-07:00

Published on Thursday, October 25, 2007 by In These Times
(from www.commondreams.org)
by Megan Tady

When the U.S. Supreme Court refused on October 1 to hear Legal
Services for New York City v. Legal Services Corporation, a case
challenging restrictions on access to lawyers for the poor, it sent a
clear message: Courts shouldn't be bothered with the problems of poor
people.

Funny, I thought "justice for all" meant justice for every person. It
now appears an asterisk is missing from the last line of our nation's
pledge. For clarity, perhaps it should read so like this:

"…And justice for all.*

* (The validity of this clause is subject to class and race
restrictions and can be ruled null and void upon persons' failure to
comply. The government reserves the right to alter the meaning of
eligible applicants for justice at any time. The wealthy may
disregard this disclaimer.)"

The loopholes for equality are pervasive in this country. This time,
the government wiggled out of protecting poor peoples' legal rights
when Congress passed a law in 1996 that limits the work of
independent civil legal aid programs that receive federal funding.
The government's Legal Services Corporation provides grants to
independent programs that offer free legal service to low-income
people across the nation.

The rule prevents legal aid centers from using either federal or non-
federal funds to file class action lawsuits, claim court-ordered
attorneys' fee awards, or represent certain categories of immigrants.
There's one exception: Centers can do this work if they establish a
separate office with non-federal dollars.

In other words, legal aid centers around the country that take
government funding are only allowed to use private money-funds from
the state and individual and philanthropy donations-to represent a
huge group of people in a class action suit, go to bat for exploited
immigrants, or use attorneys' fee awards as a tactic, if they set up
a physically separate facility with a different staff. It's as
rational as mandating that someone trying to spend their last two
dollars on milk at the local grocery store can only buy it at a store
that's a bus-fare away. No money when you get there? No luck.

Laura Abel, deputy director of the Justice Program at the Brennan
Center for Justice, explains why the "physical separation
requirement" has a "devastating effect" on the 138 centers that
receive government grants.

"Civil legal aid programs are notoriously underfunded and they never
have even the fraction of the funds they need, so they don't have any
extra money at all," Abel says. "So they may think, `Could we open up
a separate office across the street?' But they would have to turn
away hundreds of clients a year."

The Brennan Center is currently representing three legal aid centers
that are challenging the constitutionality of the separation
requirement, saying it violates the First Amendment. The Center first
filed the lawsuit in 2001. But the Supreme Court's refusal to hear
the case will send the long-languishing case back to a district court.

The implication of the restriction is as stark as the Supreme Court's
indifference. Abel says one "glaring example" of how the rule hurts
low-income people is the current predatory loan crisis. Had legal aid
centers been able to represent entire communities suffering at the
hands of predatory lenders, the bottom may not have dropped.

"Unfortunately [legal aid centers] haven't been able to bring class
action lawsuits; all they can do is represent one person at a time,"
Abel says. "As a result…the lenders continue their practices."

If it seems like legal aid centers have their hands tied, their
mouths are gagged as well. Federally funded centers are also not
allowed to use private funds to tell people about their legal rights
and then offer to represent them, and they can't lobby on behalf of
their clients-unless of course they lease and staff another office.

Lewis Papenfuse, executive director of the Farmworker Legal Services
of New York, a plaintiff in the case, says he was "extremely
disappointed" that the Supreme Court had turned up its nose.

In 1996, rather than accept the restrictions, Papenfuse says
Farmworker Legal Services rejected any federal funding. Papenfuse and
his staff had to take a severe pay cut, and have been building up
their center ever since.

"There's so many people with so many issues-so many people not
getting paid what they're supposed to," Papenfuse says. "Access to
justice is even less for people who are invisible in society or have
no access to even getting the information."

Not every program can be as resilient. According to the Legal Service
Corporation, the agency on average endows half the budgets of the
programs it funds.

Papenfuse and other advocates have been urging the courts and
Congress to toss out the restriction for years. In 2005, 130 non-
profit organizations and philanthropies filed an amicus brief on
behalf of the plaintiffs, and the National Council of Churches and 30
faith groups appealed to legislators in a letter, noting, "The law
closes the doors of justice for many low-income individuals and
families who simply cannot afford to hire a private lawyer to help
them in civil matters."

Congress, it appears, doesn't sympathize. A 2005 editorial in The New
York Times chastised the government: "The fact that Washington
provides money for legal representation does not give it unlimited
authority to control what lawyers say or do, or to restrict the use
of private money so severely."

The Legal Services Corporation, on the other hand, feigns compassion
on its website, writing, "…our nation falls far short of meeting the
need for civil legal aid." So why has the agency repeatedly fought
and appealed the current court case?

To go to such lengths to keep certain groups of people from obtaining
legal aid speaks volumes about the government's fear of the informed
and represented masses. Abuse and mistreatment becomes trickier when
the adage "I'll see you in court" actually has weight.

Of course, what's particularly troubling about this rule is that low-
income people, communities of color, and immigrants are those groups
most at risk of being exploited and violated, from employers
withholding a worker's wages to corporations dumping toxins in entire
neighborhoods.

It should be easy, not almost impossible, for the country's most
vulnerable to seek redress. By standing firmly with this rule, we are
merely offering a cruel taunt when pledging our allegiance
to "justice for all."

Megan Tady is a National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com.
Previously, she worked as a reporter for the NewStandard, where she
published nearly 100 articles in one year. Megan has also written for
Clamor, CommonDreams, E Magazine, Maisonneuve, PopandPolitics, and
Reuters.

© 2007 In These Times

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Billionaires Up, America Down

2007-10-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

Published on Monday, October 22, 2007 by CommonDreams.org

by Holly Sklar

Holly Sklar is co-author of "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us" and "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future." She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.

When it comes to producing billionaires, America is doing great.

Until 2005, multimillionaires could still make the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2006, the Forbes 400 went billionaires only.

This year, you'd need a Forbes 482 to fit all the billionaires.

A billion dollars is a lot of dough. Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch for five decades, would have to add $400 million to her $600 million fortune to reach $1 billion. And she'd need another $300 million to reach the Forbes 400 minimum of $1.3 billion. The average Forbes 400 member has $3.8 billion.

When the Forbes 400 began in 1982, it was dominated by oil and manufacturing fortunes. Today, says Forbes, "Wall Street is king."

Nearly half the 45 new members, says Forbes, "made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer."

The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn't party time for America.

We have a record 482 billionaires - and record foreclosures.

We have a record 482 billionaires - and a record 47 million people without any health insurance.

Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires - and 5 million more people living below the poverty line.

The official poverty threshold for one person was a ridiculously low $10,294 in 2006. That won't get you two pounds of caviar ($9,800) and 25 cigars ($730) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The $20,614 family-of-four poverty threshold is lower than the cost of three months of home flower arrangements ($24,525).

Wealth is being redistributed from poorer to richer.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

In 2004, one out of six households had zero or negative net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity. That's before the mortgage crisis hit.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires, the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.
The Forbes 400 is even more of a rich men's club than when it began. The number of women has dropped from 75 in 1982 to 39 today.

The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - the total annual value of goods and services produced by our nation of 303 million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP.

And the rich, notes Fortune magazine, "give away a smaller share of their income than the rest of us."

Thanks to mega-tax cuts, the rich can afford more mega-yachts, accessorized with helicopters and mini-submarines. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of bridges, levees, mass transit, parks and other public assets inherited from earlier generations of taxpayers crumbles from neglect, and the holes in the safety net are growing.

The top 1 percent of households - average income $1.5 million - will save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. That's more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department, Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus interest.

The children and grandchildren of today's underpaid workers will pay for the partying of today's plutocrats and their retinue of lobbyists.

It's time for Congress to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy and close the loophole letting billionaire hedge fund speculators pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries.

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels. It was bad for our nation then. It's bad for our nation now.

Venezuela Seeks Puerto Rican Partnership

2007-10-24T22:43:00.000-07:00

By DANICA COTO Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — The head of Puerto Rico's state-owned power company welcomed a Venezuelan delegation to the U.S. territory on Tuesday, downplaying verbal assaults by their leader who has called the American president the devil.

Jorge Rodriguez, the top official with the Electric Energy Authority, said tensions that Caracas might have with Washington did not carry over into discussions about trade and energy with the Caribbean island.

"That doesn't stop us from having a relationship" with Venezuela, Rodriguez said. "The meeting was very good, very fruitful."

Venezuela wants to strengthen economic and political ties with the self-governing, Spanish-speaking island, said Jorge Valero, the South American country's ambassador to the Organization of American States.

He said delegates promised to introduce Puerto Rican mayors to Venezuelan educational and health programs, inviting some to visit Venezuela to establish sister-city agreements.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has rallied opposition to U.S. policies throughout the hemisphere and frequently ridiculed President George W. Bush, calling him "the devil" in a speech last year at the United Nations.

Asked Monday if Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. commonwealth would dissuade increased cooperation, Valero said Chavez wants to begin a "new era" in diplomatic relations between Venezuela and the U.S. territory.

A message left Tuesday with a spokesman for the State Department, which has responsibility for the island's external affairs, was not immediately returned.

Democrazy in Puerto Rico

2007-10-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Soft Spot for the South Bronx

2007-10-22T23:25:00.000-07:00

October 21, 2007
Soft Spot for the South Bronx
By ANNE BARNARD

Henry Lajara is mapping out where to install a rain barrel in his manicured South Bronx backyard, to show his neighbors how they can channel storm water to feed their gardens and keep runoff from flushing sewage into the Bronx River.

Lenard Ramsook, 20, glides down that river in a wooden boat, teaching local high school students how to row. He shows them the ospreys and leaping fish that share the estuary with concrete plants and expressway bridges, making the point that environmentalism is not just for the rich.

Across the South Bronx, residents are beginning cooperatives to create jobs and tend to their communities' social needs and physical health. One will recycle demolition debris. Another sells fruit and vegetables. A third will provide childcare for working families.

Behind all these projects is a man who has called President Bush "the devil," embraced Iran's firebrand leader as a fellow crusader against "the U.S. empire," and vowed to help the poor and disenfranchised everywhere, even - or, perhaps, especially - in the world's most powerful country.

That man, Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela , began his love affair with the Bronx during a visit in 2005. Since then, he and his socialist government have funneled millions of dollars of aid to the South Bronx, home to New York's poorest Congressional district, through Citgo Petroleum, the American subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company.

It is an unlikely flow of largess, from an oil-rich South American country where much of the population lives in poverty to one of the neediest pockets in the seat of American capitalism.
Citgo started its outreach in 2005 with a 40 percent discount on heating oil for poor households and expanded it in August to finance social and economic development. The company has committed to donating $3.6 million over the next three years to nine Bronx initiatives that would use the money to create jobs, foster community empowerment and clean up the urban environment.

The program has made Mr. Chávez the talk of the South Bronx .

"He came in here and took over - like a Spanish Napoleon!" Lucy Martinez said.

Ms. Martinez, 57, said Mr. Chávez has helped the needy residents she meets while working the front desk at Nos Quedamos, a nonprofit community development corporation. However, she knows, too, that his philanthropy has chafed some American politicians.

Patrice White-McGleese, 37, an employment counselor who saved $160 to $300 a month during the past two winters through the discounted oil program, said she knows why Mr. Chávez's actions have rankled.

"It's a sore point because it took what most people would consider a third world nation to help the U.S.," she said. "Which is kind of a slap in the face because we're supposed to be one of the superpowers; why can't we help our own?"

Some people in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, have the same question for their own government, said Leopoldo López, mayor of the downtown district of Chacao and a leader of the Venezuelan opposition.

"Why is the government giving away money to the richest city in the world?" he asked.
Mr. López said Mr. Chávez should first tend to the needs of Venezuelans who lack shelter, sewage and drinking water.

He said Mr. Chávez was giving the money to the Bronx to win support around the world while distracting attention from his moves to crack down on the opposition at home.

So the program has made Bronx residents, who are trying to solve the most local of problems, party to a global dispute. They are caught between Mr. Chávez, who markets his populist platform as a counterweight to the worldwide influence of the United States, and the Bush administration, which contends that Mr. Chávez's stress on racial and economic equality masks a dictatorship-in-the-making.

Mr. Chávez began clashing with Venezuela's corporate leaders and the United States shortly after being elected in 1998. In 2002, military officers staged a coup to oust him. The Bush administration quickly recognized the new government. However, Mr. Chávez returned to office days later after a wave of street protests, and he accused the United States of aiding the coup.

He turned his attentions to the Bronx in the fall of 2005, when he visited South Bronx community organizers with Representative José E. Serrano, the Democrat who represents the district. Those meetings led to the discounted heating oil program.

By the winter of 2006-7, the program had doubled to deliver 100 million gallons to 1.2 million people from Alaska to Vermont. Citgo said it expected to supply 110 million gallons this winter.

Some recipients bridled in September 2006, when Mr. Chávez stepped up to a United Nations podium - one that President Bush had used the day before - and declared that he smelled traces of "the devil."

"It smells of sulfur still today," Mr. Chávez added.

Said Mr. Serrano: "Was it tacky? Yes." However, he said, Mr. Chávez was just being emotional.

Meanwhile, Citgo and Venezuelan officials made follow-up visits to the Bronx . During one of them, Mrs. White-McGleese said she wanted to thank Venezuelans for their generosity. Within weeks, in April 2006, she and 62 people who had received the discounted oil were on a plane to Caracas as Mr. Chávez's guests.

A band met them at the airport. They watched an African-Venezuelan dance performance. In addition, they visited Mr. Chávez at Miraflores Palace, the president's official residence. A few of the American guests - including Pamela Babb, a vice president of the Mount Hope Housing Company, a nonprofit group that provides low-income housing in the Bronx - appeared on Mr. Chávez's weekly television show.

"It was pomp and circumstance," said Ms. Babb, 47.

She said she remained suspicious of Mr. Chávez's efforts to expand his presidential powers. ("I question that," she said.) In addition, a Mount Hope tenant, Lenice Footman, noticed children playing in garbage on Caracas's streets and came away "grateful for what we have."

But many of them were impressed when a Philadelphia woman told Mr. Chávez of the lack of jobs and services in her neighborhood and the Venezuelan leader declared it was time to aid development in poor United States communities.

"And all these ministers started writing things down," Ms. Babb said. "It shows you what happens when a visionary person starts to do something. And I was there."

Ms. Babb said Citgo officials visit the Bronx more often than the other corporate donors she works with. They have asked community groups what kinds of grants they need, awarding one to Mount Hope for a childcare cooperative. In addition, they celebrated with the locals in Hunts Point Riverside Park over Venezuelan food - arepas and carne mechada - and Latin American music.

The Citgo donations are a tiny percentage of its annual budget. It does not have to disclose financial statements because it is not a publicly traded company. Citgo, which sold 25.1 billion gallons of petroleum products last year, estimates that last winter's oil program cost it $80 million, according to a Citgo document provided by Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States.

That is about the same amount that Exxon Mobil - the largest publicly traded Oil Company, with roughly 10 times the revenue of Citgo - reported spending on philanthropy in the United States in 2006.

"We are not trying to impose," Mr. Alvarez said, "or to intervene in the politics here."

United States petroleum industry officials are not happy, however, with Citgo's program.
It is "designed to embarrass us," Larry Goldstein, the president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, an industry-supported analysis group in New York, said when it was launched in 2005.

"It's not designed to help poor people," he said. "Chávez is astute, clever, with a major political agenda, largely to get under our skin, and he does that everywhere and anywhere he can."

On the ground, Citgo's money seems to come without strings - or even much branding.

At Rocking the Boat, the Bronx River education program, Mr. Ramsook, who left behind a fisherman's life when he moved to the Bronx from Trinidad, said he could not place Mr. Chávez's name. "It sounds familiar," he said. He was more enthusiastic about taking seniors from Bronx Guild High School on the water to learn the history of the river.

"There are no sharks, right?" asked Shawnisha Roebuck, 19, as she settled into the stern. On shore, an iron claw lifted metal scraps from one pile to another. However, on the river, gulls stalked the banks, and the movements of small fish made the water flicker. An osprey plunged to the water, but came up empty.

Citgo's $210,000, three-year grant has allowed the group to expand the high school program and hold free Saturday rowing lessons that have drawn 500 people since August.

A $230,000 grant is helping Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice build rain barrels, plant rooftop vegetation and reshape gutters to feed sidewalk trees. In addition, the South Bronx Food Co-operative will use its $49,000 to open a storefront to sell affordable produce.

Anna Vincenty of Nos Quedamos, who is working on a program to improve the diets of elderly residents, said she takes Mr. Chávez's good will, as if she does with all politicians, with a grain of salt.

"He says he wants to help people over here," she said. Yet her Venezuelan friends have told her "some of the people over there are afraid of him."

On the other hand, she said, in the United States, "one of the most generous countries in the whole world," pervasive inequality is on display.

But no matter what one thinks of Mr. Chávez, she said: "If your child is cold and hungry and someone offers to help, do you care if it's Moe or Larry or Curly? I don't think so."

Just Say ¡No! The folly of Puerto Rican statehood.

2007-10-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

By Mark Hemingway

Excited by the prospect of adding two new senators and seven new representatives to Congress, all of them Democrats?

That’s exactly what will happen if Puerto Rico becomes the 51st state. A surprising number of Republican congressmen — and the White House — think it’s a good idea. What’s more, they want to make this happen against the wishes of the majority of Puerto Rican people.
Since Eisenhower conferred commonwealth status on the territory in 1952, the Puerto Rican people have voted four times to reject pursuing statehood, including once in 1993 and again in 1998.

But H.R. 900, a new bill working its way through the House (it’s scheduled for mark-up on Tuesday), would force another vote on the statehood issue in Puerto Rico. However, the way the bill is written, the referendum would be structured in such a way that it would stack the deck against Puerto Ricans who wish to vote to maintain their existing commonwealth status.
There are three factions in Puerto Rico, in order of popularity: those that favor maintaining the status quo commonwealth status, those that favor pursuing statehood, and those that favor independence. In recent decades, surveys have shown consistently that around half or just under half of Puerto Ricans prefer preserving the island’s current relationship with the United States. Support for statehood tops out at around 46 percent, with the remainder favoring independence.

In the 1993 plebiscite on the island, 48.6 percent of voters favored existing commonwealth status, while 46.3 favored statehood. A 1998 plebiscite on the matter had statehood grabbing an almost identical 46.5 percent of the vote.

Statehood lost these referendums despite some powerful political backing. In 1993, the party in favor of statehood had recently won an electoral landslide. A sizable majority in the island’s house, senate, and the governor were all in favor of statehood.

“So even though the statehood party had all this strength and all these resources, statehood lost,” according to Eduardo Bhatia Gautier, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. Bhatia officially represents Puerto Rican Governor Aníbal Acevedo-Vilá in Washington, D.C.

Bhatia and Gov. Acevedo-Vilá do not support the statehood cause, and are upset by what they call the manipulative tactics used by pro-statehood forces.

Statehood supporters forced another referendum in 1998, only this time they used a new tactic. Voters were given four options for determining the island’s status with all four choices defined by pro-statehood forces. Naturally, this excluded altogether the choice of maintaining the status quo. Only by judicial requirement was a fifth option — “None of the above” — added. “None of the above” garnered over 50 percent of the vote, and the status quo was preserved. Even this vote didn’t stop statehood forces.

“The lesson for the statehood supporters in Puerto Rico was that statehood will never come requested by the people of Puerto Rico,” Bhatia tells National Review Online. “The statehood lobby got really involved in what I consider to be a shift in strategy. The strategy became if the people of Puerto Rico are not going to ask for statehood then why don’t we get Washington to limit the options of the people of Puerto Rico. That will force statehood on the people of Puerto Rico.”

And forcing statehood on the people of Puerto Rico seems to be exactly what H.R. 900 is designed to do. Instead of one up or down vote on Puerto Rican statehood, the bill’s “federally sanctioned self-determination process for the people of Puerto Rico” would require two votes.
The first vote would not be a straight up or down vote on statehood, as in the past. Instead, the vote would be a direct vote on the commonwealth status. The thinking is that statehood forces and independence supporters would both vote against the status quo. If the choice of the largest plurality (and nearly a majority) of citizens is not part of a three-way vote, but is pitted against the two other factions bundled together as one choice — it might be edged out at the ballot box.

“So what will happen on that first vote is that you will get 46 percent from the statehood, 5 percent from the independence side. You will get 51 percent. You knock off the table the plurality which is 49 percent [in favor of commonwealth],” Bhatia says.

This would then force a second vote — with the only remaining choices being statehood and independence. Given just these two options, statehood would likely win by a landslide.
But that’s not all. “The bill is so absurd that it says that if commonwealth loses there should be a vote every eight years,” Bhatia notes.

Aside from permanently upsetting the balance of power in the U.S. Congress (“I can guarantee that they will all be Democrats — that I can tell you right now,” Bhatia says), there are other potential problems with making Puerto Rico a full-fledged state.

For one thing, America would become officially bilingual overnight. “There hasn’t been a Spanish-speaking state,” Bhatia says. “There a lot of issues involved, and there is a lot of nationalism in Puerto Rico. There will be resistance. At a minimum it will be the same resistance Quebec has, and at a maximum it could be greater.”

The other problems are largely economic. The drive for congressional representation for Puerto Rico is largely based on getting federal revenue for Puerto Rico, which is likely to be a huge drain. “The reality is that close to 45 percent of the families in Puerto Rico or 1 million families live under the poverty level according to the U.S. census,” Bhatia observed. “So you have twice the poverty level of Mississippi, the poorest state in the union. Puerto Rico could become the greatest welfare state in the nation. ”

At the same time, statehood would deprive Puerto Rico of its comparative economic advantage.

“There’s not a single economist anywhere in the world that says what Puerto Rico needs to create jobs and get people out of poverty is more federal taxes. Puerto Rico can attract business that are going offshore because it has a different tax structure than the United States — companies in Puerto Rico that create jobs do not have to pay federal taxes,” Bhatia says. “Puerto Rico’s economic model depends a lot on making sure that the tax regime of the United States doesn’t apply.”

Yet despite these obvious problems, Puerto Rican statehood enjoys a great deal of Republican support. In December 2005, working with Puerto Rico’s non-voting congressional representative and statehood supporter Luis Fortuño, the Bush Administration produced “The White House Task Force Report on Puerto Rico.” In recommending Congress set another new voting procedure for the island, task force member and deputy assistant Attorney General Kevin Marshall, said that the voters “had not spoken clearly” about Puerto Rico’s status in previous referendums — despite four votes with the same result.

In February 2006, the “Task Force Report on Puerto Rico” was roundly condemned in a New York Times op-ed by none other than Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former ambassador to the United Nations. Kirkpatrick declared the report was “on a path to stir up problems where none existed.”

Fortuño has continued his efforts toward statehood by helping introduce H.R. 900 in April and lobbying hard for the bill since then. Fortuño is aligned with the GOP in Congress, and 55 of the bill’s 129 co-sponsors are Republican.

NRO contacted the offices of several of the Republican co-sponsors to ask them why they supported the bill. No one offered an explanation for their support of the legislation.
Bhatia thinks Republican support amounts to an electoral gambit. “I think somehow they got the wrong message — that by supporting statehood for Puerto Rico they’re going to get the blessing of Hispanics or Puerto Rican Hispanics and that is absolutely wrong,” he says. “There are about 500,000 Puerto Ricans who have moved into Florida over the last 12 years. They have a right to vote and they have not actively participated in the last two elections for whatever reason, and I think [Republicans] are trying to court them.”

An October 2004 poll conducted in central Florida by Puerto Rico’s El Nuevo Dia newspaper shows the views of mainland Puerto Ricans don’t differ significantly from their island counterparts. According to the poll, 48 percent of Puerto Ricans in central Florida support commonwealth status, 42 percent support statehood and 5 percent support independence.

In the meantime, opponents of statehood are offering up an alternative to help settle the question once again. Sponsored by Rep. Nydia Velázquez, a Puerto Rican Democrat representing New York, H.R. 1230 would call a constitutional convention in the territory to address statehood. Currently, the bill only has 48 co-sponsors.

The governor of Puerto Rico obviously favors this approach. “We’re happy to hold that convention,” Bhatia says. “Everybody should agree on the process and then come with one voice to the Congress.”

— Mark Hemingway is an NRO staff reporter.

— Mark Hemingway is a writer in Washington, D.C.

Women gaining power in Latin America

2007-10-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

Posted on Sat, Oct. 20, 2007

BY JACK CHANG

Defying Latin America's longtime reputation as a bastion of machismo, women in South America are winning political power at an unprecedented rate and taking top positions in higher education and even, albeit more slowly, in business.

The election last year of Michelle Bachelet to Chile's presidency and the all-but-certain victory of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in Argentina's presidential balloting Oct. 28 are the most visible examples of the trend.

South American women also are leading important social movements and are earning, studying and speaking out more than ever. For the first time, women are forcing their traditionally male-dominated societies to confront such issues as domestic violence and reproductive health.

''I think there's been a general change,'' said Elena Highton, who in 2004 became Argentina's first female Supreme Court judge appointed by a democratically elected government. She promptly headed a commission on domestic violence.

''This is the time of the woman, and people want to try something new,'' Highton said. ``Women are seen as more believable, more honest, more direct. And in this world dominated by men, we've seen lots of failures.''

It's a fundamental shift in a region long ruled almost exclusively by men, where the influence of women was relegated to the home or, in public life, to supporting roles for powerful spouses.

Such perceptions changed for good, many say, with Bachelet's election last year in one of the most socially conservative countries in the hemisphere. A single mother and an atheist with no family member already in power, Bachelet, 56, won support from male and female Chileans in her historic election.

Public opinion polls in neighboring Argentina show similar widespread support for Kirchner, a longtime politician and current senator who's expected to win the contest to succeed her husband, Néstor, in this country's top job.

Women are considered possible successors to the top spot elsewhere in South America.

In Paraguay, former education minister Blanca Ovelar is a top candidate to represent the long-ruling Colorado Party in next April's presidential race. In Brazil, presidential chief of staff Dilma Rousseff has emerged as a possible front-runner for the presidency in 2010. They follow women who were elected president in Central America in the 1990s, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro in Nicaragua and Mireya Moscoso Rodríguez in Panama.

The emergence of what's been called a ''feminine bloc'' in the Western Hemisphere's Southern Cone is yet more evidence of the historic changes that have opened doors for millions of women.

Latin American women also have taken charge in more humble circumstances. Soledad Puebla, 54, runs a bustling daycare center in the slums of Santiago, Chile's capital. She's also the activist heart of her neighborhood and a confidante of legislators in Bachelet's government.

Puebla grew up desperately poor on the city's periphery and worked for years as a nanny before she joined a local Lutheran church and became a community organizer. She eventually was appointed the church's regional coordinator, which sent her around the world.

Speaking tearfully in her cramped office, she seemed astonished by her latest accomplishment -- earning a college degree in social work, something that was unimaginable to the poorly educated grandparents who raised her.

''When I grew up, we didn't even have a mattress to sleep on,'' Puebla said. ``So this is what I tell people now: When you want to rise as a woman and value your life, you can. But you have to be true to what you think and fulfill the agreement you make with yourself.''

Latin American women still trail men in key measures of social well-being, according to the World Economic Forum, which ranks gender equality in 116 countries based on education, health and economic and political participation. Of Latin American countries, Costa Rica ranked the highest, 31st of 116 countries, and Bolivia, the lowest, at 88th.

But women are steadily catching up, United Nations statistics show. In many instances, the gaps are closing much faster than they are in the United States.

WAGES ON RISE

For example, the average wage of urban Latin American women has grown from 70 percent of men's in 1990 to 90 percent this year, and they're expected to reach parity by 2015, U.N. figures show. For comparison, U.S. women earned 77 percent of what men earned working full-time, year-round jobs in 2006.

In the business world, women make up as much as 35 percent of the managers in private companies, also a dramatic increase from just a decade ago, according to the International Labor Organization. However, they still account for only 10 percent of company presidents and vice presidents, according to a seven-country survey by the U.S.-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue.

Women have made some of their biggest advances in politics, where thousands of women are reaching public office, many for the first time.

About a quarter of all Latin American local council members are women, more than double the percentage from a decade ago.

Women also make up more than a quarter of the Cabinet ministers in the region and more than a fifth of lower-chamber national legislators in Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru, Guyana, Suriname, Ecuador, Honduras and Mexico, double the regional rate in 1990. By comparison, only 16 percent of the U.S. Congress is female.

In the eyes of Ana María Romero de Campero, who was Bolivia's top human rights official, women are riding the same democratic wave that's empowered other marginalized groups, such as indigenous people and the poor working class.

It's no coincidence, she said, that women are making gains at the same time that her country elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales, or neighboring Brazil chose Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former factory worker, as its president. Both leaders were the first presidents in their countries not to come from white, privileged backgrounds.

''This democratic process is raising the question of the rights of different people,'' Romero de Campero said. 'And people are asking, `Do women have the rights of equality along with human rights?' ''

Fourteen countries in Latin America have passed quota laws requiring that as many as 40 percent of the candidates for political posts be women. Similar laws require that women fill a minimum number of union leadership posts and even executive-branch positions.

That has produced dramatic results in countries such as Argentina, the first in the region to implement quotas. Women now make up 35 percent of the lower house and 43 percent of the Senate. Only nine countries claim higher percentages of female lower-house legislators, and two of those are in Latin America -- Costa Rica and Cuba. The other seven are Rwanda, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain.

''We women in the Congress have managed to be respected, but the road here was a long road, and there were many acts of discrimination along the way,'' said Argentine Sen. Silvia Ester Gallego, who helped lead the push in 1991 to pass the quota laws.

But the shift isn't just a political one, said Lidia Casas Becerra, a law professor and women's rights activist in Chile. Traditional notions about gender roles are changing, and women, as well as men, are taking on new responsibilities.

One sign of the change: The big hit on Chilean television this year was a soap opera called Papi Ricky about the misadventures of a widowed young man raising his daughter alone.

''This is still a very machista country, and it's hard to make that cultural transformation, but Bachelet was a beginning,'' Casas Becerra said. ``Chileans are, in fact, much more liberal now than their political elite.''

NEGATIVE SIDE

Not everybody sees the changes as a step in the right direction.

Argentine community leader Mónica Carranza said the breakdown of the traditional, male-headed household is to blame for the abandonment of thousands of women and children on the poor outskirts of Buenos Aires, where she runs a network of shelters and a soup kitchen.

''For me, the man had his home, his family, his children, and the man was the strong machine, and the woman took care of her children and her man, and now everything has been turned around,'' Carranza said. ``I think the changes have been lamentable.''

Others see it differently.

'Things have changed a lot since our parents' generation,'' said Rodrigo Delgado, 31, who was picking up his son from a Santiago daycare center while his wife worked. ``There are more women working now because that's what we need to do to survive. And at home, we share the responsibilities.''

Bank of the South, championed by Venezuela, begins to take form

2007-10-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

RIO DE JANEIRO: The idea from Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, of creating a Bank of the South to finance regional development projects is moving forward, aided by the tacit approval of Brazil, which has South America's largest economy.

But doubts persist about the need for such a bank, which many economists and analysts continue to see as a political move by Chávez to try to spread his influence and carry out his crusade against Washington-based multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Seven South American countries are expected to inaugurate the new bank at a ceremony on Nov. 3 in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, where it will be based. At a meeting here last week the countries - Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela - agreed to create an institution with up to $7 billion in initial capital, paving the way for the bank to begin operating as early as 2008.

An eighth country, Colombia, said last week that it wanted to be included as well. Its president, Álvaro Uribe, said that his country would join as long as the new bank was an "expression of solidarity and brotherhood," and not a rejection of the international lending institutions.

The Bank of the South will be designed to promote investment in infrastructure and could help stimulate greater regional trade and integration. Chávez sees it as an alternative financing institution to the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, all of which have significant Washington involvement.

"The idea is to rely on a development agency for us, led by us," Rodrigo Cabezas, the Venezuelan finance minister, said last week.

The bank's formation comes at a time when South America is awash in development money, both public and private, and when most of its economies have raised their credit ratings to levels that make the cost of borrowing cheaper than during the past two decades.

That is one reason that Chile, which has the continent's best credit rating, has not signed onto the project.

"The macroeconomic picture in Latin America is as good as it has ever been," Luis Alberto Moreno, the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, said. Still, he said, "there is plenty of room for everybody. The challenges of development in Latin America are very big."

Brazil has sent mixed messages about its support for the institution. It declined to give its support until clarifying that the bank's role would be limited to aiding investment in the region, and would not create an emergency fund to bail out countries in economic crisis as the IMF does, which Chávez had set as an initial goal.

"Brazil has shown less interest because it has the greatest credit capacity," said Guido Mantega, the country's finance minister. But, he said, "we continue to support the project because it will benefit our commercial partners and Brazilian businesses."

Several issues remain unresolved about how the Bank of the South would function, including how much capital each country would commit, what its lending conditions would be and whether the members would have equal voting rights.

Mantega, Brazil's finance minister, said it was still unclear whether Brazil and Venezuela would enter the bank with higher capital levels. Brazil appeared to make a major concession recently, however, when Mantega said that each country would have voting rights in the bank's administrative council.

Meanwhile, development banks already based in the region, like the Corporación Andina de Fomento in Caracas, are waiting to see how an institution more closely aligned with Chávez's political objectives will compete in granting loans.

The new bank could struggle to be competitive with the Inter-American Development Bank, especially, which has investment-grade status in the international markets due to the participation of the United States and other developed nations, and thus obtains resources at relatively low cost.

None of the future partners of the Bank of the South borrow on terms readily available to rich, industrialized nations.

Simon Romero contributed reporting from Caracas.

Plan Mexico and the Billion Dollar Drug Deal

2007-10-21T21:38:00.000-07:00

A Bonanza for Boeing
By LAURA CARLSEN

U .S. drug czar John Walters heaped praise on Mexico's drug war this week, to prepare the ground for a billion-dollar counter-narcotics aid package expected to be announced within days.

The latest statistics purported to show that the street price of cocaine has doubled in some cities and that purity has decreased, indicating restricted supply. According to Walters, the United States and Mexico are winning the drug war, and " the real challenge is to continue it."

Walters presented a preview of the highly secretive document that will set out terms for the multi-year package. According to press reports, the plan includes objectives in the areas of gathering and sharing intelligence, interdiction at ports of entry, aerial monitoring and intervention, investigation and legal processing, measures against money laundering, and cooperation with Mexico.

If that sounds vague it's because it is. Almost no details have been released about the deal. So far, the public has only been told that the money will be for intelligence equipment, wiretapping, and military and police training programs.

Buzzwords-like fumigation, arms, and foreign agents-have been left out of public statements, although they will most likely not be left out of the package itself.

Fumigations have been a social and environmental disaster and proved ineffective in Colombia, leading to dead rivers, devastated lands, and contributing to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers. Opening up the flow of U.S. arms is a sticky subject between the two nations. The Mexican government has protested uncontrolled illegal arms shipments from the United States to Mexico, and the suggestion of more weapons feeds Mexican civil society's fears of militarization. These fears have heightened dramatically with the active participation of the Mexican army in the drug war under Calderon's administration.

Both Mexican and U.S. officials have gone to great lengths to explain that the Mexican counter-narcotics plan will not be a repeat of the disgraced Plan Colombia. While ignoring the overall failure of that plan, they have emphasized that Plan Mexico will not include U.S. troops in Mexico. Concern in Mexico on this point has run so high that Minister of Foreign Relations Patricia Espinosa has repeatedly made public statements denying that U.S. troop presence forms part of the new package.

While it is unlikely that U.S. troops will be sent into Mexico due to political sensitivities, troop presence is a relatively minor part of the problem with the Plan Colombia model (recall that even Plan Colombia maintained a tight cap on direct military presence). Greater U.S. presence in Mexico will occur, at U.S. taxpayers' expense and to Mexican citizens' chagrin. DEA agents have already requested offices in two more Mexican cities and it is very unlikely that all the proposed training will take place in the United States.

But the real threat to Mexico lies in the fact that the plan proposes that the U.S. government be the funder and co-designer of a cornerstone of the nation's national security strategy. Already it claims to be working with Mexico to build a central command to coordinate the work of internal agencies and facilitate binational coordination.

It's no coincidence that the new plan concentrates on measures in Mexico, despite the obvious fact that the U.S. market drives the drug trade and illegal drugs couldn't make it to the streets there unless organized crime and the complicity of government agents existed in the United States as well.

But it's better business to attempt to remove the speck from your neighbor's eye than the log from your own. Although Mexico's drug problem is far more than a speck (the General Accounting Office recently reported that it accounts for as much as a $23 billion-dollar a year business), the new deal will offer up lucrative contracts to U.S. military and intelligence equipment firms, long-term maintenance and training contracts, and related services. In a recent Washington Post article, Misha Glenny cites a GAO report on Plan Colombia that finds that 70% of the money allotted never leaves the United States.

The billion-dollar drug deal may be a bonanza for Boeing, but the pay-off to the U.S. taxpayers who have to foot the bill is much less obvious.

Despite Walters' claims, a tremendous amount of evidence exists to show the consistent failure of the supply-side model of drug war that relies primarily on military and police enforcement measures. When that model goes international, it becomes even more problematic, feeding conflict as it starves social investment.

This policy approach would seem to warrant at the very least a cautious attitude toward applying it in other countries-especially one as geographically and economically close as Mexico. A more sensible approach would involve creation of mechanisms of cooperation and intelligence sharing with each nation responsible for its own security policies and focused on the problem within its own territory and among its own populace.

Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org) is director of the Americas Policy Program in Mexico City where she has been a writer and political analyst for two decades.

Migrants sent home over $300 billion in 2006, finds UN study on remittances

2007-10-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

A new United Nations study reveals that migrants working in industrialized countries sent home more than $300 billion to their families in 2006 – surpassing the $104 billion provided by donor nations in foreign aid to developing countries.

“This figure, which is a conservative estimate, shows that the seemingly small sums sent home by migrant workers when added together dwarf official development assistance,” said Kevin Cleaver, Assistant President of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD ), which co-authored the study with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

According to Sending money home: Worldwide remittances to developing countries, Asia received the largest share of the remittances – more than $114 billion – followed by Latin America and the Caribbean with $68 billion, Eastern Europe with $51 billion, Africa with $39 billion and the Near East with $29 billion.

India received the most of any single nation with $24.5 billion, followed by Mexico ($24.2 billion), China ($21 billion), the Philippines ($14.6 billion) and Russia ($13.7 billion).

The study also found that the remittances sent home regularly by some 150 million migrants exceeded foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries, which last year totalled around $167 billion.

IFAD underscored that more than one third of these remittances flow to families in rural areas, and is mostly used for basic necessities such as food, clothing and medicines. While 10 to 20 per cent is saved, too often these savings are hidden in homes rather than put to work in financial institutions, constituting a “major missed opportunity for local development.”

The study based its figures are based on official data from governments, banks and money operators, as well as estimates of informal flows, such as money carried home. It was released yesterday ahead of the International Forum on Remittances 2007, co-hosted by IFAD and IDB in Washington.

Médicos cubanos han atendido a más de 61 000 pacientes en Perú

2007-10-18T13:22:00.000-07:00

La Habana, 17 de Octubre de 2007

LIMA.— La labor de los médicos cubanos que asisten a los damnificados de un terremoto en Perú fue destacada este lunes por medios locales, a dos meses de la tragedia que dejó casi 600 muertos.

El terremoto ocasionó casi 600 muertos.

Los 77 médicos y otros trabajadores de la salud, quienes llegaron a la sureña ciudad de Pisco pocos días después de la catástrofe, trabajan en los hospitales de campaña Ernesto Che Guevara y Antonio Maceo, que trajeron consigo, y han atendido hasta la fecha a más de 61 000 pacientes.

De ese total, informaron responsables de la brigada médica cubana, 41,7% fueron atenciones brindadas fuera de esas instalaciones, en un trabajo de campo que se extiende al interior de Pisco y las zonas de Ica.

En los hospitales cubanos se han realizado también más de 500 operaciones, 40% de ellas de cirugía mayor, y más de 10 000 pruebas diagnósticas, entre exámenes de laboratorio, ultrasonido, rayos x y electrocardiogramas.

El periódico La Primera subrayó que la atención no se limita a los heridos por derrumbes causados por el sismo, y refiere el caso de Cristian Nieves, paciente del hospital Che Guevara, al que llegó desde Sullana, en el extremo norte del país.

Nieves declaró haber sufrido fractura de la tibia y el peroné en un accidente, ante lo cual en una institución de Lima le cobraron casi 2 000 dólares por la operación y le dieron la opción de amputarle la pierna por una cifra menor.

"Yo ya me había resignado a perder mi pierna, pero un médico me habló del hospital que los cubanos habían instalado en Pisco y vine inmediatamente", relata.

Agrega que "no me han cobrado nada por operarme, me han salvado la pierna; estoy muy agradecido por lo que han hecho", añade.

Los cooperantes internacionalistas antillanos dicen estar dispuestos a permanecer en Perú todo el tiempo que lo consideren necesario las autoridades de este país. (PL)

GAO report: ICE lacks guidelines for humane deportations

2007-10-16T22:30:00.000-07:00

By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
October 16, 2007

A new government report says federal immigration agents lack guidelines in choosing which illegal immigrants to deport, often taking sole caregivers or those with medical problems.

Based on humanitarian concerns, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have discretion to choose whether to pursue and deport immigrants with no criminal history. Illegal presence in the United States by itself is a civil violation, not criminal.

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the Swift & Co. meat plant in Greeley last December they took parents from young children, setting off an outcry from critics.

The Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday underscored those complaints about ICE breaking up families during work site raids and arresting illegal immigrants who were not their intended targets but happen to be present, called "collateral arrests."

ICE officials said Tuesday they had not had the chance to read the 48-page report and would not comment.

"ICE has not taken steps to ensure that written guidance designed to promote the appropriate exercise of discretion during alien apprehension and removal is comprehensive and up to date and has not established time frames for updating guidance," the report concluded.

"For example, field operational manuals have not been updated to provide information about the appropriate exercise of discretion in light of a recent expansion of ICE work site enforcement and fugitive operations, in which officers are more likely to encounter aliens with humanitarian issues or who are not targets of investigations."

A Rocky Mountain News report last year found that ICE officers have the ability to exercise discretion before deporting undocumented immigrants, while prioritizing those who pose a threat to national security or public safety.

Once an illegal immigrant is arrested, the agency has much more limited discretion in whether to drop deportation proceedings.

However, the series, titled the "The Border Within," found that criminals who are in the country illegally were slipping through the deportation net while those whose only crime was being in the country illegally were being swept up in ever increasing numbers.

"(ICE) does need guidelines, especially because we're heading toward a scary situation where we have local law enforcement cooperating with ICE. Whose getting swept up in the net? Women, children, babies. That is not an exercise of discretion," said Kim Baker Medina, a Fort Collins immigration attorney.

Laurel Herndon, a Boulder immigration attorney, said there was a "huge problem" with inconsistencies in the use of discretion.

"In one jurisdiction, you can get tagged for traffic offenses. In another, you're left alone," she said.

But Jeff Joseph, previous chair of the Colorado Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said coming up with guidelines for the use of discretion is tricky.

"How do you come up with guidelines for using discretion?" he asked. "Guidelines and discretion don't necessarily go hand in hand."

Joseph said it was the inconsistent use of discretion that posed a problem.

"In Denver, we've had extremely positive experiences with ICE using discretion in cases where there was family separation or health issues," he said. "Clearly, that doesn't happen in other places."

quinterof@rockymountainnews.com or 303-954-5250
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5724392,00.html

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

Cuba's Great Debate

2007-10-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

by Robert Sandels

Cuba-L Analysis
10/14/07

The US economy is showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion and imminent collapse due to perpetual war and massive indebtedness. Yet few pundits ask how well free-market absolutism is working out for us. This lack of curiosity about fundamental assumptions stands in contrast with the nationwide consultation the Cuban government is promoting with the Cuban people on how well their socialist economy is working out for them.

Just How Bad Off is the Cuban Economy?

Supporting the Bush administration's view that the Cuban economy is in ruins are monthly reminders from Commerce Department Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.

Gutierrez, the guardian of US commerce, has never given a major speech explaining what he has done to reverse the immense US trade imbalance, but gives on average one speech per month advising Cuba on what to do about its economy.

The Gutierrez stump speech is always the same: the "success" of the failed US free trade policy in Latin America; imaginary great leaps forward in the least progressive states such as Colombia, El Salvador and Peru; and the "prison" that Fidel Castro has made out of a once prosperous and free Cuba.[1]

He describes the Cuban economy in the most dismal terms and promises that the blockade will not be lifted until socialism is replaced with a market economy. Of course, that formula can be turned around: If socialism persists, the blockade will go on giving it time to consolidate and placing the US permanently outside the Cuban economy.[2]

Two recent surveys "prove" how really awful the Cuban economy is. The Economist Intelligence Unit proclaimed in February that Cuba was one of the worst places in the world to do business placing 80th out of 82 nations surveyed. Chief complaints were bureaucratic delays; restrictions on foreign investment as measured by a decline in the number of joint ventures; an unreliable workforce; but also financial obstacles to doing business there because of US pressures on foreign banks to quit Cuba, which the survey implicitly blames on Cuba.[3]

Another survey, this one by The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, rates the Cuban economy today at precisely 69.3% unfree, the worst in the Americas below Venezuela and Haiti. The index measures such things as business, investment, property rights and labor freedoms.

Researchers for this index seem not to notice that what they are really measuring is not freedom but rather how much other economies are like the one in the United States. It's not surprising then that the United States leads the world in this survey with an economy 82% free. (Cuba is 29.7 %.)

No measures of wealth distribution are cited so that Haiti comes in at a respectable 52.2%. Guatemala is singled out as one of the "best" (62.2%) for its "low government expenditures."[4]

By some measures not employed by The Heritage Foundation or The Economist, the Cuban economy is doing well. Using its own formula for reporting GDP, Cuba projects a healthy 10% growth for 2007 compared with 12.5% in 2006 and 5.8% in 2005. Growth in the first quarter this year was a promising 11%.

Tourism has slipped moderately so far this year but revenues from exports are rising. For 2006, GDP growth was fueled mainly by trade with Venezuela and China. Between 2004 and 2006, exports to China rose by 134% and exports to Venezuela by 31.5%. Exports of medical and other services went up 53% over 2005, and of goods by 27%. The overall increase in exports was 45%.[5]

Errors and Distortions

The two surveys would have been more enlightening had they measured the serious problems capitalism has helped create in Cuba since the market openings adopted in the early 1990s to counter the economic crisis (special period) caused by the end of Soviet assistance.

With three successive years of impressive growth, attention in Cuba has turned away from economic survival to survival of socialist principles challenged by low wages, shortages, dysfunctional public transportation and a host of other problems.

On November 17, 2005, Fidel spoke of the need to rethink basic economic policies, cataloging mistakes of the revolution. He alluded to errors not noticed by the revolutionary leadership. He described purchasing inequalities due to remittances from abroad, labor indiscipline, corruption, bureaucratic rigidity, pilfering of state property, waste, inefficiencies, the excessive subsidies to the consumers - problems he blamed for widespread disaffection. All of this, he said, was more harmful to the revolution than was US imperialism. He warned that only Cubans could defeat the revolution and he promised a campaign of reform and renewal.

One of the policy failures Castro cited was central to the Cuban socialist model - subsidies that everyone gets whether they need them or not; whether they work or not. Subsidies and the ration book would have to reassessed, said Castro. He railed at the "parasites," made idle by access to foreign currency. "Either we destroy these deviations and overcome these problems or we die," he warned.[6]

Reliance on the wage incentive to increase productivity and workplace discipline would seem to the capitalist to be as great a contradiction in a socialist economy as the market distortions and deviations Fidel thinks could kill the revolution.

However, in a 1995 speech, during the height of the economic crisis, Fidel explained that these apparent contradictions need not undermine the integrity of socialism. "The key," he said, "is the question of power." It is not the bourgeoisie that has the power but the people.

"If the workers have it, not the rich, not the millionaires, then we can make policies that favor the people, respecting the agreements made with certain foreign companies, respecting everyone and the interests of everyone."[7]

What about the development of "communist consciousness" which internalizes the needs of society and does not require the whip of the wage to contribute to the economy? Cuba cannot wait until the communist consciousness has taken root, said Francisco Soberon, president of the central bank.

In one of the most articulate and complete statements of the dilemma, Soberon addressed the problems due to income differentials resulting from remittances and informal work as well as corruption and theft. Soberon noted that the market openings of the special period caused a setback in advancing toward the objective of greater socioeconomic equality.

In this 2005 speech to the National Assembly, Soberon said the result was to create more inequality and the waste of state resources leaving the state to ponder how to manage the economy without abandoning "the politically strategic objective of creating a communist consciousness." [8]

"I believe we must search for economic formulas based on our specific conditions which, during the period, in which a communist consciousness is forged, will guarantee a greater contribution of each to our socialist society."

While the idea of making goods and services equally available to all without regard to work may sound good, under the circumstance of the economic crisis and the income differential it helped create, "such a distribution system has highly iniquitous consequences," said Soberon.

"The question," he said, "is how to find a formula for distribution that motivates everyone to contribute their maximum to the economy because when they do, it is good for them, for their families and for society. At the same time, it inhibits those who have found very questionable ways to receive high incomes without contributing to the national economy, and who can profit abusively from the work of those who create the country's wealth."

The current national search for the right formulas, therefore, is neither particularly novel nor a departure from the line of critical thought initiated by Fidel.

Raul's National Conversation

In his July 26 speech, interim President Raul Castro called for a broad popular consultation with the communist party and mass organizations on what to do about production bottlenecks, bureaucratic arteriosclerosis, work indiscipline, and the other problems the limited market openings insinuated into the socialist model.

Labor unions, workplaces, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) were all encouraged to challenge anything except socialism itself, so that as the April 2008 elections approach, the government might act on proposals that bubbled up from the great national debate. This would be government by consensus.

In the United States, every period of economic reform in Cuba is misunderstood or misrepresented. Foreign commentators have difficulty deciding what to make of economic openings and closings. Assuming that the only acceptable economic reforms are those leading to market capitalism, they do not know how to interpret Raul's push for greater efficiency in state enterprises (perfeccionamiento empresarial). On the one hand, introducing sound business practices like cost accounting might seem to the anxious capitalist like the long-awaited meltdown of Cuba's socialist structure. But on the other hand, a more efficient economy incorporating some capitalist practices might just perpetuate socialism.

Capitalism as the Default Economy

Whenever there is movement toward greater foreign investment, predictions multiply in the United States that socialism is withering away. Plans are made in Washington and Miami for building shopping malls and condos along the Havana waterfront.

But Cuban officials since the mid-1990s have explained that the openings were a limited adaptation of market principles as an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism embraced almost everywhere else in Latin America with disastrous results - an outcome never acknowledged in Washington.

When the government began partially closing some of the openings, especially in self-employment and foreign investment in 2003 and 2004, critics called it a step backward and described Castro as "conservative," when in fact it was a step forward in socialism

These are conclusions drawn from the assumption that free-market capitalism is part of the natural order and any economy straying from it is inevitably drawn back as if by some economic law of gravity. And, it is widely assumed that Fidel Castro is the force holding Cuba back from resuming its place in the capitalist cosmos.

Fidel's Health as a Macroeconomic Indicator

Therefore, commentators and policy makers continue to focus on Castro's health, fueling speculation about a supposed reversal of policies - perhaps even adoption of unfettered capitalism. Castro's health has become a major macroeconomic indicator of where the economy is headed.

The formula for this indicator is: Fidel dead or too sick to command plus Raul equals reforms. Fidel still in command minus Raul equals no reforms.

That's the way Los Angeles Times writer Carol J. Williamns saw after Castro was shown looking much recovered in a meeting with a Chinese official in April. Williams thought his apparent return from "death's door" meant he might resume active leadership and rein in Raul's would-be reformers.[9]

But no so fast, just five months later, as Fidel continued his recovery and continued writing his reflections for the press, the same Times writer reported on his "receding role in steering a Cuban populace that has moved on from his hard-line views on the virtues of sacrifice and austerity."[10]

In all this speculation, US policymakers seem not to notice that the United States has made itself increasingly irrelevant to the Cuban economy. Other trade and investment partners have taken its place. Instead of crippling the economy, the blockade has pushed Cuba beyond the US gravitational pull.

Replacing the United States are, among others, China and Venezuela. China and India, both possessing great advantage against the United States due to their huge dollar reserves, are eager to invest in Cuba's oil potential and have cemented other economic partnerships with Cuba in manufacturing and transportation. China has numerous joint venture deals with Cuba and is currently selling thousands of buses to Cuba contributing to a bilateral trade of $2 billion in 2006.[11]Venezuela is now Cuba's chief trading partner with bilateral trade in 2006 of $3 billion.

These partnerships, along with the development of regional integration through the Alternativa Bolivariana para Las Americas (ALBA), are the sort of alliances that the United States seems unable to develop for itself, most notably its collapsed Free Trade Area of the Americas. This leaves Secretary Gutierrez to extol US partnerships with some of the most troubled economies such as El Salvador, which has a remarkable 70.3% free economy rivaling even the freedom of the "hyper wealthy United States."[12]

Notes

[1] http://www.commerce.gov/NewsRoom/SecretarySpeeches/index.hml>
[2] While he was CEO of Kellog, Gutierrez explored the possibility of doing business in Cuba. The cereals company participated in a trade fair in Havana in 2002. Associated Press, 12/02/04.
[3] South Florida Sun Sentinel, 02/11/07.
[4]Index of Economic Freedom 2007, The Heritage Foundation, 01/05/05.
.
[5] Balance preliminar de las economías de América Latina y el Caribe 2006,
Comisión Económica para Latino América y el Caribe (CEPAL).
.
[6] FidelCasto speech, 11/17/05.
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2005/esp/f171105e.html
[7] Fidel Castro speech, 08/06/95.

[8] Speech, Juventud Rebelde (Havana), 12/23/05.

[9] The Los Angeles Times, 04/30/07.
[10] Ibíd., 09/16/07.
[11] Agencia Cubana de Noticias, 09/28/07.
[12] Index of Economic Freedom 2007.

Q&A Tuesday: Minuteman director explains group's immigration mission

2007-10-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Q&A Tuesday: Minuteman director explains group's immigration mission

October 16, 2007

Al Garza is the national executive director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a group that wants "the borders and coastal boundaries of the United States secured against the unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband and foreign military," according to its mission statement. The group calls for a border fence, penalizing businesses that hire illegal immigrants and other measures that would cause all illegal immigrants to leave the country or be deported. It often organizes groups to watch for illegal immigrants coming over the U.S.-Mexican border. Garza lives in Arizona. For information about the group, go to www.minutemanhq.com.

Could you talk a little more about your mission?

Our mission is quite simple. It has four elements to it. One, border security. Two, enforce immigration laws. Three, hold people who hire illegal immigrants accountable. Four, make sure illegal immigrants do not obtain public services.

What do you think about immigration raids on businesses?

I encourage it and I, too, am Hispanic. If you ask me to provide any type of documentation, I'd be more than happy to do so. ... The reason people on the other side of the debate are opposed to it is because they have something to hide. ... If they're not complying with a law that means they're in the shadows, but they're not in the shadows when it comes to protesting and taking the flag down and hitting it and stomping on it.

Should there be a process for moving to citizenship for an illegal immigrant?

The process is real simple. If you're not a documented immigrant, you're an illegal alien and there's deportation in progress. Let me give you an analogy: If I, Al Garza, goes out and robs a bank or robs a mom-and-pop store and they find out that it's Al Garza that did this, are the police supposed to say, "We can't target this guy because he's brown or because he's got three children and his wife is sick?" The excuses just keep on coming. We're a nation that prides itself on the rule of law.

What should the country do with the illegal immigrants in the country now?

It's real simple again, if you don't have proper documentation, you don't belong in the United States. Why is it so fair that people are here just because of ethnicity, that they have the right to be here without any documentation? ... (If the laws are enforced) they will self-deport. What else would be left for them? You demagnetize America if there is no income, if there is no welfare, if there is no clinics, no hospitals. You start forcing the issue.

How big would illegal immigration raids have to be to affect the situation now?

As big as they have to be. How big do you suppose the raid would be if I and 12 million Americans stopped paying taxes? Do you think the IRS would just sit back and the government would just sit back and say, "OK, Mr. Garza, there's too many of you. We're going to go ahead and honor your request, you don't have to pay taxes." Or do you think they would apply the law and say, "Mr. Garza, you're going to go to jail and so is everyone else (that doesn't' pay taxes)." They'll find room for me in some jail somewhere and they will find room somewhere for those 12 million people.

Cuba, Venezuela Make ALBA Real

2007-10-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

Havana, Oct 15 (Prensa Latina) Cuba and Venezuela are due to sign important agreements related to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas at Havana's Conference Center Monday afternoon, Granma newspaper reported today.

The Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced in his Sunday program "Alo Presidente" broadcast live from the Cuban city of Santa Clara that authorities from both governments will also analyze the advance of the union between Cuba and Venezuela.

"We cannot lose the new moment we are living. We won't be stopped by anything or anybody. Only unity will make us strong," said Chavez this weekend in that Cuban province.

The daily also highlights details and photos of the statesman's memorable Sunday program dedicated to Ernesto Che Guevara, key moments of his 17-minute conversation with President Fidel Castro, and his stay in the country.

Also included is the pre-opening of the oil refinery in the southwestern Cuban province of Cienfuegos, where the Venezuela- Cuban joint company PDVSA-CUPET works.

Chavez stressed that this is a palpable example of the realization of accords signed by both countries as part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, the daily states.

Source:

http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B2782B65A-695A-4B8F-9214-283BC2A7CF51%7D)&language=EN

Morales says U.S. soldiers should leave Bolivia

2007-10-13T15:48:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press
Published: October 10, 2007

President Evo Morales said he expects U.S. military aid to Bolivia to stop soon, as his government plans to bar U.S. troops from assisting in anti-drug operations.

"Happily, it's ending," Morales told reporters at a news conference Tuesday night. "No foreigner in uniform will be operating here."

Bolivia is the world's No. 3 producer of cocaine, after Colombia and Peru. Washington last year provided US$91 million (€64 million) to help fight cocaine production and encourage Bolivian coca farmers to switch crops.

U.S. aid has paid for everything from Bolivian troops' uniforms to the gasoline in their trucks since the 1980s. But U.S. soldiers have not been directly involved in anti-narcotics efforts, leaving that task to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration personnel and State Department contractors instead.

It's not clear if Morales would ban their involvement in Bolivian anti-drug efforts, too.

The U.S. Embassy had no immediate response to Morales' statement, and declined to say how many U.S. military personnel or contractors are now in Bolivia. The number is believed to be no more than a few dozen.

Morales, who allied himself with Cuba and Venezuela following his December 2005 election as Bolivia's first indigenous president, has spurned his country's traditionally close ties with the U.S. military.

While his government has supported efforts to halt cocaine exports, Morales, a former advocate for coca farmers, defends age-old medicinal and religious uses of the coca leaf, which is a mild stimulant when chewed or consumed as tea.

Morales also suggested on Tuesday that Bolivia's new constitution, now being drafted by a popularly elected assembly, should include a clause banning foreign military bases on Bolivian soil.

It's not clear how that rule would affect a handful of border military posts due to be built in Bolivia with Venezuelan aid, according to a military pact reached between Morales and President Hugo Chavez last year.

Columbus toppled as indigenous people rise up after five centuries

2007-10-13T15:44:00.000-07:00

Explorer's reputation is victim of region's pink tide of leftwing governments

Rory Carroll in Caracas and Lola Almudevar in Sucre
Friday October 12, 2007
The Guardian

Victorian illustration by T Sinclair idealising Christopher Columbus' arrival in the New World. Photograph: PoodlesRock/Corbis

He had been sailing west for five weeks and sensed he was close when at 2am on October 12, with nothing but stars and moon to illuminate the waves, it was spotted: a dark lump ahead. Land. Christopher Columbus had reached the New World.

At sunrise he took a small boat and armed men to shore and planted a royal standard. With a solemn oath he took possession of the territory for the king and queen of Spain. Natives emerged from the trees and watched from a distance, puzzled. It was 1492.

More than five centuries later the anniversary of that event resounds with an ominous clang. Millions of people in central and South America lament that encounter in the Bahamas as the beginning of their ancestors' annihilation.

The indigenous inhabitants lost everything to the invaders: gold, land, freedom, culture, until there was almost nothing left. Disease and slaughter wiped most of them out. "It was a calamity," said Mark Horton, an archaeologist and Columbus expert at the University of Bristol.

Now, however, a counter-attack is under way. After centuries as underdogs, indigenous people are rising up - peacefully - to seize political power and assert their heritage.

The so-called pink tide of leftwing governments has surged on the back of indigenous movements intent on dismantling the region's eurocentric legacy - starting with Columbus.

Across the Andes the explorer once feted as a hero by the Europeanised elite is having his story rewritten, his statue toppled and his name turned to mud. Leading the assault is Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez.

"They taught us to admire Christopher Columbus," he said during a recent televised address, his tone incredulous, while flicking through a 1970s school textbook. "In Europe they still speak of the 'discovery' of America and want us to celebrate the day."

Instead Mr Chávez has renamed October 12 "indigenous resistance day" and mounted a campaign against colonial residue. Textbooks are to be revised under a curriculum that will stress the opposition to Spanish conquest as doomed but heroic.

This week the president, who boasts of having an indigenous grandmother, renamed the cable car system which soars over Caracas, the capital, as Warairarepano, which means big mountain in an indigenous coastal tongue.

"For Chávez this is a natural cause because of his philosophy about the mistreatment of the downtrodden and the need for redress," said Larry Birns, of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs thinktank.

City authorities confirmed this week that a bronze Columbus statue which activists toppled from a Caracas plaza three years ago will remain under wraps. Repairs were almost complete but it would not return to its plinth because the site had been renamed: Avenue Columbus is now Avenue Indigenous Resistance. The statue is expected to go to a museum.

In contrast, a statue of María Lionza, a legendary indigenous queen who is the subject of a thriving cult, has been prominently restored. Last night thousands of devotees made their way to the holy mountain of Sorte for an annual festival which honours her and an indigenous chief and black slave killed by the Spanish.

Rehabilitated

Scholars tend to assign Columbus a walk-on part in history as the one who opened the New World door but had little role in the bloody aftermath. "He was part of a process that was inevitable, of Europe coming into contact with the wider world," said Dr Horton. "It's mistaken to see him as a totem of the bad guys. He actually wasn't too bad."

It has been a rollercoaster reputation. A dispute with Spain's king and queen landed Columbus in chains and disgrace. The Victorians rehabilitated him as an inspiration for their own explorers, a valiant image which largely endures in the west. Spain hopes DNA analysis will prove he came from Castille, while Italy hopes to confirm he was Genoese.

The 500th anniversary in 1992 prompted debate in the US about whether he should be recast as a villain but the controversy petered out, leaving the navigator a bruised but still revered figure. US schoolchildren get the day off on what remains Columbus Day.

In South America, however, radical leftwing governments in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela are busy overturning what they see as his legacy: centuries of domination by Spaniards and their descendants, pale-skinned elites who continued oppressing darker compatriots even after the continent gained independence.

"Even now they conceive us as animals, as dogs. That has got to change, which is what we are fighting for - to be recognised as equal citizens with equal rights," said Wilber Flores, a congressman and president of Bolivia's indigenous parliament.

In Venezuela Mr Chávez enshrined indigenous rights in a new constitution and made the country's 35 tribes visible through state-funded TV stations which broadcast from regions barely known to city-dwellers.

In Ecuador President Rafael Correa, who often wears traditional dress and speaks in Quechua, has rallied indigenous voters behind his effort to "reinvent" the country along socialist lines.

President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia's first indigenous leader, has also fused indigenous rights with a socialist agenda hostile to Washington. He regards the US as the latest manifestation of a predatory colonialism that started in 1492. Last month it voted against a United Nations declaration on indigenous rights.

Rapacious

Mr Morales has accused the US of raiding Bolivia's natural resources and persecuting coca farmers as cocaine producers when in fact they are cultivating a plant that has had other, innocent, uses since the Incas.

He will mark the anniversary of Columbus's landing with a visit to the coca growing region of Chapare, which is playing host to a summit of indigenous people from across Latin America.

In an interview with the Guardian the Bolivian leader suggested the rapacious intruders who crossed an ocean thirsting for riches, and those who later invented capitalism, should have been studying, not conquering, the natives.

"Indigenous communities know how to live in harmony with mother earth and that is the difference between us and Europe and the United States."

Colombia’s Rural Social Movement Defies Government Intimidation and Comes Out to March

2007-10-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Peasant-Farmer and Indigenous Mobilizations that Have Shaken the Country Since Yesterday Faced Intense Legal and Military Repression Before they Even Started
Laura del Castillo

In today’s zombie Colombia, made up of President Uribe’s friends and allies, everything seems to be right on track. It is a country of opportunities, where the government’s policy of “Democratic Security” has led to a time when there is no “armed conflict,” just a struggle against “terrorism.” Where there is nothing but smooth sailing ahead for the economy thanks to the high presence of foreign corporations. Where the country is free of paramilitaries because they have all demobilized and the drug war is hitting the traffickers where it hurts.

Nevertheless, on the other side – in that country that doesn’t figure among the pink-colored fantasies of Uribe’s activists – things are different, especially in rural areas. Most of the land is concentrated in the hands of big landowners, killings of rural leaders are again on the rise, the fumigations of illicit crops are destroying the food crops of the poor and affecting entire communities’ health, healthcare services are essentially privatized, and the “demobilized” paramilitaries have allied themselves with common criminals and now call themselves “Black Eagles” to sew terror in the most marginalized parts of the country. As they say, everything rises in that other part of the country: the cost of food, the cost of utilities, and, of course, the repression, because in a perfect country, no one contradicts the established order and protesting means committing a crime.

But a large part of that “other side” of the country is not staying silent. It is outraged and tired of enduring more than five years of attacks, humiliation and exclusion. That is why several diverse rural, indigenous, labor and student organizations in the country – who have come together to form the National Coordination of Agrarian and Popular Organizations of Colombia – began their National Agrarian and Popular Mobilization yesterday, with protest actions throughout the country. Marches, road blockades, office takeovers and land occupations are being carried out in villages, towns and cities.

During the weeks preceding the protest, the government unleashed an unprecedented wave of repression. Yes, that same democratic government (which supposedly respects the right to protest), amid its constant paranoia, has declared war on the mobilization. It has used many different strategies to demoralize the mobilization’s leaders and participants, including defamation, stigmatization, threats, unjustified arrests and murder. These attacks have made it clear that in Colombia, respect for differences and social protest is little more than a joke.

Protesting as a Crime
Since the first rumblings of the mobilization began to be heard, the government has waged a quiet war on the organizations involved. Organizers tried to keep plans secret for as long as possible, meeting infrequently in sites announced at the last minute. But by mid-September, the cat was out of the bag. On September 19, soldiers began distributing flyers and dropping them from the sky onto rural villages in Planadas, Tolima, about 200 miles southeast of Bogotá.

“Don’t participate in acts of terrorism,” the flyers read. “Don’t let them keep using you as cannon-fodder. Don’t go to the mobilization that the FARC is going to hold. Don’t become an accomplice to terrorists and murderers.”

Around the same time, say organizers, men identifying themselves as “Black Eagles” (the mysterious new extreme right-wing armed group that seems to be picking up where the now-demobilized United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, left off) began appearing around the department, threatening punishment upon anyone who joined the planned protests.

But the first major blow came 10 days later, when agents of the DAS secret police, accompanied by dozens of armed soldiers, raided the offices of the Peasant Farmer Association of the Cimitarra River Valley (ACVC) and imprisoned three of its leaders. The ACVC is one of the most dynamic and powerful peasant organizations in the country. It has in the past rarely worked together with the National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions (FENSUAGRO ), the agrarian workers’ union responsible for much of the mobilization’s organizing, and their collaboration on this has been something of a breakthrough for the rural social movement.

After the arrests, army chief General Mario Montoya Uribe appeared on television and spoke to local newspaper Vanguardia Liberal , announcing that the arrested men were FARC operatives and that he had 18 more similar warrants to serve. “We are investigating the behavior and conduct of many people,” he told the newspaper, “so there may be more people captured.” In the following days, residents of the nearby village of Yondó, Antioquia, reported the army was threatening to burn the houses of farmers who participated in the mobilization.

On October 2, in Cauca department – long a hotbed of indigenous and rural resistance – the local government declared that “in northern Cauca, the FARC have declared an armed stoppage, and those who participate in the mobilization will do so side-by-side with the Jacobo Arenas Mobile Column of the FARC.” Three days later, unidentified armed men took El Caraqueño village president Carlos Alberto Urbano off a bus and shot him in front of all the other passengers, including his wife and son.

Urbano died several days later while being transported to another hospital. Oscar Salazar, a community leader from La Vega, Cauca, and one of the national mobilization’s organizers, called him one of the mobilization’s “first victims” and saw the assassination as a clear paramilitary attack on the protest.

“We are social organizations, popular organizations, who are using our constitutional right to protest,” said Salazar. “But as it is a protest criticizing the Uribe regime, this is the way that they attack us, creating the conditions to annihilate the leaders and strike hard at the organizations and communities.”

The next day, back in Planadas, Tolima, soldiers detained community leader Ernesto Soto. According Alirio Garcia, a FENSUAGRO leader who spoke by phone from Tolima, Soto was arrested simply for carrying posters for the mobilization.

Since then, he said, the army has made it nearly impossible to get to the departmental capital of Ibaque, where many activities are planned. “Cars have been blocked by the army… in San Antonio, the people are there in the municipality, they were going move in these last few days and couldn’t. The state forces were letting any vehicle pass except those headed toward the mobilization… We have a quite delicate situation because they have the people blockaded in all the different municipalities, confiscating their food and supplies.”

After Soto’s arrest, the army began detaining young peasant and indigenous men at roadblocks to draft them into the military. Though military service is obligatory, many rural Colombians do not serve. Garcia called this “practically kidnapping by the military authorities,” though there are now reports that several of the young men have been released on the condition that they not attend the mobilization.

Nevertheless, Garcia said on Tuesday night that some 4,000 peasant farmers had reached Ibague by Tuesday and today have participated in various protest actions.

In the southern department of Putumayo, along the Ecuadorian border, social protests got a head start last week when a large group of peasant farmers took over a main road in Orito municipality, denouncing the crisis that stepped-up coca eradication has produced there since January. Putumayo has always been an epicenter of the drug war here, but 2007 seems to have been worse than ever.

On the morning of October 8, two days before the oficial start of the national mobilization, the mayor of Orito told the protesters that she was “receiving pressure to forcibly remove the peaceful concentration of peasant farmers.” That same afternoon, anti-narcotics and riot police along with counterinsurgency forces attacked, firing – according to organizers – tear-gas, rubber bullets and live rounds, and leaving a still-unknown number of people injured.

Nilia Quintero, an organizer from Putumayo working with the national mobilization, said by phone from the departmental capital of Mocoa on October 9 that “we have concentrated some 400 peasant farmers here, and we are awaiting the arrival of more tomorrow. Now we are calling on the departmental government to name a commission to investigate and resolve this.”

But despite all the repression from a government that has shown itself to be deeply afraid of its opponents, there is truly an explosion of both social protest occurring now all across this vast country. It is revealing not just the insatisfaction with the President Uribe, but just how united the rural social movement has become on a national level.

Stay tuned, because we will soon bring you updates on this peaceful uprising.

Source:
, Dan Feder / Thursday 11 October 2007 /
Español

Press groups concerned by killing of 3 newspaper vendors in southern Mexico

2007-10-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

Published: October 11, 2007

MEXICO CITY: Human rights groups expressed concern Thursday that the killings earlier this week of three newspaper vendors in southern Oaxaca state may having a chilling effect on freedom of expression in Mexico.

Three vendors of the daily newspaper El Imparcial del Istmo were shot to death Monday as they rode in one of the company's vehicles, state officials in Oaxaca reported.

The National Center for Social Communication, or Cencos, quoted newspaper employees saying the killings may have come in retaliation for the paper's coverage of a mass grave where seven corpses were discovered earlier this year. Organized crime groups in Mexico often execute several victims and bury them together.

Imparcial editor Gonzalo Dominguez and crime reporter Felipe Ramos told the rights groups Cencos and Article 19 they believe the attack was aimed at them, but that the killers confused them with the vendors.

The two said they had received death threats prior to the Monday shootings. They and others had resigned their jobs out of fear for their safety.

Nobody answered calls to phone numbers listed for El Imparcial del Istmo to confirm the reports.

In a statement, the rights groups expressed their "profound concern, in light of these recent incidents highlighting the lack of safety for journalists in Mexico" and demanded that the government take the necessary measures to protect journalists.

Free press groups say Mexico has become one of the world's most dangerous places for journalists, with at least seven
killed across the country in the last year.

Source:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/12/america/LA-GEN-Mexico-Newspaper-Killings.php

More than 5,000 Patients Treated by Cuba's Health-Tourism Company

2007-10-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Havana, Oct 12 (ACN) More than 5,000 patients from 38 countries have received medical treatment in Cuba since September this year, at international clinics led by the government-run Cubanacan Tourism and Health Company.

In statements to ACN, Calixto Noche, commercial manager of the entity said in addition to the services provided to tourists, another 1,700 people, including foreign residents in Cuba and members of diplomatic missions have been treated in the clinics located throughout the country.

Calixto Noche said Cuba has contracts with nearly 40 countries, mostly in the American continent, except for the U.S, and including the Caribbean and Europe. He mentioned Canada, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Bahamas, Jamaica, Portugal, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have relations with the company Cubanacan Tourism and Health gave medical treatment to nearly 9,000 foreigners in 2006 in the specialties of orthopaedics, general surgery, aesthetics, cardiology and paediatrics, noted the expert.

Since its opening in 1994, the Company offers visitors programs to improve their physical and mental conditions while enjoying their stay in Cuba. Cubanacan's medical services are part of the country's health infrastructure and of hotels and clinic networks in the main tourist areas.

The Cuban entity has a wide program specializing in three directions: prevention, treatment, and life quality, explained Noche.

Diseases such as vitiligo, psoriasis, alopecia and retinitis pigmentosa are among those most frequently treated.

Likewise, other programs are aimed at the restoration and rehabilitation of the neurological system, said the commercial expert. He noted that people suffering Parkinson, Alzheimer or Multiple Sclerosis have been able to recover the normal state of the nervous system thanks to methods applied at the clinics which have been proved efficient internationally.

California Becomes First State to Prohibit Landlords From Asking About Tenants' Immigration Status

2007-10-13T14:22:00.000-07:00

October 12, 2007.

By Frank D. Russo

Governor Schwarzenegger has just signed into law AB 976 by Assemblymember Charles Calderon that will prohibit cities and counties in California from enacting any local ordinances that compels a landlord to inquire, compile, report, or disclose any information about the citizenship or immigration status of a tenant or prospective tenant..

The bill also makes it illegal for any landlord under California state law to "Make any inquiry regarding or based on the immigration or citizenship status of a tenant, prospective tenant, occupant, or prospective occupant of residential rental property." California is the first in the nation to enact such a law.

“Cities do not have the authority to form their own foreign policy. Only the federal government can determine the legal status of any citizen,” Calderon stated. “Local ordinances like the one adopted by the City of Escondido place landlords under serious liability whether they comply with the ordinance or fail to comply with the ordinance. Landlords do not want to be immigration officers; they simply want to make a living.”

Calderon’s measure came in the wake of ordinances passed by cities in California and around the Untied States. The ordinances would have forced landlords to determine the citizenship status of their tenants and evict any tenant who is not a legal resident, or face fines and possible revocation of their business license. Such laws placed landlords in an impossible dilemma: comply with the city ordinance, while violating state and federal law or uphold state and federal law, facing sanctions from the cities. In every instance, however, Federal Judges issued restraining orders against the ordinances on the grounds that they violated constitutional due process and supremacy clauses.

The most recent instance of a court making a finding against these types of ordinances was on July 26th when a U.S. District Court Judge in Pennsylvania issued a decision finding Hazleton, Pennsylvania’s ordinance unconstitutional.

Last year, the City of Escondido adopted an ordinance that would have barred landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants and would have severely penalized landlords who failed to determine the immigration status of tenants and prospective tenants with fines and suspension of business licenses. The ordinance was immediately challenged in federal court by a coalition of civil rights groups on several constitutional grounds, as well as the federal preemption of immigration law, and enforcement of that law. On November 20, 2006, a temporary restraining order (TRO) was obtained against the Escondido ordinance from US District Judge Houston. Following the issuance of the TRO the City and plaintiffs entered into agreement that the ordinance would be rescinded and the city would pay $90,000 to those who brought suit to partially pay for their attorney fees.

Calderon told the committee, "Ordinances like Escondido City unfairly targets people of color. Landlords would target certain individuals that look like or talk like or conduct themselves in a manner that violates law and reason. The bill would clearly define the role of local government in this regard."

AB 976 had the support of a number of progressive groups and those concerned with protecting the rights of immigrants, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Labor Federation, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty.

But it was sponsored by the Apartment Association of California Southern Cities (AACSC) and a number of other apartment owner groups lobbied for its passage and for the Governor to sign it. Landlords fearing potential liability for racial discrimination and other parts of playing the role of border agents, were the major backers of the bill.

Nevertheless, the measure passed the California State Assembly without a vote to spare, 41-25, and the State Senate 22-13 on straight party line votes with only Democrats in support and all votes against it by Republicans. In light of the court decisions, the absence of any major opposition, and the unity of the apartment owners and immigrant groups in support of AB 976, the lack of a single Republican vote for this measure shows how hard the immigration card is played in Republican politics in California, and Governor Schwarzenegger's break from his own party members on this bill.

SOURCE:

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2007/10/california_beco.html

Venezuela and Colombia inaugurate gas pipeline

2007-10-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Fri Oct 12, 2007 6:07pm BST

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BALLENAS, Colombia, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Venezuela and Colombia on Friday inaugurated a 140-mile (225-km) natural gas pipeline linking Colombian gas fields to Venezuela's gas-deficient western region.

The pipeline will transport 150 million cubic feet per day of natural gas to Venezuela to boost available supply for state oil company PDVSA and advance Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's regional energy integration efforts.

Chavez, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa met in Colombia's sweltering Guajira province near Venezuela's frontier for a symbolic opening of a valve to start the flow of gas.

"This is the integration we need," said Chavez in a speech following the inauguration.

U.S.-based Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol in May signed a sales contract with PDVSA to provide the natural gas from fields it operates jointly with Ecopetrol.

Western Venezuela suffers from a shortage of natural gas which restricts development of the nation's petrochemical industry, one of Chavez's top priorities.

It also forces some of PDVSA's facilities, such as the giant 960,000 barrel per day (bpd) Paraguana refining complex, to burn liquid fuels instead of cheaper natural gas.

Venezuela plans to import gas from Colombia for four to seven years and then reverse the flow so that Venezuela would export gas to Colombia as new projects come online.

Venezuelan authorities also plan to expand the line to Central America.

But one local analyst, who asked not to be named to avoid drawing his company into controversy, said PDVSA's ambitious plans for new petrochemical projects make it unlikely that it will be able to export to Colombia.

CAFTA ratified by razor thin majority in Costa Rican elections

2007-10-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

October 10, 2007

Protest electoral fraud
by Guerry Hoddersen

On October 7, Costa Ricans went to the polls to vote on the highly
disputed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the U.S.
The day before the vote, the Bush administration issued a statement
saying it would not extend trade preferences to the country if voters
rejected the treaty. It was the last dirty trick in a long campaign by Bush
and his henchmen in Costa Rica--President Oscar Arias and U.S.
Ambassador Mark Langdale—to mislead and threaten Costa Rican voters.
With 96.3 percent of the vote counted, 51.6 percent of voters backed the
agreement while 48.4 percent opposed it. Voter turnout was 60 percent.
Rural areas voted more strongly against the measure than did the urban
centers. A manual recount of ballots began on Tuesday at the request of
anti-CAFTA forces.

Costa Rica is the first country where a free trade agreement has been put
to a public vote. The extremely narrow margin of victory shows that the
steam has gone out of the free trade engine. (Even the U.S. Congress
only approved CAFTA by a two-vote margin.) Furthermore, this election
has little legitimacy in the eyes of many Costa Ricans or anyone, for that
matter, who has followed this important fight.

Today the Costa Rican government and its U.S. corporate co-conspirators
are celebrating the spoils of their unethical and illegal campaign. A full
account of their tactics--including bribery, blackmail and fear—is found in
"CAFTA referendum in Costa Rica: Dirty tricks and repression
mount as vote nears,"
http://www.socialism.com/fsarticles/vol28no5/28511CAFTA.html.

After this article was published in the Freedom Socialist, a major scandal
broke out over an internal government memo that exposed a high level
campaign to manipulate the outcome of the election. In addition, managers
of public institutions like the National Security Institute brazenly erected
banners promoting a "yes" vote in blatant violation of prohibitions against
using public resources to sway the vote. At the same time, the Institute
imposed a gag order on public employees, teachers, and
university students.

Join them in contesting the outcome of this sham election. Write the head
of the Costa Rican Supreme Elections Tribunal and demand that the
results be invalidated because "yes" votes were obtained through illegal
means and in violation of election laws the tribunal is responsible
for upholding.

Send your letters or emails to:
Luis Antonio Sobrado Gonzalez, President
Tribunal Supremo Elecciones
Apartado Postal: 2163-1000
San José, Costa Rica
Email: sobrado@tse.go.cr
Please send a blind copy of your message to Guerry Hoddersen at
fspnatl@igc.org
___________________________________________________________

Mayans in Guatemala: No compromise, halt mining

2007-09-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

By Brenda Norrell,
Posted on Sun Sep 30th, 2007 at 01:20:32 PM EST

Sipakapa is not for sale, Mayan community turned down corporate mining cash

TUCSON, Ariz. – Gold and silver mining in the Mayan homelands in northern Guatemala, near the border with Chiapas, Mexico, is poisoning the water and explosives are destroying the homes in the rural farming community of Sipakapa, Guatemala.

“While the gold mine is there and operating, there is no solution. The only solution is to stop the mining,” said Mario Tema, Mayan from Sipakapa, during an interview at the Western Mining Action Network Conference in Tucson on Sept. 29.

Goldcorp (formerly Glamis Gold) is mining silver and gold at the open-pit Marlin Mine, between two Mayan communities, Sipakapa and San Miguel Ixtahuacan in the San Marcos highlands.

Speaking through a translator, Tema said, “There is a new mine in Guatemala. It is the first of its kind. It has created many problems in our community, especially social problems.

“The government is supporting the mine politically. It makes our organizing very difficult, because it means people are speaking out not just against the mine, but against the government.”

Tema said the mine has been in operation for two years and is causing impacts, both environmental and social impacts.

“We know there is acid mine drainage in the river. There are heavy metals in the river near one mine site. There are also social impacts from the explosives. People are living 500 meters from the explosives used at the mine and there are cracks in their houses. Now, their roofs are leaking. Seventy-two homes have been damaged. We’re talking about 72 families, with an average of six people in each family.”

“The mining company must take responsibility for helping them repair their homes.”

Tema points out there are 22 different Mayan languages in the region. The mine will not just harm the Sipakapense speaking Mayans in Sipakapa and Mam speaking Mayans in San Miguel, but will affect the entire western highlands region of Guatemala now targeted as a mining district.

MineWatch Canada reports that promoters of the mining industry -- the World Bank, Glamis Gold (now Goldcorp) and the governments of Guatemala, Canada and the United States -- promoted the Marlin mine as a "development" project. In reality, however, the mine is simply a business that enriches an international corporation at the expense of the good development of communities.

After the World Bank’s $45 million loan to Glamis, the government of Guatemala began militarization and repression. On January 11, 2005, the government sent more 1,200 soldiers and 400 police agents to Los Encuentros, Sololá, to protect the passage of a cylinder destined for the Marlin Mine. The State forces used tear gas and bullets against the Kaqchikel brothers and sisters who for weeks had been detaining the transportation of the cylinder in protest. Raúl Castro Bocel was murdered by State security forces and more than 20 were injured.

The gold mining company brought in an Israeli security company, which killed one of the people. In San Miguel Ixtahuacán, on March 23, 2005, an employee of the private Israeli security company hired by Glamis Gold, the Golan Group, shot and killed Alvaro Benigno Sánchez, leaving four children without their father.

In Tucson, Tema said the people in his community of Sipakapa have responded with consultation and an overwhelming “No” vote to mining.

“People are also in conflict with their local authorities. The opposition has taken the form of organizing community consultation. Community members were asked to respond, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ on the issue of mining. The people said ‘No.’”

“But the mining companies try to divide the people. It is always generating more conflict in our community."

In Tema’s community, there are 15,000 people and 92 percent are Mayans, with 8 percent of mixed ancestry. There is no commercial industry and people survive from family farms. Some have cows, but no more than six.

In Tucson, Tema said the benefit of attending the Western Mining Action Network Conference came from sharing with other people impacted by mining and discovering how they are working to halt mining. He particularly learned a great deal from Western Shoshone Carrie Dann, leading the fight for Western Shoshone land rights as corporations seize Shoshone territory in Nevada for nuclear testing and gold mining.

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, elections have been underway. Tema said candidates from the civic committee, born out of resistance to mining, did well in municipal elections. The newly elected officials take office January 15, 2008, for a period of four years.

“We have municipal support. We can make decisions and continue to resist this mining project. We can start to make laws and regulations to protect our territories,” Tema said.

“We can engage in our strength in a legal and political way. We have public power in our hands. We have ‘people power’ to work for the benefit of the people in the community.”

Although activist Rigoberta Menchu did not receive enough votes to remain in the race for President of Guatemala, her effort was celebrated.

“For any Indigenous person to stand up and run for president, it is important. We need to pay attention to it,” Tema said.

“In the case of Rigoberta Menchu, it is an historic event. There has not been an Indigenous person running for president since the establishment of the national government in 1821. There has never been an Indigenous person running for President of Guatemala.”

Meanwhile, MiningWatch Canada reports that the Marlin silver-gold mine was discovered by Francisco Gold and developed by Glamis Gold, through its fully owned subsidiary Montana Exploradora de Guatemala. There has been serious and prolonged protest by Mayan villages in the San Miguel Ixtahuacan, which comprises 19 villages, and Sipacapa, which comprises 13 villages, in Guatemala’s highlands department of San Marcos.

Over the past two years, villages in San Miguel Ixtahuacan have been transformed into an open pit mine, which will eventually encompass five square kilometers. Eighty-five percent of the total expanse of the mine is in San Miguel Ixtahuacan and 15 percent is in Sipacapa.

The municipality of San Miguel Ixtahuacan has a population of 39,000, most of whom are Mam Maya farmers who depend on farming to survive. Before production at the mine began, there were numerous protests.

In 2006, Goldcorp predecessor Glamis paid for workers from its Marlin Mine to participate in pro-mining demonstrations.

Two years ago, when residents of Sipacapa heard about the mine, they organized a referendum (Consulta) using the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169, which affirms the right of Indigenous communities to be consulted in good faith before industrial activity take place on their lands. The people of Sipacapa voted overwhelming against the mine.

Montana Exploradora de Guatemala filed an unconstitutionality suit, as well as an appeal, against the Consulta in 2005. On May 8, 2007, the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled that the Consulta was unconstitutional.

In early 2007, the company offered the municipality a “gift,” of $150,000 CDN. It was refused.

--Goldcorp mining in Indigenous territories in the Americas

Goldcorp has gold mining interests in Indigenous territories, including mines in Canada (Red Lake Complex in northwestern Ontario; Musslewhite in Ontario and Porcupine in northeastern Ontario.)

Goldcorp mining interests include mines in Argentina (Bajo de la Alumbrera), Australia (Peak Gold Mine), Brazil (Amapari mine in the northern state of Anapa), Chile (La Coipa gold and silver mine) Guatemala (Marlin Mine and Cerro Blanco), Dominican Republic (Pueblo Viejo) and Honduras (San Martin Mine.)

In Mexico, Goldcorp’s interest include Los Filos/Bermejal and Nukay mines, both in the state of Guerrero, El Sauzal in Chihuahua in the northern state and Penasquito in Zacatecas.

In the United States, Goldcorp has 66.7 percent interest in the Glamis Marigold Mining Company in Humboldt County, Nevada. Goldcorp owns Wharf open pit gold mine in the Bald Mountain mining district of South Dakota.

The Imperial Project is a proposed open pit gold mining operation in the Imperial Valley in southern California. The Quechan Nation is battling Goldcorp/Glamis Gold over the proposed open pit cyanide leaching gold operation, which would violate their sacred Spirit Trail and a wilderness area.

Please see first in series: "Peru’s Indigenous Peoples arise in defense of Earth from mining"

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

Blueprint for Future Vieques Cleanup Proposed

2007-09-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Contact Information: Elizabeth Totman (212) 637-3662, totman.elizabeth@epa.gov or Brenda Reyes (787) 977-5869, reyes.brenda@epa.gov

(New York, NY) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has signed a proposed federal facility inter-agency agreement (FFA) with several agencies and jurisdictions for the cleanup work on the Island of Vieques in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The proposed agreement is between EPA, the U.S. Department of Navy, U.S. Department of the Interior, and the Commonwealth. The agencies will take input from the public on the agreement for 45 days and make any necessary adjustments before finalizing it.

“Work has been proceeding at the site, but reaching an agreement with all the parties involved is a significant milestone,” said Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg. “The federal government agencies and the Commonwealth are on the same page on how we will move forward, and that will undoubtedly help in cleaning up this site to the benefit of all involved.”

The agreement requires that the environmental impacts associated with past and present activities on Vieques be thoroughly investigated and that the appropriate actions are taken in order to protect the surrounding community and the environment. The agreement will facilitate cooperation, exchange of information, and participation of all the parties involved.

“The Department of the Navy is committed to completing the cleanup of Vieques Island to support its intended future uses,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Donald R. Schregardus. “Completion of this Federal Facility Agreement marks a major milestone in defining the process by which the Navy will work in partnership with EPA, the Department of the Interior, and the Commonwealth to achieve our common goals.”

Carlos W. Lopez Freytes, President of the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board, said, “The Agreement represents an achievement for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico because it guarantees the involvement of the Environmental Quality Board, as co-regulators, on the decision-making process of the cleanup. Our agency is truly committed to having an active participation in order to ensure that the concerns of the community of Vieques are addressed, the local regulations are followed and the cleanup is fair and comprehensive.”

Unexploded ordnance and remnants of exploded ordnance, which contain hazardous substances, have been identified in the former range areas of the eastern portion of the Vieques site, as well as in the surrounding waters. Extensive work has been performed to assess the conditions at the Vieques site as a whole, and today’s proposed agreement lays out the process for further investigation and cleanup.

"We are proud to be part of this team of professionals cleaning up lands in Vieques and restoring the natural environment," said Sam Hamilton, Southeast Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It is our responsibility to ensure that the refuge is cleared of contaminants and hazards that could pose a threat to wildlife, residents, staff or visitors. We will continue to work with the community and our fellow agencies in this monumental effort."
The U.S. Navy began using Vieques, in conjunction with Roosevelt Roads Naval Station on mainland Puerto Rico, in the early years of World War II, as a base for Allied fleets. Land was acquired in the eastern and western portions of Vieques between 1941 and 1943, with further acquisitions occurring during the late 1940s.

On the western portion of Vieques, the Navy operated an ammunition facility until1948, when the facility ceased operations. It was reactivated in 1962 until its final closure in 2001. Later in that year, the Navy transferred 3,100 acres to the Department of Interior, 4,000 acres to the Municipality of Vieques, and 800 acres to the Puerto Rico Conservation Trust.

The Navy also managed approximately 14,600 acres on the eastern portion of Vieques, which were used for amphibious training exercises and air-to-ground maneuvers. This portion of the island included a waste explosive detonation range, which was operated for many years in support of its training activities. Military training on the eastern section of Vieques ceased in 2003 when the Navy transferred that portion to the Department of the Interior.

In February 2005, the Vieques Island site was placed on EPA’s National Priorities List (NPL), which aims to guide the EPA in determining which sites warrant further investigation. The NPL is a list of the most hazardous waste sites in the country.

For a copy of the proposed agreement, to send comments to EPA about the agreement, or for more information on Vieques, visit http://www.epa.gov/region02/vieques/
07-114

Mistake costs dishwasher $59,000

2007-09-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Guatemala native Pedro Zapeta a dishwasher in the U.S. for 11 years
From John Zarrella and Patrick Oppmann
CNN

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- For 11 years, Pedro Zapeta, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, lived his version of the American dream in Stuart, Florida: washing dishes and living frugally to bring money back to his home country.

Two years ago, Zapeta was ready to return to Guatemala, so he carried a duffel bag filled with $59,000 -- all the cash he had scrimped and saved over the years -- to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

But when Zapeta tried to go through airport security, an officer spotted the money in the bag and called U.S. customs officials.

"They asked me how much money I had," Zapeta recalled, speaking to CNN in Spanish.

He told the customs officials $59,000. At that point, U.S. customs seized his money, setting off a two-year struggle for Zapeta to get it back.

Zapeta, who speaks no English, said he didn't know he was running afoul of U.S. law by failing to declare he was carrying more than $10,000 with him. Anyone entering or leaving the country with more than $10,000 has to fill out a one-page form declaring the money to U.S. customs.

Officials initially accused Zapeta of being a courier for the drug trade, but they dropped the allegation once he produced pay stubs from restaurants where he had worked. Zapeta earned $5.50 an hour at most of the places where he washed dishes. When he learned to do more, he got a 25-cent raise.

After customs officials seized the money, they turned Zapeta over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS released him but began deportation proceedings. For two years, Zapeta has had two attorneys working pro bono: one on his immigration case, the other trying to get his money back.

"They are treating me like a criminal when all I am is a working man," he said.
Zapeta's story became public last year on CNN and in The Palm Beach Post newspaper, prompting well-wishers to give him nearly $10,000 -- money that now sits in a trust.

Robert Gershman,one of Zapeta's attorneys, said federal prosecutors later offered his client a deal: He could take $10,000 of the original cash seized, plus $9,000 in donations as long as he didn't talk publicly and left the country immediately.

Zapeta said, "No." He wanted all his money. He'd earned it, he said.

Now, according to Gershman, the Internal Revenue Service wants access to the donated cash to cover taxes on the donations and on the money Zapeta made as a dishwasher. Zapeta admits he never paid taxes.

CNN contacted the U.S. Attorneys office in Miami, U.S. Customs and the IRS about Zapeta's case. They all declined to comment.

Marisol Zequeira, an immigration lawyer, said illegal immigrants such as Zapeta have few options when dealing with the U.S. government.

"When you are poor, uneducated and illegal, your avenues are cut," he said.

On Wednesday, Zapeta went to immigration court and got more bad news. The judge gave the dishwasher until the end of January to leave the country on his own. He's unlikely to see a penny of his money.

"I am desperate," Zapeta said. "I no longer feel good about this country."

Zapeta said his goal in coming to the United States was to make enough money to buy land in his mountain village and build a home for his mother and sisters. He sent no money back to Guatemala over the years, he said, and planned to bring it all home at once.

At Wednesday's hearing, Zapeta was given official status in the United States -- voluntary departure -- and a signed order from a judge. For the first time, he can work legally in the U.S.

By the end of January, Zapeta may be able to earn enough money to pay for a one-way ticket home so the U.S. government, which seized his $59,000, doesn't have to do so.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/immigrant.money/index.html

Bolivian President Evo Morales on Indigenous Rights, Climate Change, Iraq,

2007-09-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Bolivian President Evo Morales on Indigenous Rights, Climate Change, Iraq,
Establishing Diplomatic Relations with Iran, Che Guevara's Legacy and More

Democracy Now!
September 26, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/26/1442242

AMY GOODMAN: Today, a Democracy Now! special: We spend the hour with Evo
Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia. He traveled to New York
this week, where he's scheduled to speak before the United Nations General
Assembly today. On Monday, he addressed a high-level UN meeting on climate
change, during which he accused what he called "predatory capitalism" of
affecting the environment.

Evo Morales first spoke before the UN General Assembly last year, where he
dramatically brandished a coca leaf and vowed never to yield to US pressure
to criminalize coca production. Morales's rise to power began with his
leadership of the coca growers union in Bolivia and his high-profile
opposition to the US-funded eradication of the coca crop. He helped to lead
the street demonstrations by Indian and union groups that toppled the
country's last two presidents.

An Aymara Indian, Evo Morales became the country's first indigenous
president when he was elected nearly two years ago with more popular support
than any Bolivian leader in decades. Since then, he has moved to nationalize
Bolivia's oil and gas industry and is seeking a new constitution that would
grant more power to Bolivia's indigenous majority.

Today, we spend the hour with Evo Morales, talking about indigenous rights,
biofuels, the Iraq war, establishing diplomatic relations with Iran, and the
enduring legacy of Che Guevara on Latin America. Democracy Now!'s Juan
Gonzalez and I sat down with President Morales at the Bolivian mission here
in New York. I began by asking President Morales what his message is this
year to the UN General Assembly.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Last year was our first experience, my
first time at the United Nations, as well as my first time in the United
States. And as the coca leaf stands for and is symbolic of the struggle of
the peoples for land and for their sovereignty, so last time I was here, it
was my responsibility to talk about how it is that I came to become
president of Bolivia.

But today, the most important thing is to talk about the changes that we're
forging in democracy through this cultural and democratic revolution in my
country and at the same time share my enormous concern and to talk about
things that are not just a regional or a local problem, but a global
problem, and that's the environment.

JUAN GONZALEZ: One of the things that has happened, changes, obviously, is
that just a few days ago, more than a week ago, the United Nations General
Assembly passed an important declaration in terms of indigenous rights.
Article 34, specifically, says that indigenous peoples have rights to
promote, develop and maintain their institutional structures and their
customs. How important is this to Bolivia in the current writing of the new
constitution that you're involved in now?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, we'd like to salute, thank
and recognize the countries of the world that approved and voted for this
Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, just as fifty, sixty years
ago, the United Nations for the first time recognized the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. And it's only now, over 500 years later, that
indigenous people's rights are being recognized. Happily, there were only a
few countries that didn't support this declaration.

And so, I want to say to the indigenous peoples, but also to the other
peoples who live in the cities, that this is a very important thing that the
struggle for indigenous people's rights has not been in vain. And it was
very important to get organized to mobilize. It took over twenty years, but,
working together, people were able to do this, to approve this declaration
and establish that we are people that have rights just like anyone else on
earth.

In some cases, it will be to recognize the rights of minorities in some
countries, this declaration. In my country, it's to make sure that the
majority is respected, and it will be respect for their institutions, for
their structures. And this is an important contribution to unity within our
country, but not because we have a declaration behind us recognized by the
United Nations. It's important that, even though this declaration exists,
that doesn't mean that we, as the majority, are going to be vengeful or use
this as the majority.

I want you all to know, through the means of communication like yourself, I
want the people of the United States and the people of the world to
understand that the indigenous movement is not vengeful. We want to live
together, respecting the difference and the diversity that we have. Some of
the people in our country, when they saw that this declaration that came out
that's not just a declaration recognizing indigenous peoples, but also right
to land, to self-determination, they think that we're going to take a
vengeful attitude, and I'm here to say never.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think the message was of the four countries that
voted no: Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] It will be important for not the
countries, but the people who lead those countries, their ambassadors, their
leaders, to reflect and to embrace a recognition of indigenous people's
rights. I'm convinced that indigenous peoples are the moral reserve of
humanity. So amongst indigenous peoples, there's not a mentality of being
individualist, personalist or egotistical, and therefore there's not an
attitude of trying to take over resources and control them for themselves.
How nice it would be if those four countries, or better, for the presidents
of those four countries, and along with the social forces, and especially
the indigenous peoples, join together to save humanity.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But in practical terms, implementing this in your country is
obviously creating many issues. You have thirty-six different nationalities
among the native people. And the battle now, the constitutional battle over
whether you're going to have provincial autonomy or autonomy for these
indigenous nations, how will that work itself out?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, dialogue and concerting,
coming together. You're right, though, when you recognize that there are
some small groups in my country that still don't recognize exclusion and
racism as it exists in our country. And that's why I call on the countries
that not only supported this declaration, but also the countries that didn't
support this declaration, to come together and move forward to recognizing
indigenous people's rights, but without excluding anyone.

My government will guarantee departmental or state-level autonomies, but
also local-level autonomies and indigenous people's autonomies. A lot will
depend on the specificities of these different regions. Sometimes there will
be regional autonomies and local autonomies; sometimes there will be
regional autonomies, as well as indigenous autonomies. And we'll have to
figure out how these different autonomies are going to work together. When
we made our initial demands as indigenous, original peoples, there were
people who reacted to and rejected our demands. But I want to tell these
people now -- and some people are originally from a place that dates back to
a thousand years, some are much more contemporary, but we all have to learn
how to live together.

AMY GOODMAN: Bolivian President Evo Morales. We'll come back to our
conversation in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our conversation with the president of Bolivia,
Evo Morales. He's addressing the United Nations General Assembly today. On
Monday, he addressed a high-level UN meeting on climate change. Over eighty
world leaders attended; President Bush did not. In it, Evo Morales spoke in
his speech on Monday about referring to the need to prevent industrialized
nations with their gas emissions from continuing harming the planet.

Democracy Now!, Juan Gonzalez and I sat down with President Morales at the
Bolivian mission. Juan asked President Morales about the issue of biofuels.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask you about the message that you're going to be
bringing to the United Nations, as well, over the issue of the use of
agricultural products for biofuels, that clearly in Brazil President Lula
has a different perspective. He is promoting the use of biofuels. What is
your perspective on this issue?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] From the time that biofuels were first
talked about, we've seen a spiraling process of speculation of land. There's
a whole speculation on grains like wheat, not only at the regional level
within countries, but also internationally. So, therefore, the cost of
agricultural products rises. And this is a product of that moment from
which, going forward, people have been talking about biofuels.

And personally, in our movement, as well, we're convinced that agricultural
products should not be dedicated, directed towards automobiles, cars, and
that lands be dedicated towards old rusted vehicles. First to people, before
automobiles. And that's our difference.

And we want to debate this, but we don't want to debate it just as
governments or presidents. We want to debate with our peoples, with the
social forces in our countries, and I would even dare to say, at the South
American regional level, submit this to a referendum of the peoples of South
America and let the people say yes or no to different biofuels. This is
something I've learned from Subcomandante Marcos, from his messages -- that
is, to govern obeying the people. That means to govern, but respecting the
different proposals that social forces put on the table, because sometimes
when a proposal is put on the table between presidents, arguments arise, and
this can even generate confusion amongst people sometimes. And that's why I
consider it to be very important that people decide with their votes in a
referendum about what the future biofuels is going to be. That would be the
most democratic thing.

AMY GOODMAN: Mr. President, you've just established diplomatic relations
with Iran. When the Iranian President Ahmadinejad leaves the United Nations
General Assembly, New York, this week, he will first go to Bolivia. Why did
you establish diplomatic relations?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, it's important our peoples
are from the culture of dialogue, so we have diplomatic relations with the
United States, we have diplomatic relations with Cuba, just as we have
diplomatic relations with France and with Iran, but, above all, diplomatic
relations for life, for humanity, for peace with social justice.

In my country, we're going to be opening commercial and diplomatic relations
to establish relationships of complementarity so that we can resolve the
social and economic problems that we confront. We're never going to
establish diplomatic relations to wage aggression or to hurt or to declare
wars or to get involved in arms races. We're not of the culture of death.

Moreover, I respect the technology, the industrial development in the area
of gas and oil in Iran, and that's what we've seen as interesting, that we
can work together on these issues. And I'd like to agree with you. We
haven't ever thought about other issues in our relations. As far as I know,
it's not a country that's sending troops to end other people's lives in
other countries. And I admire Cuba very much, for example, which sends
people to other countries to help save lives.

AMY GOODMAN: Just to follow up on that point, has the United States weighed
in? Has the United States responded to your diplomatic relations with Iran?
And what do you think of the US talking about perhaps attacking Iran?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] The United States, nor any other
country, can observe or comment or have anything to say about the
relationships that we have with any other countries. We're a small country,
but we're a sovereign country with dignity, with the right to establish
relations with whoever we want. If the United States government reacts, if
they would have reacted, it would suggest that they are still thinking that
Latin American countries need to be subordinate to the United States. But
happily, in Latin America, there are countries with democracies that are
liberating democracies, not subordinate democracies.

AMY GOODMAN: Your vice president has denounced US funding of rightwing think
tanks in Bolivia as intervening in internal affairs of your country.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Former ministers and vice minister of
the government of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who, as you know, escaped to
the United States, and the former President Banzer, who, may he rest in
peace, as well as former President Tutu Quiroga, these former ministers are
financed through foundations, NGOs, to create this counterweight to the
government of Evo Morales. It's impressive. And what we're asking for is
that all international cooperation be transparent, that it come through
formally the central government.

AMY GOODMAN: What are those groups pushing for?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, these neoliberals, the
rightwing organizations, the ones who sold out the country, as we say in
Bolivia, is to exhaust the image of Evo Morales especially. And so, if they
have objected, if they want to exhaust Evo Morales, it's to be done with the
government of Evo Morales. And these things circulated on the internet, then
pamphlets, [inaudible]; verbatim they say, "We have to overthrow this Indian
(and leave that blank)," because I can't repeat those words on the radio.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask you about the student protests that broke out
recently there and the continuing battle over writing a new constitution.
It's been more than thirteen months, and the Constituent Assembly, I
understand, now is going to start meeting again. But the battle, especially
over this issue of the capital for Bolivia, what is the significance of the
battle over whether Sucre or La Paz should be the capital of Bolivia?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Bolivia was founded in 1825, and the
people who were participating, they were only 8% of the population; they
were all mestizos or criollos. But who fought for the independence from
Spain? It was that other 92%; it was the indigenous peoples. So we proposed
to re-found the country, indigenous peoples, non-indigenous peoples,
professional peoples, nonprofessional peoples, but to transform the country.
Therefore, there are sectors that are seeking to undermine or make sure that
the Constituent Assembly fails.

The enemies of this deep structural transformation that we're pursuing, some
of them have entered, are members of the Constituent Assembly, and they've
been working from the very beginning, when the Constituent Assembly started
on 6th of August, 2006, to undermine the process through the demand for
two-thirds, the demand for autonomy, and now the demand to move the capital
of the country.

This issue of where the capital is going to be located is not a national
issue. It's not a problem for the government. It's an issue for just two
departments. And there are families that don't love their country and who
are not working for the majorities, who are working for those people who
have not been respected, the indigenous majorities, they're talking about
where the capital is going to be located as a tool to shut down the
Constituent Assembly.

But what are we working for? What are we betting on? First, as the
government and also as the indigenous movement, to make sure that the
Constituent Assembly concludes successfully. It's the best way to find
unity, equality and justice, to forge that in my country.

And I would like to remember the words of a businessman, actually, from
Bolivia. What did he say before the Constituent Assembly? "I'd rather have
rocks in my door than bullets." What does that mean? That I would rather
have these sorts of popular demonstrations and protests happening than a
civil war, a fighting war with bullets.

And now, so that we have neither the protests nor the shooting war with
bullets, we're pursuing this deep structural transformation through a
democratic process, which is the Constituent Assembly. How are we doing
this? Through the creation of writing a new constitution for the country.

Of course, it's going to be difficult to have equality, but to make those
differences between people smaller is possible. Early in the process, only
weeks into the process, they said that Evo Morales was not going to respect
private property. That was another attack, another attempt to undermine and
cause the Constituent Assembly to fail. With the powerful people above, what
we're trying to do is lift up the people, the humble people, from below,
through using the strategic natural resources that we have to put them on a
more equal footing.

And the other thing that they can't accept is, how is it that what they call
the Indians, that they feel for the country and they're working for their
people and that this Indian is governing well? This is something they can't
tolerate. Two facts: the last time that Bolivia had a budget surplus was in
the 1960s during a boom, a tin boom, and we've been over sixty years always
with a fiscal deficit. Last year, for the first time, in my first year of
government, we have a budget surplus, and Bolivia's international reserves
never were more than $1 billion. And this year we're approaching $5 billion
in international reserves. And the modification of the hydrocarbons gas and
oil law, which cost us blood, thereafter the nationalization of gas and oil,
has allowed Bolivia to improve our revenues, the revenues for the country.
An example: in 2005, Bolivia only received $300 million -- $300 million in
2005 in revenues from state gas and oil, and this year we're going to be
receiving more than $2 billion in revenues from gas and oil. And this is
something they can't accept.

A political class, for them, government was business. It was enrichment.
What they can't accept is that our corruption in Bolivia has been declining.
In the past, Bolivia was considered in the number two position in terms of
the championship for the most corrupt country. Many international
institutions have recognized that corruption is on the decline in Bolivia.
And what these groups don't accept is that this -- what they call an
"Indian" can change Bolivia, bring dignity to Bolivia.

And in this situation, some sectors are talking about the re-election of Evo
Morales, and so this is something that would have to be become
constitutionally permitted. But what do the right, the neoliberal, the
opposition, say to this? And they say we can negotiate anything, but not the
re-election of this Indian. This is the problem. It's not a problem of where
the capital of the country is located. And, of course, they never liked
groups like the ones that you make reference to that will travel from Santa
Cruz to Sucre to agitate, to stir up these issues.

AMY GOODMAN: Bolivian President Evo Morales. We'll return to the conclusion,
where he talks about the war in Iraq and the legacy of Che Guevara. Stay
with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to our conversation with the Bolivian President Evo
Morales. The Bolivian Supreme Court recently asked the government to start
extradition proceedings for the former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de
Lozada, who lives here in the United States in Miami. They also asked for an
order for him not to be allowed to go to another country, but to be sent
back to Bolivia. I asked President Morales what the former president is
guilty of and whether he thinks the United States will extradite him.

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, the United States cannot,
should not receive, protect delinquents from any part of the world. It is
unconscionable that the United States, a democratic country, would be
protecting international criminals like Posada Carriles. The process has to
do with two issues: first of all, human rights, and second of all, for
economic damages done to the state. So people who massacre peoples, that
violate human rights and do economic damage to countries and their economies
have to go to jail. The United States shouldn't be sitting there waiting for
a process to be put into motion, but rather should kick these people out so
that they can be submitted to justice.

I hope the United States respects these norms and respects the decision of
our Supreme Court. But here, we have an experience. The last military
dictator was sent to jail. And since that time, in Bolivia, no member of the
military dares to threaten a coup d'etat. Likewise, any democratic
government that violates human rights, that massacres people or that does
economic damage to the state should also be subject to these sorts of
processes, and their leaders should be put in jail, so that they never dare
to do it again either.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. President, you said a few moments ago that you'd rather
have protesters throwing rocks than using guns. In a few weeks, it will be
the fortieth anniversary of the death of Che Guevara. He died in Bolivia.
Looking back at it -- you were a child then -- what is your sense of the
legacy of Che Guevara to the people of Latin America?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] First of all, in the '40s, in the '50s,
in the '60s -- of course, when I hadn't been born yet -- my first perception
was that people rose up in arms to struggle against the empire. Now, I see
quite the opposite, that it's the empire that's raising up arms against the
peoples. What I think is that back then, that the peoples, they got
organized and struggled, looking for justice, for equality. And now I think
that these transformations, these structural transformations, are being
forged through democracies.

And from these two points of view, Che Guevara continues to be a symbol of
someone who gave his life for the peoples, when in Bolivia and in other
countries around the world reigned military dictatorships. So that's why
it's amazing to see that all over the world Che Guevara is still there,
forty years later. But now, we're living in other times. But to value and
recognize that thinking, that struggle, and if we recognize and we value it,
that doesn't mean it means to mechanically follow the steps that he took in
terms of military uprising.

And that's where, for example, I respect Fidel Castro. In 2003, I was
invited to a conference in Havana, Cuba. And Fidel said the following:
"Don't do what I've done. Do what Chavez is doing: transformations through a
constituent assembly." I think it was a good teaching, because we've seen
the constituent assemblies in Venezuela, in Ecuador and now in Bolivia, as
well, that through democracy we can achieve structural transformations.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the effect of the war on Iraq in Latin America, in
Bolivia, in particular?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] There is a feeling that leads to the
rejection, the repudiation of the United States government. This
intervention of the United States in Iraq helps anti-imperialist thinking
and feeling to grow. The pretext of fighting against terrorism and for
security, with this pretext, they intervene and create all these deaths. But
there are also other issues, economic issues, underlying it. I feel that
we're in a times of not looking to how to extinguish lives, but rather how
to save lives.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask you about the issue of global warming. It's
become a major increasing discussion in many governments and around the
world. From the perspective of the indigenous people of Bolivia, the future
of the planet? And what policies must be adopted, especially by the
industrialized countries?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] So if globalization does not admit
difference and pluralism, if it's a selective globalization, therefore it
will be almost impossible to resolve environmental issues and save humanity.
The most important contribution that indigenous peoples can make is to live
in harmony with Mother Earth. We say the "Mother Earth," because the earth
gives us life, and neither the Mother Earth nor life can be a commodity. So
we're talking about a profound change in the economic models and systems.

AMY GOODMAN: Several years ago, Father Roy Bourgeois and others who founded
the anti-School of the Americas movement at Fort Benning, Georgia, asked
that -- came and visited you in the palace and asked that Bolivia not send
soldiers to train at the -- what used to be called the School of the
Americas, a place where Banzer, the dictator, had trained. Other countries
are considering this ban. I think Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica
have said they won't send soldiers. Will Bolivia?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] So, it's not just a question of not
sending people. Perhaps it would be better to shut the School of the
Americas. But I understand it's also part of the survival and continuation
of [inaudible] and to create a certain interventionist mindset.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to ask you perhaps a delicate question. You
mentioned earlier your admiration for Fidel Castro. Fidel, before he stepped
down, had been president for more than forty years, before he stepped down
from day-to-day administration in the Cuban government. President Chavez now
has been in office for two terms and is seeking to change the law to
maintain himself in office. Do you think that the leader of a country, no
matter how progressive, should have a limited amount of time in power?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] To put those kinds of limits may not be
the most democratic. Here, what's important is the conscience of a people.
And so, our proposal, there has to be a way to revoke leadership roles, but
also to ratify leadership, and this is for mayors, for governors, for
regional leaders, as well as for presidents. If they have the support of the
people, then they have every right to be ratified in power. And mayors,
governors and presidents, they can also be revoked, their mandates can be
revoked before they finish their terms, if that's the will of the people. In
fact, I'm seeing at this point that, through ratifying and returning people
to power, it actually becomes an incentive for them to do a good -- and
continue to do a good and better job in their municipalities at the
departmental levels in the positions that they hold, because the people have
valued their work, and that's why they're ratified. But when they are not
ratified, they take advantage of that fact, and they say, "OK, I'm on my way
out the door, so now is the time to steal, as my mandate is ending."

AMY GOODMAN: What is your assessment of President Bush?

PRESIDENT EVO MORALES: [translated] Why would I have to evaluate President
Bush? I respect your country. One concern that I have is that in Iran -- in
Iraq, the massacre of the people cannot continue. I think that this is
something that not only affects President Bush, but affects all the North
American people. I think that in this new millennium, we fundamentally
should be oriented towards saving lives and not ending lives. The
differences continentally between countries, between regions, these should
be discussed. And if there's not agreements between governments and their
presidents, why not submit these issues to the peoples to be decided upon?
This would be the best way to do democracy now.

AMY GOODMAN: Bolivian President Evo Morales. He speaks today to the UN
General Assembly.