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http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=13178
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Bill Gates wants to meet Bolivian President Morales
La Paz: Microsoft founder Bill Gates asked to meet Bolivian President Evo Morales as he thanked the indigenous leader for supporting the launch of a Quechua-language Windows operating system.
"I am excited to know that our campaign is contributing to your government's plan" to promote education and economic improvements among Bolivia's mainly Quechua-speaking ethnic groups, the software billionaire wrote to Morales in a letter.
Microsoft in August presented the Bolivian government with a version of its Windows operating system in Quechua, South America's most prevalent language before Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World brought the introduction of now-prevalent Spanish and Portuguese.
In the letter, Gates offered Microsoft's help "in the goal of providing all of Bolivia's people access" to the Internet and modern technology, La Razon reported.
He also told Morales, 46, a populist leftist elected president in January with the heavy support from Bolivia's indigenous groups, that he hoped "I have the chance in future of getting to know you."
La Razon said sources in the president's office said there was interest in holding a meeting between the two in February.
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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0611/S00398.htm
Tuesday, 21 November 2006, 2:11 pm
New Zealand's growing relationship with Chile
Press Release: New Zealand Government
Rt Hon Helen Clark
Prime Minister of New Zealand
21 November 2006 Media Statement
New Zealand's growing relationship with Chile
Prime Minister Helen Clark said today that a new agreement on business links and a new initiative on science co-operation are being signed during the visit of the President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet. As well, the New Zealand Government is announcing an extension of its Working Holiday Scheme for Chile. Helen Clark said that New Zealand and Chile enjoy a warm relationship which is growing in significance.
"The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (P4) between New Zealand, Chile, Singapore, and Brunei, was able to enter into force for Chile earlier this month. It has been the catalyst for increased contact with Chile in many fields.
"Today, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise and its counterpart, the Chilean Economic Development Agency (CORFO) will sign a “Strategic Alliance” Arrangement between the two agencies.
"The alliance's objectives include promoting the involvement of a significant number of New Zealand businesses in Chile through investment, joint ventures, and licensing agreements by 2010, and using NZTE and CORFO programmes and funds to facilitate bilateral commercial partnerships.
"Also today, the New Zealand Crown Research Institute, Industrial Research Ltd, and Chile's National Commission for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICYT), will sign a document during President Bachelet's visit to IRL signalling their intent to organise a science and business colloquium.
"The colloquium will identify and develop proposals for specific research projects and commercialisation opportunities. This initiative is being pursued under the Arrangement on Scientific, Research, and Technological Co-operation signed in 2002 between our Ministry of Research, Science, and Technology and CONICYT."
Helen Clark said that New Zealand places great value on its Working Holiday Scheme with Chile, and it has proved immensely popular with young Chileans.
"As fast as we have opened up places, they have been quickly filled. The original allocation of 200 places in New Zealand in 2001 was increased to 400 in 2004, and 500 this year. When applications were opened on 1 October for the coming year, all 500 were snapped up in the first three weeks.
"Today I am announcing that New Zealand is increasing the number of places again to a total of 1000 each year for Chile to help meet this demand.
Helen Clark said the two countries are also strengthening links in the education sector.
"The Ministry of Education has already funded experts to travel to Chile in 2005 to present at an English as second language conference and in 2006 to an early childhood education conference. Another New Zealand speaker will attend a conference in Santiago on how to institutionalise accountability and quality assurance mechanisms in education.
"In addition, a Chilean Education Ministry delegation is expected to visit New Zealand next March.
"Next year, a New Zealand Education Counsellor will be appointed to our embassy in Santiago to foster tertiary education links and identify education related policies, programmes, and commercial opportunities where New Zealand can interact with Chile.
"I am also delighted that Chile intends to accept New Zealanders as part of its English language volunteers’ programme. This is an initiative based on a pilot volunteers’ programme which saw US students paid a living costs stipend in return for assisting with English language activities in public schools," Helen Clark said.
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http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-239/0611209373224053.htm
Tuesday November 21, 2006
EU congratulates Ortega on election victory
Brussels, Nov 20, IRNA EU-Nicaragua
The European Union congratulated Monday Daniel Ortega for his recent election as the President of Nicaragua and underlined the European bloc's determination to boost relations with the Central American country.
"The European Union notes with satisfaction the high turnout of voters, demonstrating the commitment to a peaceful and democratic process by the people of Nicaragua," said a statement by the current Finnish EU Presidency.
The statement expressed EU's support for the future development of the country, and emphasised its determination to continue the close and constructive cooperation with Nicaragua.
"The European Union is confident that the new administration will pursue vigorously the continuation of macroeconomic stability and poverty alleviation, underlining the importance of respect for human rights and international human rights agreements, good governance and the fight against corruption," it added.
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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=reutersEdge&storyID=2006-11-20T160951Z_01_N20360423_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECONOMY-NICARAGUA-BONDS.xml
Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:10 AM ET
Wall St pins hopes on reformed Nicaragua Marxist
By Manuela Badawy
New York (Reuters) - Nicaragua, the second poorest country in Latin America, could be the next investment opportunity for those tolerant to risk as President-elect Daniel Ortega, a former Marxist leader, has pledged to maintain a stable economy.
Ortega, a former Sandinista guerrilla leader whose Marxist policies under his regime in the 1980s drove the country into civil war and economic shambles, won the presidency earlier this month. His victory stoked fears among analysts and investors he could drive the economy back to hyper-inflation.
But Ortega is likely to be a more pragmatic leader after learning from past mistakes, analysts say, and this approach could be the green light for investors looking for high-risk high-reward assets such as the country's Property Indemnity Bonds (BPI).
"He says he has learned his lesson and he is more likely to be practical in his approach to policies," said Stuart Culverhouse, chief economist at Exotix Limited, a London-based brokerage firm specializing in illiquid bonds.
"He could see what happened in other governments across the region and knows that he needs to maintain market discipline to attract investors," Culverhouse said.
Ortega, 60, knows he must maintain good relations with multilateral lenders and foreign aid donors as the government's income depends on it. He already has met officials from the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank and promised macroeconomic stability.
If Ortega continues in this vein, investors could see the government-issued BPI bonds as an opportunity to enter a market not well known to many, analysts said.
THE NOT SO WELL KNOWN BONDS
The BPI bonds or "land bonds" are compensation for assets expropriated under Ortega's Sandinista rule between 1979 and 1990, and currently some offer a yield of around 19 percent.
The bonds, first issued in 1993 and sold every February since, have a total outstanding amount of $800 million and a 15-year maturity. The Congress recently approved to increase the amount of bonds to $1.1 billion.
The bonds are denominated in Cordoba currency
Depending on the maturity, amount outstanding and liquidity, yields on these bonds generally range between 11 and 19 percent and have risen since the election results amid uncertainty over Ortega's stance. Yet investors are showing increased interest in the credit.
"They (BPIs) have fallen through the cracks because these are not global bonds, because people still have memories of Nicaragua's civil war, and because up to few years ago it had a public debt of over 200 percent of gross domestic product," said Franco Uccelli, emerging markets analyst at Bear Stearns.
IMPROVING FROM BELOW
Nicaragua remains highly vulnerable to fluctuating international commodity prices and natural disasters, but due to a rapid economic expansion of its main trading partners and a surge in family remittances, the country has experienced a rebound.
The country is the second poorest in the Americas after Haiti with a per capita GDP of around $3,300 on a purchasing power parity basis. However, thanks to the $850 million in remittances in 2005 from Nicaraguan migrant workers the current account deficit held at around 16 percent of GDP.
Nicaragua has qualified for IMF and World Bank debt relief packages in the last two years which together are expected to provide some $6 billion over time, roughly equal to the country's total external debt outstanding at the end of 2005, Moody's credit agency said in a report.
Barring a major reversal on the political front, the ratio of public sector to GDP is expected to fall to 111 percent in 2006 and 100 percent by end of 2007 according to Moody's, or to half the level of 2003.
"The country had tremendous debt relief, the challenge is to improve the investment climate so that investors, domestic and foreign, can take advantage of the reasonably strong macro environment, relatively low interest rates, and sound fiscal policy," said Richard Segal, chief strategist at ARGO Capital Management in London.
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http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1881
Monday, Nov 20, 2006
In Nicaragua: Chavez 1, Bush 0
By: Greg Grandin - PostGlobal
Both Hugo Chavez and George Bush made it clear who they wanted to be Nicaragua's next president. But Chavez never threatened to punish Nicaraguans if they didn't vote his way. Unlike Washington, Caracas offered all carrot and no stick. Their different approaches speak volumes to why the U.S. is so distrusted in Latin America.
Both Hugo Chavez and George Bush made it clear who they wanted to win last week's presidential election in Nicaragua: the first backed Daniel Ortega, the ex-guerrilla and Sandinista leader; the second, conservative banker Eduardo Montealegre. But the difference in the way each supported their candidate says much as to why the United States is so distrusted in Latin America.
Venezuela helped Ortega by selling cheap oil with long-term, low-interest credit to Nicaraguan municipalities, a popular move since the country is gripped by a severe energy crisis. Caracas also donated tons of fertilizer and provided free eye surgery to hundreds of cataract patients.
Chavez's critics pointed out this aid was nothing compared with what Washington gives Nicaragua, more than a billion dollars since Ortega was voted out of office in 1990. But roughly half of this aid goes just to keeping Nicaragua's bankrupted economy afloat, either in the form of debt relief or covering currency shortfalls, which in effect works as a subsidy to U.S. creditors and exporters, thus limiting its PR value. And of course this money pales in comparison to many billions of dollars of damage that Washington caused in Nicaragua with its devastating Contra War. In fact, the U.S. conditioned its financial assistance on Nicaragua abandoning its attempt to collect the estimated $17 billion that the World Court, in 1986, ordered Washington to pay to Managua as reparations for waging its illegal war against the country.
But the real difference is that Chavez never threatened to punish Nicaraguans if they didn't vote as he hoped they would. Caracas offers all carrot and no stick.
The Bush administration, in contrast, warned that an Ortega victory could bring aid cuts and trade sanctions, while Congressional Republicans said that they would pass legislation prohibiting Nicaraguans living in the U.S. from sending money home. Nicaragua is the hemisphere's second poorest country, and very heavily dependent on foreign aid and remittances; and such retaliation, if enacted, would be ruinous.
That Washington reserves this kind of intimidation only for small and powerless nations like Nicaragua as opposed to a country like Mexico, where it was careful not to intervene in last summer's election, only serves to reinforce the opinion of many Latin Americans that the U.S. is a bully.
Nicaraguans, having suffered multiple U.S. interventions throughout the twentieth century, are used to such threats. George H.W. Bush let it be known that if Ortega were to win the 1990 election, the Contra War would resume. In every vote since then, Washington has leaned on Nicaragua to keep the Sandinistas out of office.
So why didn't such heavy-handedness work this time? The White House and its allies blame Chavez for interfering in the country's electoral process. Yet compared to the U.S.'s domination of the country's economy, Venezuela's influence in Nicaragua is negligible. The simple fact is that Ortega is the single most popular politician in Nicaragua and the Sandinistas the largest political organization. And the reason for this popularity is Washington's absolute failure, after winning the Contra War to deliver on its thunderous promises to bring Nicaraguans humane development.
Jeane Kirkpatrick is one of those foreign-policy hawks who blame Chavez for Ortega's comeback. In the 1980s, as Ronald Reagan's ambassador to the UN Kirkpatrick defended the Contra War as part of a broader foreign policy that would both "protect U.S. interest and make the actual lives of actual people in Latin America somewhat better." Nicaraguans are still waiting for the second half of that pledge to be fulfilled.
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Greg Grandin is a professor at NYU. He's the author of the recently published Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism.
http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Workshop-America-United-Imperialism/dp/0805077383
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Original source / relevant link:
Washington Post PostGlobal
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2006/11/chavez_v_bush_in_nicaragua.html
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http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art10.html
20 November, 2006
Cuba Eye Surgery Program Nears Half Million Miracles
Almost half a million people from 28 nations have benefited from Operation Miracle, a highly successful program started by Cuba that provides free surgery to low income patients.
A report issued by the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and presented at a recent parliamentary hearing informed that a total of 485,476 patients have been operated on including 290,000 Venezuelans.
The legislators heard about the progress of Operation Miracle, included in the agreements under the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which promotes solidarity and mutually beneficial social and economic development.
Elia Rosa Lemus, an official at the Health ministry, presented the data at a plenary session of the legislature.
Operation Miracle, created by Cuba and supported by Venezuela, has turned into a giant humanitarian campaign.
The initial eye operations took place exclusively at Cuban hospitals, but with the objective of extending the program, similar surgical facilities were set up in other nations, always under the supervision of Cuban medical personnel.
Today, 13 ophthalmologic centers are in service in Venezuela, and similar facilities are providing services in Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and Bolivia.
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TX_TRUCK_BODIES_TXOL-?SITE=TXELP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Nov 20, 2006 @4:02 PM EST
Truck driver not aware of immigrants' suffering, attorneys argue
By Juan A. Lozano / Associated Press Writer
Houston (AP) -- Attorneys for a truck driver accused in the nation's deadliest smuggling attempt tried Monday to discredit a key prosecution witnesses to show their client couldn't hear the immigrants' cries from his packed trailer until it was too late.
Tyrone Williams' attorneys have also said their client didn't know other smuggling ring members overfilled his stifling trailer in May 2003. The smuggling attempt from South Texas to Houston became the nation's deadliest after 19 illegal immigrants died from the deadly heat in the container.
Williams' attorneys highlighted inconsistent statements made by Fatima Holloway, who rode in the cab with Williams. Holloway has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case and is out on bond.
Holloway, who earlier in the trial testified Williams didn't respond to her pleading to free the immigrants even as they loudly banged on the walls of the trailer, reiterated on Monday that she heard the immigrants banging on the walls of the trailer.
"It was loud. It was like that," said Holloway, who then demonstrated by hitting the witness stand with her fist. "It would stop and then they would do it again off and on during the trip."
But Steven Greenwell, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, testified that when Holloway was first questioned by him and another agent shortly after the smuggling attempt, she said she heard a bumping noise, not banging.
"In my mind, there is a difference between a bumping noise and a banging noise," he said.
Greenwell also told jurors that Holloway had told him that during the smuggling attempt, Williams made three calls to other smuggling ring members, wanting to know how many people had been placed in his trailer.
Holloway testified Monday that Williams only made one such call and that was after he had abandoned the trailer at a truck stop near Victoria, about 100 miles southwest of Houston.
Earlier in the trial, Holloway testified the immigrants rocked the trailer back and forth in an attempt to get Williams' attention and that he never turned on his vehicle's air conditioning unit during the trip. Temperatures in the trailer skyrocketed and the immigrants were forced to peel off their clothes as their body temperatures rose to as high as 113 degrees.
At the truck stop, 17 people were dead of dehydration, overheating and suffocation. Two more wouldn't survive.
Carlos Sierra, one of the smuggling attempt's survivors, testified he didn't remember the immigrants rocking the trailer back and forth. Sierra told jurors he felt cool air in the trailer just before the doors were opened but didn't hear the air conditioning unit. Other survivors called by Williams' attorneys have testified the unit was turned on during the trip.
Williams, 35, a Jamaican citizen who lived in Schenectady, N.Y., is the only one of 14 people charged in the case who is facing the death penalty.
A jury convicted Williams last year on 38 transporting counts, but a federal appeals court threw out the decision, saying it didn't count because the panel failed to specify his role.
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http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_4690439
Article Launched:11/20/2006 12:00:00 AM MST
Immigrant shelter not busy enough to stay open
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Email= lgilot@elpasotimes.com ; 546-6131.
JUAREZ - Due to a lack of clients, a Juárez shelter catering to immigrants closed shop this year for the first time in its 17-year history.
Casa de la Peregrina in downtown Juárez, operated by the El Paso charity Annunciation House, has been closed all of this year.
The shelter, a haven for women migrants and their children before they crossed into the United States or after they were deported from the United States, opened in 1989.
It had never been closed for more than two or three months at a time, usually for maintenance or when there weren't enough volunteers to run it, said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House.
But last year, "The number of people in migration was so very low and we did not want to see Casa Peregrina evolve into another kind of shelter because we wanted to continue with the work we've historically done," Garcia said.
The number of immigrants apprehended in the El Paso sector remained steady last year at 122,256.
However, experts said that increased border security has changed the logistics of illegal immigration in that more immigrants are hiring smugglers rather than trying to cross on their own. Smugglers usually have networks of safe houses and motels, and don't rely on shelters.
In a long-running poll of recently deported migrants along the border, researchers at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte found that in 1993, only 15 percent of immigrants used a smuggler.
In 2004, the most recent data compiled, 40 percent used a smuggler.
Officials at the largest shelter for immigrants in Juárez, Casa del Migrante, also reported a dwindling number of guests. Casa del Migrante, which remains open, is located near the Zaragoza Bridge and is not easily accessible without a car.
Casa Peregrina was the first shelter in Juárez to house immigrant men and women. Later, it became a women and children-only shelter and welcomed many wives who had moved to Juárez from the interior of Mexico only to be abandoned when their husbands continued north without them.
The house, built around a courtyard, had 40 beds in dormitories and private rooms, but children often slept several in one bed. Young Catholic volunteers came to work at Casa Peregrina from around the United States.
Garcia said the shelter could be reopened if the need arises again.
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003439911_webcokesub20.html
Monday, November 20, 2006
Costa Rica catches homemade sub carrying 3 tons of cocaine
By Marianela Jimenez / The Associated Press
San Jose, Costa Rica – Tipped off by three plastic pipes mysteriously skimming the ocean's surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica's Pacific coast.
Four men traveled inside the 50-foot wood and fiberglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The craft sailed along at about 7 mph, just six feet beneath the surface, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said Sunday.
The submarine was spotted Friday 103 miles off the coast near Cabo Blanco National Park on the Nicoya peninsula.
"This is the first time in the country's history that a craft with these characteristics has been caught near the national coasts," Berrocal said in a statement.
U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, FBI and Colombian officials aided Costa Rican authorities in the operation, Berrocal said.
Two Colombians, a Guatemalan and a Sri Lankan were arrested and taken to the United States, since they were captured in international waters, Berrocal said.
Officials took the submarine to a Costa Rican Coast Guard station and were trying to determine its origins, the Security Ministry said. It was found with several tanks of gas, but Costa Rican authorities said the vessel, which had a bailer to keep out water, probably did not travel far.
So far this year, Costa Rican authorities have seized 18 tons of cocaine.
In March, the Colombian navy seized a 60-foot fiberglass submarine that likely was used to haul tons of cocaine out to speedboats in the Pacific Ocean for transportation to Central America and on to the United States. Three people were arrested and two speedboats seized during the operation, but no drugs were found.
Colombian authorities say smuggling cocaine by sea has become the top method of transport in recent years, as radar systems have made it difficult to smuggle drugs in small airplanes.
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http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art100.html
20 November, 2006
Mexico’s Other President Takes Office
Mexico.— Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes office Monday as Mexico’s "legitimate president" and a National Democratic Convention of his political force will be held with thousands of police monitoring the events.
Joel Ortega, the Mexico City secretary of Public Security said that several streets will be closed adjacent to El Zocalo square, where Lopez Obrador will be sworn in by his supporters.
According to the Spanish news agency EFE, the Police have their hands full Monday as they will also be guarding activities for the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution at several localities of Mexico City.
Lopez Obrador expects around a million people to his presidential inauguration where he will announce new actions of "peaceful civic resistance" and opposition to what he considers the illegitimate government of Felipe Calderon, set to take office on December 1.
Some observers point out that the ascension of Lopez Obrador will have a "mere symbolic character, without any legal strength," but others contend it poses a real challenge to Felipe Calderon, outgoing president Vicente Fox and institutional order.
Leaders of Lopez Obrador´s Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) will bestow him with the presidential sash, an act that some lawyers consider "a crime of usurpation of power."
Lopez Obrador, the PRD candidate in the July 2 Mexican presidential elections, denounced massive electoral fraud orchestrated by Fox, Calderon and "other representatives of the Mexican right."
The highest Mexican electoral authorities refused to recount the votes as demanded by Lopez Obrador and his supporters, despite widespread irregularities in the vote tally procedure and Calderon’s razor thin "victory."
Lopez Obrador, legislators that back him and his followers have vowed to block Calderon from assuming the Mexican presidency in an official ceremony slated to take place on December 1 in the presence of foreign dignitaries.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6166908.stm
Monday, 20 November 2006, 23:58 GMT
Obrador 'inauguration' in Mexico
The defeated left-wing candidate in Mexico's presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has held an unofficial swearing-in ceremony. During his "inauguration" in Mexico City, Mr. Lopez Obrador said he was launching a "parallel government".
He claims he was the victim of fraud in July's election - a view shared by millions of Mexicans.
But some of his supporters think his alternative inauguration is ill-advised and politically irresponsible.
In the presidential election, Mr Lopez Obrador was defeated by less than a percentage point by Felipe Calderon of the governing National Action Party (PAN). He was sworn in by Senator Rosario Ibarra, a member of his party, who placed a red, green and white presidential sash across his shoulders.
"I swear to honour and fulfil the constitution as legitimate president," Mr Lopez Obrador told thousands of supporters in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main square.
Real support: Mr Lopez Obrador has promised he will do everything he can to hamper the government of Mr Calderon, who succeeds President Vicente Fox on 1 December.
"Those neo-fascist reactionaries better not think they'll have room to manoeuvre," he told his supporters on Saturday.
"We're going to keep them on a short leash."
Although Mr Lopez Obrador has enough of a support base to be able to create a mass civil disobedience movement, some analysts think that his campaign will be, at best, a thorn in the Mr Calderon's side.
The BBC's Americas editor Will Grant says many Mexicans are tired of conflict and long for a return to normality.
Some of Mr Lopez Obrador's advisors privately agree that it would be the politically expedient move, especially with an eye on any future presidential bid, our correspondent says.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061121/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_dual_presidents_5
Monday, November 20, 2006
Unelected Mexican leftist claims office
By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer
Mexico City - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a parallel government Monday and swore himself in as Mexico's "legitimate" president, a ceremony the leftist hopes will keep alive his protests to undermine the man who defeated him at the polls.
The inauguration ceremony is the latest chapter in Lopez Obrador's unsuccessful battle for the presidency. He claims fraud and dirty campaign tactics were responsible for President-elect Felipe Calderon's narrow victory in the July 2 vote, and his parallel government could spend the next six years calling for street protests that have already dented the economy and prompted travel warnings from the U.S. Embassy.
While the red-green-and-white presidential sash draped across Lopez Obrador's shoulders Monday lacks legal recognition, he hopes to assume the moral leadership of millions of poor Mexicans.
Based in Mexico City, Lopez Obrador's parallel government has its own Cabinet, but it will not collect taxes or make laws and will rely on donations to carry out its plans.
"I swear to honor and fulfill the constitution as the legitimate president," Lopez Obrador said to tens of thousands of supporters in Mexico City's main plaza, the Zocalo.
He said his first action would be to hold a plebescite on the drafting of a new constitution that would demand fairness and plurality in the media and combat business monopolies.
Lopez Obrador also said he would cancel the generous pensions of former presidents and would propose an audit of the Treasury Department "because the privileged of Mexico ... don't pay taxes and when they do pay them, they get them back later."
Another goal will be trying to prevent Calderon's Dec. 1 inauguration.
"We're not going to give the right free rein," Lopez Obrador said in the southeastern state of Veracruz this weekend. "We're going to confront it."
Supporters who gathered in the Zocalo on Monday carried signs lashing out against not only Calderon but the Roman Catholic Church, the mainstream media and rival leftists such as Zapatista rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos, who repeatedly criticized Lopez Obrador during the campaign.
"We are going to make Calderon realize at all times that he is an illegitimate leader," said 55-year-old Beatriz Zuniga, an unemployed professor of Latin American studies. "He's got a limited amount of time. This man will not finish his term."
Marco Ramirez, 34, a university researcher watching the crowd from a sidewalk cafe, said he believed many of the demonstrators were receiving money from the Mexico City government, which is run by Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party.
"This affects the country's image," he said. "It puts out a very bad image."
It remains to be seen whether Lopez Obrador can keep up the momentum. Some members of his leftist Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, have already expressed disagreement with Lopez Obrador's strategy of using Congress — where the PRD is now the second-largest force — as an arena for protests rather than negotiations.
Writing in the Mexico City daily Reforma, columnist Armando Fuentes described Lopez Obrador's "swearing in" ceremony as "laughable" and "a circus act, a farce."
But Oscar Aguilar, a political science professor at the Iberoamerican University, cautioned that the leftist could successfully undermine Calderon.
"The problem is that he's not a Don Quixote because the social and political conditions are fertile ground for this kind of leadership," Aguilar said. "Many of the poor ... see this type of leadership as a solution."
Leftist protesters have demonstrated in the southern city of Oaxaca for months, demanding the governor's ouster, despite the presence of federal police. Many worry that Lopez Obrador will follow suit and renew street protests in central Mexico City, which his supporters blockaded for nearly two months this summer following the election.
Some citizens appear to be tiring of political unrest.
This month, Mexico City was rattled when several bombs exploded at political offices and banks. No one was injured, and a small, radical group not tied to Lopez Obrador claimed responsibility.
The violence has affected one of the country's main sources of income. Revenue from tourism was down 4.3 percent in the first nine months of 2006, as compared to 2005.
President Vicente Fox cautioned in a speech Monday that "the electoral process is the path that Mexicans have to preserve a peaceful, orderly, civilized and pluralistic public and political life."
Some of Lopez Obrador's closest aides have suggested they will follow Bolivia's example and try to use protests to force Calderon from office, as demonstrators did with a succession of leaders there. Lopez Obrador has not ruled that out.
"Nobody wants violence in our country, but there are people who give grounds for violence," Lopez Obrador said last week. "There are a lot of people who say that, after July 2, the path of electoral politics in no longer viable."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_dual_presidents_1
Mon Nov 20, 2006 @4:15 AM ET
Mexico's Lopez Obrador to be sworn in
By Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer
Mexico City - Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has toured the country as if taking a victory lap. He's named a Cabinet and called for donations to fund his government.
Now the fiery leftist plans to be sworn in as the country's "legitimate president" on Monday as the country celebrates its 1910 revolution — thumbing his nose at the country's highest electoral court, which declared conservative Felipe Calderon the presidential election winner by less than 1 percentage point.
Based in Mexico City, the parallel government will not try to collect taxes or make laws. It will have one objective: to hamper Calderon during his six-year term that begins Dec. 1. His supporters have pledged to block Calderon's swearing-in ceremony before the Mexican Congress, although they have not announced how they plan to do so.
"We're not going to give the right free rein," Lopez Obrador said in a final stop in the southeastern state of Veracruz this weekend. "We're going to confront it."
According to Lopez Obrador's Web site, the campaign has opened bank accounts where Mexicans can donate money for his parallel government.
But it remains to be seen whether the man who claims the elections were tainted to favor the rich can keep up momentum.
Besieged by protests since the disputed July 2 presidential elections, many Mexicans are tired of political strife.
The upheaval has taken a heavy toll on the country's tourism industry, one of Mexico's main income generators. According to Mexico Tourism Department, the number of foreign tourists visiting the country between January and September of 2006 was down 4.3 percent from the same period in 2005.
The U.S. State Department has urged travelers to exercise caution while visiting Mexico and to avoid the southern city of Oaxaca, where a leftist protest not directly related to the presidential dispute has created chaos.
Columnist Rene Aviles called on Calderon to put things in order when he takes office. President Vicente Fox has been criticized for his hands-off approach to the conflicts.
"If Calderon wants to govern without so many blunders, he should start with a firm hand," Aviles wrote in the Mexico City newspaper Excelsior on Sunday.
Lopez Obrador also faces a challenge in uniting his Democratic Revolution Party. Some within Mexico's main leftist party have started to distance themselves from his civil resistance campaign, fearing they will lose support.
Others say Mexico needs strong action to focus more attention on its millions of poor and Lopez Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor, is the man to do that.
Lopez Obrador's platform resonated with many Mexicans, forcing the business-friendly Calderon from Fox's conservative National Action Party to take note. He has borrowed heavily from ideas in Lopez Obrador's legislative agenda, including calling for universal health care.
The leftist's parallel government "could create the organization that is necessary to steer the country in a new economic direction," columnist Rosa Albina wrote in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma on Sunday.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/paraguay_ex_president_s_trial_1
Mon Nov 20, 2006 @12:03 AM ET
Charge dropped vs. Paraguay ex-leader
By Pedro Servin, Associated Press Writer
Asuncion, Paraguay - A Paraguayan court dropped corruption charges against former President Luis Gonzalez Macchi, acknowledging it had failed to meet a Sunday deadline for hearing full testimony on accusations he maintained a secret Swiss bank account.
Blanca Gorostiaga, president of the three-judge tribunal, said time ran out for hearing prosecution and defense arguments about accusations Gonzalez Macchi had kept an account containing more than $1 million.
But she said the court would continue hearing a separate charge against the former president on accusations he gave false testimony about his wealth.
"There wasn't sufficient time to ... hear accusations by both sides" in the corruption case, Gorostiaga said during a rare Sunday court session.
The court had a 10-day deadline since going into session Nov. 9 on the illicit enrichment charges — a time frame established by law in the case of the former head of state. No deadline governed the charge of false testimony and that case continued.
Gonzalez Macchi, who governed the poor South American country from 1999 until 2003, had vehemently rejected the corruption charges.
The trial opened earlier this month over what prosecutors called a secret account uncovered in Switzerland in 2004 and what they said were unexplained questions about how he had acquired the wealth while he was in office.
During his tenure, his official salary was just over $10,500 monthly, authorities said. Illicit enrichment is punishable by at least five years in prison.
Rene Fernandez, an economic crimes prosecutor who had pressed the case, lamented the tribunal's decision to drop the corruption charges.
"Despite all efforts that we undertook through the public prosecutor's office to see this former head of state sanctioned, he in the end remains unpunished," Fernandez said.
A separate trial against a businessman suspected of making payments to the former president in return for apparent political favors was continuing, Fernandez said. Reinaldo Dominguez Dibb was charged with bribery, he said.
He also said the former president's wife, Susana Galli, still remains under prosecution on a separate charge of illicit enrichment arising from $380,000 found in a separate Caribbean bank account in her control.
Gonzalez Macchi was appointed a caretaker president by Congress in March 1999 after predecessor Raul Cubas resigned amid street riots and political upheaval that followed the assassination of Cubas' vice president. Gonzalez Macchi handed over power to current President Nicano Duarte in 2003.
Political turmoil and corruption scandals have dogged Paraguay ever since its 1989 exit from a decades-long dictatorship. Meanwhile, a protracted economic slump has kept it one of South America's poorest countries.
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http://www.euro2day.gr/articlesfna/24212992/
November 19, 2006 @19:25 London Time
Morales moves to strengthen Bolivian state
By Hal Weitzman in Lima
Concerns over Bolivia's stability grew at the weekend as Evo Morales, the president, made efforts to concentrate power.
Mr Morales threatened to purge elected regional governors, vowed to mobilise protesters to force the Senate to approve his land reform measures, and won complete control of an assembly that is rewriting the constitution.
The prefects of six of Bolivia's nine departments – including leaders of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba – held an emergency meeting at the weekend. They promised to challenge Mr Morales's bid to strengthen central government oversight with the ultimate sanction that they could be sacked by the president.
The regional governors said they were "breaking relations with the executive and not attending any meeting convoked by the president in which he tries to change the structure of government, undermine the law and destabilise elected authorities".
Mr Morales accused the local leaders of overreacting.
"If there's transparency and honesty in the management of the people's money, no national authority need fear the people and their institutions," he said.
The dispute came a day after allies of Mr Morales in the constituent assembly – an elected body responsible for drafting a new constitution – triumphed in a three-month battle over the rules governing the body.
The governing MAS party, which has 137 of the assembly's 255 seats, had been fighting for individual clauses to be approved by a simple majority, rather than the two-thirds that the opposition wanted. The body has been paralysed by the debate since it began work in August.
But late on Friday night, the constitutional court refused to hear opposition complaints on the issue, and Mr Morales's supporters forced a vote through establishing the simple majority rule, although the complete document will need two-thirds approval.
Samuel Doria Medina, head of the small National Unity party, is on hunger strike against the decision, while Carlos Alberto Goitia, of Podemos, the main opposition party, said his bloc "cannot tolerate this imposition by the MAS".
Mr Morales at the weekend threatened to force the opposition-controlled Senate to pass his land reform.
"If certain legislators don't want to change the law, the people will rise up to change it by force," he said.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an arm of the Organisation of American States, warned that Bolivia's democratisation "could be seriously affected by political instability".
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http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/nov/19/yehey/opinion/20061119opi6.html
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Church in Nicaragua to work with Ortega
Managua, Nicaragua: The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has appealed for cooperation with President-elect Daniel Ortega and his plan to pursue the development of the country with all sectors.
“Commander Ortega has the responsibility of having been chosen by the greater part of the people of Nicaragua to seek the development and progress of this homeland,” said Archbishop Leopoldo Brenes of Managua, after receiving Ortega at the headquarters of the curia in Managua last Thursday.
Ortega, who governed during the revolutionary Sandi-nista period of 1979-90, will return to power January 10 after winning the presidential election November 6.
Archbishop Brenes, 57, said that the political parties that took part in the electoral contest must join the plan of reconciliation and social development that Ortega proposes to carry out when he assumes power.
“I believe that today the different parties must remove their [partisan] flags and shelter under the one flag that covers us all, the white-and-blue flag, so that we all work for our country, Nicaragua,” the prelate exhorted.
The archbishop said that the Church hopes to maintain a relationship of cooperation with the new Sandinista government and “develop a whole endeavor together.”
Reconciliation: The Church and the Sandinista National Liberation Front, or FSLN, sealed their reconciliation two years ago. This put an end to the enmity that existed during the Sandinista government, which persecuted the bishops for criticizing the leftist revolution.
In recent days, Ortega has met with bankers, foreign investors, leaders of opposition parties and representatives of the Church to promote a political understanding that will allow him to carry out his program of government.
Ortega has said he wants to focus on reducing poverty in the country.
Last Saturday Ortega, accompanied by his wife, Rosario Murillo, and their nine children, marked his 61st birthday in the cathedral of Managua, where Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo offered a Mass. Hundreds of Ortega’s followers filled the aisles of the cathedral during the Eucharistic celebration.
This was the second occasion that Ortega engaged in a special religious ceremony since his ecclesiastical marriage to Murillo, up to then his life companion.
During the homily, after congratulating Ortega on his birthday, Cardinal Obando said that an “authentic democracy is possible only in a rule of law and with a correct concept of the human person.”
The 80-year-old retired archbishop of Managua mentioned in his homily what he considers one of the greatest injustices in the contemporary world: “It is relatively a few who possess much and many who possess almost nothing. It is injustice resulting from the poor distribution of goods and services destined originally for all.
“Human rights are violated not only by terrorism, repression and murders but also by the existence of conditions of extreme poverty and of unjust economic structures that cause great inequalities.”
--ZENIT News Agency
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http://www.granma.cubaweb.cu/english/news/art102.html
20 November, 2006
Cuba Reiterates Support for Puerto Rican Independence
Panama, November 19.— The president of the Cuban National Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, called for the independence of Puerto Rico at a Latin American and Caribbean Congress on the independence this island nation, reported Prensa Latina.
Alarcon said that the working committee, set up as a result of the conference, is a step forward in the quest of freeing Puerto Rico from US colonial rule. He stressed that Latin America can play the role of facilitator in a process that would culminate in the independence of Puerto Rico, occupied by the United States since 1898.
During the event, participants approved the Declaration of Panama, which established the creation of solidarity and support groups in the region to advocate Puerto Rican independence.
Panamanians Demand End of US blockade
Panama.— November 19. Panama’s National Cuba Solidarity Committee demanded the release of the five Cubans currently serving severe prison terms in the US for fighting terrorism, the group also called for an end to Washington’s blockade against the island.
In a resolution adopted by the Seventh National Encounter on Solidarity with Cuba that wound up Sunday, the Committee said that "the Cuban Five," as they are internationally known, are "subject to immoral treatment, that extends to their families", reported Prensa Latina.
The document stressed that their unjust imprisonment is an insult to international public opinion and a clear demonstration of the White House’s double standard in its alleged war on terrorism, by keeping the five Cubans in prison, while not willing to prosecute terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, the self-confessed author of the 197 midair bombing of a Cuban passenger plane.
In another resolution, the committee blasted the economic, financial and commercial blockade against Cuba, which the US has imposed on the Island for over four decades.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_heart_procedure
Sun Nov 19, 2006 @8:47 PM ET
Guantanamo inmate nixes heart procedure
By David McFadden, Associated Press Writer
San Juan, Puerto Rico - A 59-year-old Guantanamo Bay detainee has refused to have a required heart procedure at the U.S. military base in Cuba, one of his attorneys said Sunday.
Saifullah A. Paracha, a Pakistani multimillionaire, will not agree to have a cardiac catheterization done at the base because he thinks its medical facilities and backups are inadequate, said Zachary Katznelson of the London-based human rights group Reprieve.
"This is a completely new procedure for Guantanamo. Mr. Paracha very well might need open heart surgery, and that has never been done before at Guantanamo," Katznelson said.
Paracha, who is accused of laundering money for al-Qaida and plotting to smuggle explosives into the United States, already has had one heart attack while in U.S. custody and has recently suffered chest pains, according to his lawyers.
Cardiac catheterization is a diagnostic procedure used to detect blockages or other heart problems. A doctor inserts a thin plastic tube into an artery or vein in the arm or leg and pushes it into the chambers of the heart or into the coronary arteries to measure blood pressure within the heart and blood oxygen levels. Sometimes the procedure involves injecting a dye and using radiology to get images of any blockages.
Treatment options for blockages can include anti-clotting drugs and balloon angioplasty to open the artery. Heart bypass surgery is often the preferred solution when there are many blockages.
A motion filed by Paracha's legal team to block the medical procedure, which doctors have scheduled for this month, is expected to be heard Monday in a federal court in Washington. Government lawyers have asked the court to reject the motion.
Paracha's family has urged Pakistan's government to seek his return home for medical treatment.
Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said Guantanamo has a "first class medical facility for detainees" and rejected the charge that the detention center was not equipped to successfully perform the catheterization.
"The assertion that this detainee's medical condition is 'completely new' at Guantanamo is patently false. A detainee was treated successfully for a serious heart condition by a team of doctors at Guantanamo in 2003," Gordon said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
He said medical personnel have recommended additional help and equipment in the past to ensure detainees receive the necessary care.
Paracha has acknowledged meeting Osama bin Laden twice, but denied making investments for al-Qaida members, translating statements for bin Laden, joining in a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States or recommending that nuclear weapons be used against U.S. soldiers.
In July, his son Uzair Paracha was convicted of agreeing to help an al-Qaida operative with terrorist designs sneak into the United States. A U.S. District Court judge in New York sentenced the son to 30 years in federal prison.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061120/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_prison
Sun Nov 19, 2006 @7:32 PM ET
Toll rises to 5 in Mexico prison siege
By Theresa Braine, Associated Press Writer
Morelia, Mexico - A public defender died of his injuries Sunday after being shot by inmates who took a group of lawyers hostage near the central Mexican city of Morelia, bringing the death toll in the incident to five, authorities said.
Ulises Montanez, 28, was shot in Saturday's standoff. Three other lawyers and an inmate also died in the hostage-taking and subsequent police raid.
Prison Director Rogelio Garcia said officials were investigating Sunday how the inmates obtained .357-caliber Magnum handguns at the Mil Cumbres prison, which holds 2,000 prisoners.
On Friday, four inmates took a total of 14 public defenders and a guard hostage after the lawyers informed them that they had lost a court appeal and would have to serve 40 years in jail on kidnapping charges, Garcia said. They later released the guard and six lawyers.
While still holding eight lawyers hostage, the inmates used the guard's radio to demand an armored car with a full tank of gas to escape, Garcia said. After 30 hours, he said the inmates grew desperate and shot three of the lawyers.
Federal and state police who raided the prison when the gunshots rang out found the three lawyers and an inmate dead, Garcia said. Three others were wounded, including Montanez, who died at a hospital Sunday. Two were uninjured.
The families of two lawyers who had worked together held a joint service Sunday.
"It's so unfair because they were there to serve those who killed them," said Marcela Garcia, 46, the wife of Jose Antonio Fernandez, 51.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/haiti_un_protest_shooting
Sat Nov 18, 2006 @10:51 PM ET
Shots fired at anti-U.N. rally in Haiti
By Stevenson Jacobs, Associated Press Writer
Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Gunfire rang out Saturday during a street protest by university students demanding the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers from Haiti, and witnesses said two demonstrators were wounded.
About 100 protesters were marching through Port-au-Prince's downtown when gunfire erupted, scattering demonstrators. Witnesses said a security guard at a nearby bank fired the shots and was later arrested by police after protesters threatened to lynch him. It was not clear what prompted the shooting.
Two students were wounded by bullets, one in the leg and the other in the back, witnesses said.
Shortly after the shooting, protesters regrouped and came upon three U.N. civilian police officers. Associated Press journalists saw protesters chase after the Filipino officers and throw rocks. U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaze said one Filipino police officer was slightly injured but could not give details.
Earlier in the day, the students from the Human Sciences Faculty of the state-run University of Haiti marched on a main road, chanting "U.N. get out!" and "Haiti is not your home!"
Demonstrators, some with their faces covered, smashed the windshield of a passing U.N. vehicle and threw rocks at other cars, witnesses said. They later cornered a white SUV and spray painted the words "Down with the U.N." on the side. No injuries were reported.
It followed a series of other demonstrations calling for the exit of U.N. troops, who arrived in June 2004 to quell unrest after rebels forced out former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Protesters accuse the blue-helmeted troops of failing to curb violence and of firing indiscriminately during slum raids, wounding and killing civilians. The U.N. says it only fires when attacked.
The 8,800-strong U.N. mission has beefed up patrols in the capital since two Jordanian peacekeepers were shot to death on Nov. 10. The soldiers were returning to base when they were surprised by unknown gunmen.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_dirty_war
Sat Nov 18, 2006 @8:28 PM ET
Mexican ex-presidents blasted in report
By Julie Watson, Associated Press Writer
Mexico City - The Mexican government on Saturday released a long-awaited report that for the first time officially blamed "the highest command levels" of three former presidencies for the massacres, tortures and slayings of hundreds of leftists from the 1960s to the 1980s.
The report ends a five-year investigation by a special prosecutor named by President Vicente Fox to shed light on past crimes, including a 1968 student massacre and the disappearance of hundreds of leftist activists in the 1970s and early 1980s.
The authoritarian regime, at the highest command levels, broke the law and committed "crimes against humanity" that resulted in "massacres, forced disappearances, systematic torture and genocide to try to destroy a sector of society that it considered ideologically to be its enemy," said the report, based partly on declassified Mexican military documents.
Special prosecutor Ignacio Carrillo, who was appointed in November 2001, handed his report to the Attorney General's Office late Friday. It was later posted on the Internet for the public, and Carrillo said it would presented at a ceremony with Fox before he leaves office Dec. 1.
The incidents occurred during the administrations of Presidents Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, Jose Lopez Portillo and Luis Echeverria.
Asked by The Associated Press if the presidents knew of the atrocities but did nothing, Carrillo replied, "Yes."
Carrillo said the report is only the beginning — that the Mexican government must prosecute those responsible if it is to prevent such atrocities from occurring in the future. The state also must compensate victims' families, he said.
"This was not about the behavior of certain individuals," Carrillo said. "It was the consequence of an authorized plan to do away with political dissidents."
Fox vowed to prosecute Mexico's past crimes when he was elected in 2000, ending 71 years of single-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
But the courts have repeatedly blocked Carrillo's efforts to detain Echeverria, the only implicated president who is still living. Echeverria, 84, has denied any wrongdoing.
In July, a federal judge threw out genocide charges against Echeverria, ruling that a 30-year statute of limitations had run out. Echeverria had been under house arrest for more than a week on charges that he organized a student massacre as interior secretary in 1968. The charges were the first to have been filed against a former Mexican president.
The massacre took place in Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza on Oct. 2, just before the capital hosted the Olympics. Officials said 25 people were killed, though human rights activists say as many as 350 may have died. The attack is considered one of the darkest moments of PRI rule.
Carrillo also has attempted to bring charges against Echeverria, president from 1970 to 1976, for a 1971 student massacre and for the disappearance of leftist activists in the southern state of Guerrero.
Kate Doyle, a Mexico expert at the Washington-based National Security Archive, a private, nonpartisan research group, said the report is a "powerful development" because for the first time the government "officially lays the blame at the feet of three Mexican presidents."
It "clearly describes in detail how the authoritarian regime" of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, "used violence to silence the opposition," while painting an image to the world that it was running a democracy, she said.
The report tones down an earlier version leaked on the Internet in February that stated military bases under Echeverria's rule served as "concentration camps" for the elimination of leftists and suspected guerrilla fighters.
Carrillo said Saturday that wording was too strong and did a disservice to victims of the Holocaust.
But the report is the first time "the state has judged itself" and found former presidents and the presidential guard were behind the atrocities, Carrillo said.
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http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID=%7B215432AB-2D9C-4E8C-8C1A-ADD146B7C54C%7D)&language=EN
November 18, 2006
Ortega Says He'll Empower Poor
Managua, Nov 18 (Prensa Latina) Nicaraguan President elect Daniel Ortega reiterated throughout the week the elimination of hunger and poverty affecting 80 percent of the population will be his top priority.
When meeting with representatives of several national and foreign economic sectors in the last few days, Ortega restated his future government is committed to keeping the country open to national and foreign investment, as a way to generate jobs and help eradicate poverty.
"The idea is to implement programs allowing the poor to eat, but also make them active performers in economic activity," the president elect noted.
"Fighting poverty inevitably implies the generation of jobs, and demands resources for an aggressive policy that allows financing with fair interests for small and middle producers, as well as cooperatives," Ortega indicated.
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http://www.dominicantoday.com/app/article.aspx?id=19798
November, 18 2006 @9:42 AM .
Evo Morales rejects U.S.A. pressures and exhorts Bush to get out of Iraq
La Paz -- The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, rejected United States criticism on his alliance with Cuba and Venezuela’s executive Chiefs, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, and requested from United States to retire its military forces from Iraq, in declarations made official by the ABI, Bolivian news agency.
In Latin America there aren’t any more almost "servile democracies, put under nor subordinated", said Morales in answer to the undersecretary of State for Political Subjects of the U.S.A., Nicholas Burns, who suggested that Morales should distance him self from Chávez.
"I received the U.S.A. government representative’s opinion that I should move away from Chavez; as an opinion I respected it, but also I think and request the U.S.A. should withdraw from Iraq ", affirmed the Bolivian president.
"We have relations with president Chávez because he does not send troops, instead of that he provides aid and ideas to solve common problems of our people", he added.
"Within the framework of formulating opinions, everything is acceptable - continued Morales -; but in last instance each country must decide how it handles his relations with the world". "I want Mr. Nicholas Burns to know that in Latin America there are almost no servile democracies, submissive and subordinated any more; the United States has dignity, our country, Bolivia, although small, also has dignity and it is going to defend its sovereignty ", declared the president to ABI.
According to the official agency, Morales rejected last Thursday declarations from the U.S.A. ambassador in La Paz, Philip Goldberg, in the sense that the industrialization of the cocaine leaf that impels the Bolivian government will increase cocaine traffic.
Morales, who continues being president of the coca growers association, said in press conference that the industrialization of that product "does not depend of the United States embassy,", because it is "a sovereign Bolivian government and its people’s decision”.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6156698.stm
Friday, 17 November 2006, 01:08 GMT
Bolivia 'risks revolt over land'
Evo Morales intends to redistribute up to a fifth of Bolivia's land
Bolivia's President Evo Morales has warned of mass demonstrations if the country's Senate does not approve his plans for land reform. He said the people would rise up and implement the reforms "by force" if they were not passed into law. He also ruled out any compromise with the big landowners who oppose his plans to redistribute underused land.
Indigenous protesters from the eastern province of Santa Cruz are marching to the capital in support of the measures. But landowners in the province, one of the country's most fertile, have threatened to withhold agricultural produce from the rest of Bolivia if the plans are approved.
In September, demonstrators - mainly poor indigenous farmers - blocked roads into the city of Santa Cruz, claiming the opposition was trying to stall the government's plans.
'People power': Mr Morales, who was elected last year, has vowed to redistribute 200,000 sq km (77,000 sq miles) by the end of his term in 2011.
Indigenous and peasant families want a share of Bolivia's land: The agrarian reform bill was passed by Bolivia's lower house of Congress on Wednesday. The Senate, where Mr. Morales's party does not have a majority, is due to vote on the reforms next week. The opposition has said it will modify the proposals.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr Morales said the government would respect properties, of whatever size, that had been obtained legally and were being productively used. But, he said, non-producing estates would revert to the state to be redistributed to "those most in need".
He said some landowners would not agree but that he could "only believe in the power of the people, because that is the engine that drives history in our country".
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http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2001/09/nicaragua.html
September/October 2001 Issue
The Lost Revolution
A decade after laying down their arms, the Contras and the Sandinistas are squaring off in an election that could return Daniel Ortega to power. But no matter who wins, few expect an end to Nicaragua's economic misery
By Marc Cooper
On the northern edge of Managua squats the destitute barrio of Acahualinca, a jumble of dirt paths lined by decrepit one-room shacks without running water or indoor plumbing. Here, a few miles from the heart of Nicaragua's capital, there is no commerce other than petty drug dealing. The economic center of the neighborhood is the municipal garbage dump, a massive field of waste that sprawls across 100 acres. On this afternoon in early June, a line of diesel trucks belch and dump their loads. Dozens of small fires fill the air with an acrid chemical smoke as scavengers, many of them children, sift through the waste for copper, aluminum, and other recyclables. Overhead a flock of buzzards circles in formation. The dump serves as home to hundreds of people. The more established residents have pieced together wood- and-metal shelters along the edges of the dump. The newly arrived make do with plastic or cloth lean-tos erected right among the trash heaps.
Eddie Perez, a children's advocate with a nonprofit group called Dos Generaciones, is picking his way through the mounds of garbage. "The government's economic policy has only cut more and more services and jobs for the poor," he says. "They hate us, really. The government policy is to try and make all of us, all this, invisible." Perez nods to one of the younger scavengers. "A decade ago we thought we were going to get rid of child labor in the dump," he adds. "But it didn't work out. Now we realize it was only a dream."
Indeed, things were supposed to work out differently for all of Nicaragua. After decades of autocratic rule by the U.S-backed Somoza family, a 1979 uprising put the revolutionary Sandinistas and their leader, Daniel Ortega, in power. The Reagan administration spent billions of dollars to overthrow the Sandinistas, branding them as a pro-Cuban threat to the hemisphere. In 1990, when war-weary Nicaraguans voted Ortega out of office and elected a pro-American administration, the United States promised massive economic aid and a new era of prosperity.
But 11 years later, Nicaragua is anything but a showcase for free-market democracy. After toppling the Sandinistas, the United States essentially abandoned Nicaragua, failing to deliver significant aid for reconstruction after the prolonged Contra war. The Washington-backed governments that succeeded the Sandinistas have meanwhile bled the country dry through widespread corruption. The nation remains one of the poorest in an impoverished region, its 5 million residents beset by hunger, crime, and unemployment.
As the economy has deteriorated, Nicaragua has remained mired in its political past. More than two decades after the Sandinistas toppled Somoza, the two sides remain the dominant political forces in Nicaragua. In presidential elections scheduled for November, the old guard is represented by Enrique Bolaos, a 73-year old entrepreneur who was once jailed by the Sandinistas for supporting the Contras. On the left is none other than the man who imprisoned him, Daniel Ortega.
For much of the campaign, Ortega has actually been ahead in the polls, and many observers expect him to regain the presidency. But few in Nicaragua expect either candidate to ease the country's economic misery. Bolaos is an ally of the current president, Arnoldo Alemán, who is accused of using his office to enrich himself and his business cronies at the nation's expense. And the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN), led by Ortega, has largely abandoned its principles of social justice, recasting the party in the traditional Nicaraguan mold of political patronage and outright corruption. Over the past few years, Ortega has steamrollered internal opposition, expelled his own allies by the dozens, and forged a power-sharing pact with his right-wing rivals that effectively excludes smaller parties from the political system. The backroom deal also made Ortega a congressman for life—a position that conveniently provided him with immunity from prosecution just as he was facing charges of sexually molesting his own stepdaughter.
Ortega's political resurrection has alarmed the Bush administration, which dispatched diplomat Lino Gutierrez to Managua in June to rail against the front-runner. "Marxism is in the trash bin of history," Gutierrez declared in a high-profile speech intended to discredit the Sandinistas. "No country can indulge in the luxury of going back to the past." But given the current political landscape, the effort to cast Ortega as a Soviet-style menace strikes many Nicaraguans as laughable. "If the CIA had any brains," says one political analyst in Managua, "they'd have figured out by now that the Sandinistas not only don't represent a Marxist threat, but that long ago the party was taken over by opportunistic yuppies."
Beneath the cynicism, few in Nicaragua see any way out of the current plight. Many prominent Sandinistas have left the party, saying a victory by Ortega holds no promise of meaningful change. "We are in a dead-end tunnel with no light," says Joaquín Cuadra, the former commander of the Sandinista army who now leads an insurgent political party. "And we are going head—on into an economic, social, and political crack-up."
On the patio of a stylish restaurant in Managua, across from the pyramid-like Hotel Intercontinental, Manuel Ignacio Lacayo sips a lemonade as his bodyguards stand watch off to the side. He may be the second- or third-richest man in Nicaragua—wealthy enough that all of his holdings were once confiscated by the Sandinistas. After Ortega was defeated, the government returned car dealerships, factories, and the local Coca-Cola bottling franchise. "I am very comfortable, obviously," he says in flawless English. "But you would have to be pretty cold-blooded to enjoy life here amidst so much poverty."
Since the Sandinista defeat of 1990, Nicaragua has become, in the parlance of international lending institutions, "normalized." The revolutionary murals and the Che Guevara statues have given way to a thin crust of globalized commercial culture. The streets of Managua are much cleaner now, the old ruins of the devastating 1972 earthquake finally bulldozed. A handful of luxury hotels, a Hard Rock Café, and even two small shopping malls (revered by the wealthy "Nicas ricas" as veritable temples) line the newly paved roads. McDonald's and Domino's Pizza have eaten up some of the old taqueria stands, and a few casinos offer neon enticements.
But outside the five-star hotels, teenage hookers share sidewalk space with even younger Nicaraguans addicted to sniffing glue. With only 1 in 4 Nicaraguans claiming formal employment, young and old crowd the intersections, selling everything from towels, combs, and chewing gum to windshield wipers, cell-phone holders, and coconuts. Disabled war veterans—ex-Sandinistas and Contras alike—beg from their wheelchairs. Outside the palatial new headquarters of the Foreign Ministry, still under construction, barefoot kids stand on the scorching asphalt streets hawking little bags of drinking water, for a profit of less than a penny each.
Lacayo, known to all by his initials, MIL, shocked the nation in 1998 when he denounced President Alemán—and the business elite who support the government—for gross corruption and neglect of the poor. His defection was met with immediate reprisals: tax audits, red tape on his imports, and a cutoff of government contracts. MIL is now divesting himself of all his Nicaraguan holdings to make himself less vulnerable as he gets more deeply involved in opposition politics. His passion has been stirred by what he sees as unprecedented levels of neglect by Alemán. "That Nicaraguan business is inefficient and corrupt and that it doesn't know how to make a profit except from government graft is really old news," Lacayo says. "But never before has so little been dedicated to social spending and the poor. Even Somoza spent more on social services, and of course, so did the Sandinistas."
Statistics back up his grim portrait. Three-fourths of the population survives on less than $2 a day. Those few with stable employment earn an average of $150 a month. A third of the population is illiterate, and 600,000 people are stalked by malnutrition. "Nicaragua's traditional poverty is now turning into raw hunger," says Orlando Nuñez, a sociologist with a political think tank in Managua.
Along the roadsides of the city, President Alemán and his Constitutional Liberal Party (PLC) have erected self-congratulatory billboards reading "Deeds—Not Words." But the only deed for which Alemán has gained notoriety is his remarkable personal enrichment. The son of a Somocista judge, Alemán spent months in jail under Sandinista rule. In 1990 he was elected mayor of Managua, and in 1996 he defeated Ortega in the Sandinista's first bid to regain the presidency. Since then, Alemán has become the embodiment of what Latin American politicos call "The Washington Consensus"—the conservative, democratic, free-market model vigorously promoted by the United States. He has dutifully slashed the country's budget to meet harsh "structural adjustments" imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, squeezing Nicaragua to pay the interest on its $6 billion in foreign debt. He has created a "business friendly" atmosphere for the opening of low-wage and nonunion Taiwanese- and American-owned maquiladora assembly plants. And he has continued the privatization policies of his predecessor, Violeta Chamorro.
All this was anticipated by Alemán's right-wing platform. What has not been explained is how he has come to own so much prime real estate during his years in public service. Or why he needs not one, but two heliports. Or how a new highway that is of little use just happens to cross three of his properties.
Estimating the extent of Alemán's graft has become something of a national pastime. "What Alemán has stolen is at least in the tens of millions," says one conservative business executive. Lacayo puts the figure at $60 million. "President Alemán is rumored to have said he wanted to skim a million dollars a month," Lacayo says. "I find that figure quite plausible." And a dissident congressman from Alemán's own party says that Alemán's wealth tops $250 million. "Even Somoza showed more respect for the citizenry," Sergio García Quintero told reporters, sounding a common refrain in Managua. "His criminal ethic had more limits."
Since Alemán is barred by the constitution from holding consecutive terms, the Liberals are represented this year by Bolaños, one of his former vice presidents. A physical cross between Harry Truman and Junior Soprano, Bolaños inspires little confidence that he represents a change from Alemán's policies. In his stump speech Bolaños promises an "austere government," but as vice president he was noticeably silent on the nancial scandals blossoming all around him. Nor does Bolaños offer much hope of bridging the yawning social and political chasms that divide Nicaragua. "I am a Contra," he declared in a recent campaign speech. "I will be the first democratically elected Contra. And I will govern in their interests."
Beyond such anti-Sandinista declarations, the PLC has little ground-level reality as a political party. On a recent Saturday morning, Bolaños supporters organized a campaign "caravan" through the dilapidated eastern neighborhoods of Managua. At the staging point, party officials in pressed chinos, polo shirts, and Ray-Bans busily organized the motorcade. Street gangs, replete with tattoos and bandanas, were hired to fill the marshaled pickup trucks and wave party flags. As the motorcade wound through the dank industrial barrios, sidewalk onlookers jeered and laughed.
The caravan arrived at the nearly deserted Calendaria Park, where another rent-a-crowd of impoverished Nicaraguans was packed into a school bus. Party officials brought a single Winnie the Pooh piñata to lure local families out from their dirt-floored shacks. When Bolaños showed up, the crowd was brought in to cheer him. Standing on the back of a sound truck, the candidate shouted a series of verbal jabs. His message was simple: Me—or the Sandinistas. "Knowing they have already lost, the Frente Sandinista doesn't want elections! Only we can guarantee peace in Nicaragua! Vote for us to keep the peace! Vote for us for jobs! For housing! For health care!" Bolaños offered no details. After five minutes, he was whisked away in an armored suv. His poll ratings remained stuck at about 30 percent.
The corruption of the ruling party would seem to offer an easy target for the left-wing Sandinistas, who stirred the poor into successful insurrection against the abuses and inequalities of the Somoza dictatorship. Once in power, the party seized large estates and distributed land to sharecroppers, raised wages, and enforced labor laws. The romance of the revolution packed a strong allure for a generation of social activists around the globe, attracting thousands of foreign "sandalista" volunteers who braved deprivation and armed Contra attacks as they harvested coffee or fanned out through the countryside, bringing medicine and education to the poor. The youthfulness of the Sandinista leadership, their embrace of popular culture, and their relative ideological flexibility as quasi-socialists burnished their image as a new breed of rock-'n'-roll revolutionaries. Ortega himself had, perhaps, his greatest moment as a statesman on the eve of his electoral defeat in 1990. After delivering an emotional concession speech and rightfully claiming credit for bringing democracy to Nicaragua, he turned the government over to his political rivalsÑmany of them armed enemies openly financed by a hostile foreign power.
Since then, however, the Sandinistas have increasingly grown to resemble those they once vilified. In the brief interim between their election defeat and the inauguration of their successors, the Sandinistas scurried to grab a chunk of the state they had controlled. In what became known as La Piñata, the FSLN gobbled up 200 cattle and coffee farms, factories, and media outlets and privatized them behind an intricate array of offshore firms, many of them based in Panama. Many of the commandantes, most notably Daniel's brother and former military chief Humberto Ortega, became powerful businessmen. The party elite were soon managing hotels, factories, even banks. "The Sandinistas have kidnapped our principles and betrayed our purest dreams," says a middle-aged psychologist who fought in the anti-Somoza insurrection.
At the same time, the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba plunged into economic free fall, leaving the Frente an ideological orphan. "The Sandinistas are the only party here with a real grassroots machinery," says Carlos Fernando Chamorro, a former party member who edited Barricada, the now-defunct Sandinista daily newspaper. "But it has a leadership that is politically confused and for whom ideology isn't very important. Maybe they are free-marketeers, or maybe not. But more than anything, they are Danielistas."
Ortega has done his part to promote his personal image. The old red-and-black billboards spouting Sandinista slogans have been replaced by bright yellow ones reading simply "Daniel!" Ortega long ago hung up his stiffly ironed olive-drab military uniform; he now prefers to campaign in blue jeans and blousy white short-sleeved shirts. At age 55, he's still trim and energetic, but suffers from heart ailments that send him to Havana for periodic treatment. While still praising Cuba, he often peppers his public speeches with references to Jesus. As president in the 1980s, responding to the Contra attacks, Ortega crisscrossed the countryside delivering rifles to the citizenry; nowadays, his campaign rallies are likely to climax with Ortega standing on the back of a truck throwing out baseballs or rolls of toilet paper to onlookers desperate for such har-to-find commodities. "Anyone who has a house, a farm, a business, or any other type of property should feel secure," he reassured wealthy voters at one campaign stop in June. "Because never again will there be confiscations in Nicaragua."
Ortega lives in a Managua residence sealed off by eight-foot walls, razor wire, and manned guard turrets. His public life is equally closed. Ortega has crushed repeated attempts to democratize the FSLN, expelling internal critics and launching smear campaigns against outsiders. Many of the Frente's most acclaimed members have walked out in protest, including Ortega's former vice president Sergio Ramírez, former cabinet ministers Ernesto and Fernando Cardenal, the poet Gioconda Belli, and legendary guerrilla commander Dora María Téllez, who led the rst insurgent troops into Managua. By the mid-1990s, the Sandinistas found themselves stripped of their dazzling intellectual firepower.
"Daniel today reminds me of Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather Part II," says a former bodyguard for a top Sandinista leader. "He has wiped out all his enemies and is all-powerful, but there he sits all sad and alone."
His own party weakened, Ortega decided to cut a deal with his right-wing opponents. During the 1996 elections, with two dozen parties fielding candidates, neither the Sandinistas nor the Liberals was able to command a simple majority. So the two sides began a series of secret negotiations that concluded last year in constitutional reforms known simply as El Pacto. The deal—which is reportedly opposed by up to 70 percent of Nicaraguans—gave the two parties a virtual monopoly on the political system. Smaller parties were required to submit unattainable numbers of signatures to qualify for elections, essentially forcing them off the ballot, and candidates can now win the presidency with as little as 35 percent of the vote, eliminating the need to form alliances with minority parties. "Alemán and Daniel found common interest in dividing up the political system," says Chamorro, the former Sandinista editor.
The deal did more than divvy up the government—it also granted former presidents Alemán and Ortega immunity from prosecution by making them lifelong congressmen. "The Sandinistas and the Liberals found two things they needed from each other," says María López Vigil, a political analyst in Managua and editor of the respected journal El Envío. "They both needed a way to eliminate minority parties. And they both needed impunity."
The pact was sealed last year just as Alemán faced calls for indictment on charges of corruption—and as Ortega was confronted by equally serious allegations. The Sandinista candidate's need for immunity can be summed up in one word: Zoilamérica. The adopted stepdaughter of Ortega, 33-year-old Zoilamérica Narváez Murillo is a direct descendant of the legendary guerrilla leader Augusto Sandino. A committed Sandinista activist, Narváez rocked the nation in March 1998 when she accused Ortega of 20 years of sexual abuse, including rape, starting when she was 11. The Sandinistas responded with a propaganda campaign smearing her as a CIA agent, mentally ill, and a lesbian. Narváez, who was once married to one of Ortega's closest advisers, then filed felony charges against her stepfather.
Since Ortega enjoyed limited political immunity at the time, the courts passed the complaint on to the national congress. There the PLC joined its Sandinista rivals in simply ignoring the charges until the pact was cemented and the leaders of both sides were immunized. Now Narváez has taken her case to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, the legal arm of the Organization of American States, suing the Nicaraguan government for denying her access to justice.
Ortega refused repeated requests for an interview, but Narváez agreed to break her self-imposed silence in a conversation at her modest home in Managua. Tall, soft-spoken, and highly articulate, she unleashed a torrent of anguish as her two young children played nearby. "I'm on a tightrope, because in this election year anything can happen," she says. "If I speak out, the Liberals can try and use me in some partisan maneuver against Daniel Ortega. But if I am silent, then the Frente will say that I am exonerating him, something I have no intention of doing."
"The greatest error that my Sandinista brothers and sisters made has been fear of cleansing themselves of anything and everything that has stained our ideals," she continues. "I was afraid to start over, but I did. The Sandinistas have to do the same thing. The biggest tragedy is that Daniel has now subjected the entire political strategy of the Frente Sandinista to his personal needs and fears. It has brought him closer than ever to the Somocistas." And if Ortega is elected president? "Nothing changes," she says. "I will pursue the case until the truth is recognized."
Ortega has denied the allegations, and even Narváez's most ardent supporters acknowledge that given the power-sharing pact between the Sandinistas and Liberals, her charges are likely to have little effect on the elections. "Ask me about Zoilamérica and I will tell you clearly: I absolutely believe her," says Dora María Téllez, the former Sandinista commander. "But this is a society where incest is common, and no one wants to come to terms with it. It's just not going to be a political issue."
The pact did not succeed in eliminating every opposition party. The Conservative Party survived, and is determined to run its own slate in the upcoming elections. That would likely split the anti-Sandinista vote, opening the path to a possible Ortega victory. But few expect his election to make any difference, given the extent of the current economic devastation. "The Sandinistas will have little margin of maneuver if they win," says former Sandinista General Joaquín Cuadra. "The Sandinistas might be able to manage the crisis, but they can't resolve it."
Cuadra and other former Sandinistas, along with dissidents from the right, have been struggling for the past two years to build a "third way" alternative to Ortega and Alemán. "Neither right nor left, but rather democratic and modern," says Cuadra. The idea had attracted an impressive list of supporters—including Manuel Ignacio Lacayo, the wealthy and outspoken businessman known as MIL—but the power-sharing pact scuttled efforts to legalize a party representing the new coalition.
Things have grown worse during the campaign.In June, protesters staged hunger strikes in the lobby of the Supreme Electoral Council to denounce its attempts to disqualify third-party candidates. Coffee farmers, shaken by falling prices, threatened to blockade major roads. Bus owners, pressed by soaring gasoline prices, raised fares by almost 50 percent. That, in turn, brought thousands of students into the streets to demand lower fares. Riot police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Then bus owners went out on their own strike, forcing many maquiladora employees to get to work aboard ox-drawn carts.
"The number of people who have fallen into extreme poverty here is a ticking time bomb," says Lacayo. "In the days ahead, there is either going to be a whole lot more apathyÑor a whole lot more anarchy."
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