CHILE: EZZATI INFORMED THE GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE FIRST DIALOGUE WITH MAPUCHE SPOKESPERSONS The first round of conversations on Sept. 14 between the Archbishop of Concepcion, Ricardo Ezzati, as mediator, and the seven representatives of the mapuche indigenous group on hunger strike and prosecuted by an anti-terrorist law lasted almost three hours. The 34 mapuche prisoners in Chile have today been on a hunger strike for 66 days. The protest began with the purpose of denouncing the Chilean government’s use of the anti-terrorist legislation that criminalizes the intents of the mapuches to recuperate their ancestral lands. Even though the mapuches were only able to be conquered in the 19th century after many years of resistance, since then the majority of their lands have been confiscated by lumber companies and rich landowners. The Archbishop of Concepcion, after meeting with the strike representatives, promised to speak with the Ministers of the Interior of the government “to attempt to look for ways in which to construct a table of dialogue”. This implies that the priest will relate to the government the demands to not apply the anti-terrorist law to the jailed mapuches. In what is assumed to be a rather late response, the Chilean President Sebastián Piñera has proposed some modifications to the anti-terrorist legislation. The mapuche spokesperson, Natividad Llanquileo, affirmed that they have not received any concrete resolutions and that they reiterated their demand to not apply the anti-terrorist law. 15.09.2010: Chile (www.lanacion.cl); (www.portal.ajintem.com)
BOLIVIA: EVO DECLARES THAT THE MILITARY MUST PROTECT RESOURCES The Bolivian president Evo Morales emphasized on Sept. 4 that the mission of the Armed Forces must be the defense “of their country, its integration and its natural resources” and asked of the military to prepare itself to continue carrying out its work during the presentation in Tarata of the four units constructed in the first phase of the new complex of the Military School of Sargents “Maximiliano Paredes”. The president indicated that the Armed Forces are a “vital” institution in Bolivia because of “the diversified culture, ideology, a diversified geography and above all because the country depends on its many natural resources” that should be defended along with the social movements. During his speech, the president expressed his apologies to Costa Rica for having said that it had a military because its Armed Forces belonged to the United States, a comment that was deplored by the Costa Rican government. “I believe that they felt offended. I want to tell them, if I am wrong I apologize. At no moment did I intend to offend a country such as Costa Rica that has no Armed Forces,” said Morales. 05.09.2010: Cochabamba, Bolivia (www.lostiempos.com)
GUATEMALA: DEVASTATED BY HUNGER The intensity of the recent rains aggravated Guatemala’s insecure food supply. Eclipsed by the dramatic events this past weekend, when 46 people died buried by landslides, the ghost of hunger hovered over Guatemala, a country whose starvation figures equal those of Africa. Chronic malnutrition affects 49 percent of the children in this Central American country, according to a report from the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The situation is serious because the heaviest rains in the last 60 years has destroyed half of the harvest of maize and black beans in the Altiplano provinces, the breadbasket of the country. The flooded countryside also shows damage to the vegetable crops. All of this tragedy was foreseeable. The Summit of Climate Change in Copenhagen, which took place in December of 2009, put Guatemala within the 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change. All the same, the Guatemalan government seems to react with a great deal of slowness in reaction to this tragedy that, evidently, has overwhelmed it. 09.09.2010: Guatemala (www.elpais.com)
BRAZIL: LULA’S INHERITANCE WILL BE DECIDED AT THE POLLS “I am going to behave like a good ex-president,” said Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “I am going to travel throughout the country and if I see anything wrong, I will point it out.” With less than a month to go before the presidential elections on Oct. 3, few in Brazil ask who is going to win. Dilma Rousseff, 62 years old, candidate for the Worker’s Party and Lula’s favorite, is, according to the opinion polls, leading by a broad margin. The ex-Minister of Energy and ex-chief of the Civil House (position equivalent to a prime minster) will be the first woman that has obtained the presidential position in the large country of Brazil (192 million inhabitants), but also the second person that has engaged in armed guerrilla combat in the 70’s, a survivor of cancer and of torture, and will accede to the highest ranking office of the country if elected. The two terms of office for Lula, representing the Worker’s Party, come to a close with an extraordinary economic and social balance. There is no doubt that the advances reached have removed almost 30 million people from poverty and have helped the lower middle class, otherwise known as “class c”, amount to 51 percent of the population in a country corroded historically by a cruel inequality. Now, the questions and doubts are concerned more with the change in role that Lula da Silva will play in the future after he leaves office as the most popular president in the history of Brazil, as well as, the distribution of power in the first Administration of Rousseff. 05.09.2010: Brasil (www.elpais.com)
VENEZUELA: CHAVEZ PRAISES THE BENEFITS FROM THE INTERCHANGE OF PETROLEUM WITH LIVESTOCK In Caracas, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, emphasized this Sunday the benefits of one of the agreements signed with Argentina, in which Venezuela receives dairy livestock in exchange for petroleum. The Venezuelan president also announced that he would reunite “quickly” with his counterpart Cristina Kirchner in Buenos Aires. “We have already brought 5,200 cows, and how many more do we need? 10,000, 20,000 more,” said Chavez in a visit to a state milking factory in the Andino state of Tachira (west), in a broadcast transmitted by the official television station. The livestock is imported following an agreement in which Venezuela sends “petroleum and its derivatives” to Argentina, “and with a fund that is established, we will bring cows, we will bring technology, we will bring technical support from you, that is wonderful”, explained the President. “I am going to Buenos Aires soon,” said Chavez, as a part of the quarterly meetings that take place between the two presidents. 05.09.2010: Venezuela (www.abc.com.py)
BOLIVIA: COCHABAMBA LIVES THE DAY OF THE PEDESTRIAN The streets invaded by bicycles, roller skates, skateboards, tricycles and hundreds of people on foot is what was lived in Cochabamba on the Day of the Pedestrian on Sept. 9, where in different parts of the city organized activities aimed at educating the population about taking care of the environment. The noise of motorized modes of transportation stopped on this day in order to make room for the pedestrians who, with their friends and family, went out to enjoy an environment absent of pollution. Public and private institutions, social organizations and independent exhibitors were taking advantage of this day to make known their products and projects related to the protection of the environment in a way closer to the population. Recycling was one of the themes most talked about by these institutions since the problem of waste is creating more contamination each day and it is a problem that the attitude of the everyday citizen can change. Games, competitions, talks, exhibits and much more was what the “cochabambinos” lived at the moment as they scattered around different areas of the city to enjoy this special day with weather a little variable but very agreeable. 05.09.2010: Cochabamba, Bolivia (www.lostiempos.com)
SPAIN: THE CIVIL GUARD ARRESTS NINE MEMBERS OF THE EKIN NATIONAL LEADERSHIP The Civil Guard arrested Tuesday morning nine members of the EKIN national leadership, a Basque separatist group linked to ETA (Euskadi Ta Asktasuna: Basque Country and Liberty). The operation took place in Navarre, Cantabria, Valencia and three Basque provinces, Alava, Guipuzcoa and Vizcaya. At the same time, the Minister of Interior made public a statement which affirmed the disintegration of the national leadership of EKIN, the most violent political arm of ETA, which gave added value to this recent police operation. EKIN is considered the guardian of ETA orthodoxy and because of this it is believed that those arrested are the principal organizers and disseminators of ETA’s ideology. This large operation carried out by the Security Forces occurred one week after ETA transmitted a communication in which it announced that since the last few months it has decided to end their offensive armed actions. The contingent of police officers deployed Tuesday morning against EKIN was considered the third operation in the last year. During this time, those closest to the organization have divided amongst themselves into so-called ‘pragmatists’, those that want to open up a new process without violence, and those that insist on the necessity of armed attacks that will crush the country. Since the end of 2009, Security Forces have engaged in intensive activities that have brought about many operations, two of which have weakened the tight nationalist control over their bases. 15.09.2010: España (www.elmundo.es)
MEXICO: ONE OF MOST SOUGHT AFTER DRUG TRAFFICKER ARRESTED The Mexican Army struck this Sunday, Sept. 12 a significant blow to drug trafficking by arresting Sergio Enrique Villareal Barragan, alias El Grande, a known second in command within the internal structure of the Beltran Leyva brothers’ cartel, lead by Hector Beltran Leyva, known as “El H”. The operation took place in Puebla, east of Mexico City, where security forces arrived with armored-plated tanks, even though no violence was used to oppose the arrest. Villareal Barragan, who had been a law enforcement police officer in the state of Coahuila and a federal agent in the 90’s, is considered to be one of the bloodiest hired assassins in the country. The strategy of weakening and disarming the criminal organizations, “is a fundamental element in combating crimes that most aggravated Mexican families, as does homicide, kidnappings, extortion and trafficking of drugs,” explained the government Security spokesperson for Felipe Calderon. The capture of the leaders of these criminal organizations, however, has not been able to stop the wave of violence that has afflicted the country and left more than 28,000 dead since December 2006. 12.09.2010: México (www.elpais.com)
CHILE: 251 ARRESTED AFTER A COMMEMORATION OF THE STATE OF SIEGE AGAINST ALLENDE At least 251 people were arrested in the late hours of Sept. 11 by the Chilean police as part of the incidents that were produced by the commemoration of the 37-year-old state of siege led by Augusto Pinochet in 1973 against President Salvador Allende. The carabineros (military police) indicated this Sunday in the first preliminary report that 13 people were injured in isolated disturbances that took place in various Chilean cities, nine of which were actual policemen. The chief of the carabineros pointed out that this commemoration of Sept. 11 was “the calmest in the last 10 years” and remembered, by way of example, that in 2009 there were 19 police injured. In the late hours, there began to be restored, slowly, the electrical services for 104,500 homes in various areas of the capital where unknown people had provoked the short circuits with chains. Under Pinochet’s dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, some 3,000 people died or were disappeared, while 28,000 suffered torture. 12.09.2010: Santiago, Chile (www.jordada.unam.mx)
—Compiled and translated by Veda Arias