from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On June 3, Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma signed decrees instituting a large-scale national agrarian reform program. In a ceremony in the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz, Morales handed out the first titles under the new program, distributing 30,000 square kilometers of state-owned land to indigenous campesino communities in what he called the start of a "true agrarian revolution." Thousands of representatives of indigenous, campesino and social organizations attended the ceremony in the city's Chiriguano Plaza.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Thousands of workers from Costa Rica's Social Security Institute, Electricity Institute, National Insurance Institute and other companies marched in San Jose on June 7 to oppose the US-sponsored Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and to protest a recent Constitutional Court decision annulling a series of benefits public workers had won through collective bargaining. According to the march organizers, 15,000 people participated.

The unionists said the court decision was intended to "smooth the way for CAFTA." "The first victims of this CAFTA are the labor rights we've won," National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP) general secretary Albino Vargas told the ACAN-EFE wire service. "With CAFTA, Costa Rica will have to agree to downgrade its labor legislation with the rest of the Central American countries, which means taking away rights from those who won them through struggle." Costa Rica signed on to DR-CAFTA, but it is the only signatory nation whose legislature hasn't ratified the agreement. President Oscar Arias, who was inaugurated on May 8, is a strong supporter of the accord. Arias was on a visit to Europe on June 7, and Vargas charged that the new president would be holding a "chat" with the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Europe while his country is "violating labor rights." (La Nacion, Costa Rica, June 7)

Dengue in Cuba, West Nile in New York:
When Mosquitoes Come Home to Roost

by Mark Sanborne

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

MAYDAY ANTI-CAFTA MOBILIZATION

As they did last year, many Central American workers marked May 1 with demonstrations protesting the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a US-sponsored trade bloc composed of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US. Many marchers also expressed solidarity with hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers demonstrating the same day in the US.

More than 20,000 workers, indigenous people, unionists, women and older people marched in Guatemala City, burning US flags and effigies of US president George W. Bush and Guatemalan president Oscar Berger. "The DR-CAFTA is a plague that will kill the people who live in extreme poverty," campesino leader Daniel Pascual told the ACAN-EFE wire service. "Today is a day of Latin America inside the US," said Jose Pinzon, a leader of the General Workers Central of Guatemala (CGTG), one of the country's largest labor federations. The more than 1.2 million Guatemalans living in the US sent $3 billion back to Guatemala in 2005; some 60% of them are reportedly undocumented. US restaurant chains in Guatemala City's historic center seemed empty as workers honored a boycott of US products in support of immigrants' demands. (La Nacion, Costa Rica, May 1)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 5,000 people marched in Quito on May 9 to demand that the government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) within 15 days, and end all negotiations on the Andean Free Trade Agreement which the US is promoting with Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. Most of the marchers came from Ecuador's Amazon region and were also demanding approval of a law that would increase oil revenues to the six Amazon provinces by $0.50 per barrel. A group of about 100 protesters broke through police lines at the Carondelet presidential palace and tried to sing the national anthem in front of Independence Monument. But 300 riot police agents attacked the group, shoving journalists and spraying several protesters with some kind of colored liquid tear gas. (El Diario- La Prensa, NY, May 10 from EFE; Altercom, May 9)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 1, in a ceremony at the San Alberto oilfield in Carapari, Tarija department, Bolivian president Evo Morales Ayma signed supreme decree 28.701, ordering the nationalization of the country's hydrocarbons resources. "The looting is over," Morales announced as he ordered the armed forces to seize control of all the oil and gas fields. With the decree, the Bolivian state "recovers the property, possession and total and absolute control of these resources," said Morales. Foreign companies now have six months to renegotiate their oil and gas contracts with the government; in the meantime they must give up control of their facilities and channel all sales through the newly refounded state oil company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales also ordered the confiscation of the shares necessary to guarantee more than 50% state control of the oil companies operating in Bolivia. (Resumen Latinoamericano, May 1; New York Times, May 2)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

A "Secret Formula" Against Colombia's Guerillas?

by Paul Wolf

The US State Department has developed the secret formula to dismantle the armed groups of Colombia's war. Or so it believes. It is believed that the demobilization of 28,000 members of the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was the result of threatening its leaders—notably Salvadore Mancuso and Don Berna—with extradition to the US.

Fear of extradition, accompanied by promises of amnesty, convinced large numbers of paramilitaries to lay down their arms, confess their crimes, and put their faith in the government to restore order in Colombia.