from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HUGE PROTEST AGAINST TRADE PACT

On July 14, some 500,000 people--construction workers, teachers, students and many others--marched in seven of Peru's regions to protest the Andean free trade treaty being negotiated between the US, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. The protests, organized by the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), were also seeking an end to privatization and other neoliberal economic policies, and the resignation of Labor Minister Juan Sheput. The CGTP is also demanding the convening of a constituent assembly to rewrite Peru's Constitution, and a new social security law based on the principles of solidarity. (Adital - World Data Service, July 15; Campana Continental Contra el ALCA, July 15)

UN Troops Chase Down Child Soldiers in Congo's Forgotten War;
Hutu Militias as Pawn in Great Game for Central Africa's Mineral Wealth

by keith harmon snow

NINDJA, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — For some hill-tribe peasants in the remote reaches of the Congo's South Kivu hills, the arrival of hundreds of UN ground troops on July 7 seemed more like an invasion than the liberation most have long since given up on. For Hutu rebels, it was reason to disappear.

Workers Defend "Recovered Factories"

by Yeidy Rosa

When Luis Zanon decided to abandon the ceramic factory in Argentina's southern province of Neuquen, over which his family had held legal ownership since 1984, the factory's debt was more than $170 million. Following Argentina's economic collapse in 2001, the Zanon family left the country, accessing foreign accounts that had accumulated millions, and presumably leaving the factory to become a forgotten warehouse with broken windows, overgrown weeds and rusty machinery.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

DR-CAFTA SHOWDOWN NEARS

On June 30 the US Senate voted 54-45 to approve the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a pact largely eliminating tariffs on about $32 billion in annual trade between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US. Also on June 30, the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee voted 30-11 to send the measure to the full House for a vote. The House debate will probably start on July 11, when Congress returns from its Independence Day recess.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On May 29 in Tocache province, in the Huallaga valley of San Martin in north central Peru, at least 3,500 campesino coca growers (cocaleros) armed with sticks surrounded a group of 230 police agents charged with carrying out coca leaf eradication operations. According to police, the resulting clash left 17 agents hurt--one by a bullet, the rest by beatings. Twenty cocaleros were injured; Tocache mayor Nancy Zagerra said three of them are in serious condition with bullet wounds. (La Jornada, Mexico, May 31, from DPA)

The 230 anti-drug police agents had arrived in the area on May 26, along with 50 workers from the Control and Reduction of Coca Crops in the Alto Huallaga (CORAH) project. On May 28, the anti-drug forces set up camp in the village of 5 de Diciembre, where according to cocalero leader Nancy Obregon they forced the campesinos from their homes and destroyed their crops, even after the campesinos showed them documents from the state-run National Coca Company (ENACO) demonstrating that the crops were legal. "They said those [documents] were no good and they threw everyone out. The people have had to sleep outside," said Obregon. Outraged at the incident, Obregon organized nearly 4,000 cocaleros to confront the agents at their camp the next day. (La Republica, Lima, May 30)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

PROTESTS TOPPLE PREZ--AGAIN

Yeah, Bush Lied--So What Do We Do About It?

by Bill Weinberg

Two years and counting after the invasion, a year after the official transfer to Iraqi "sovereignty," and two months after the formation of an elected government, Iraq remains a classic counter-insurgency quagmire. And irrefutable documentary evidence has now emerged that Bush lied about his intentions in the war. We—the anti-war forces who warned of all this back in 2003—are vindicated. Just as the so-called "Memogate" revelations have come to light, global activists are gathering in Istanbul for a self-declared "tribunal" on US war crimes in Iraq, which is reiterating our all too obvious vindication.

Michel Aoun and the Sectarian Shadow

by Bilal El-Amine

The last round of the staggered parliamentary elections ended with a bang June 26 in the north of Lebanon. Most of the final results were predictable: the Harriri-Jumblatt alliance will control the majority in the new parliament with 72 members, the Shia Muslim bloc of Amal and Hizbullah got 35 seats, and the remaining 21 went to Michel Aoun and his allies. Ostensibly favoring a "secular" Lebanon, Aoun is a longtime opponent of the Syrian military presence in the country and many fear he is now poised to become the new political boss of the Christians--stirring recent memories of sectarian strife.