from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Some 10,000 indigenous people from throughout Ecuador gathered in the capital, Quito, Nov. 16-18 to demand that President Alfredo Palacio not sign a free trade treaty (TLC) with the US. The protesters are also demanding that the Palacio government cancel its contract with the US oil company Occidental (Oxy), and that a national constitutional assembly be convened to rewrite the country's Constitution. In addition, the indigenous movement is demanding that the government end its cooperation with "Plan Colombia," the US-backed military program which is intensifying the war in Colombia and spreading it across the border into Ecuador.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

OIL DEAL FOR U.S. POOR

The Houston-based oil company CITGO, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Venezuelan state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), is set to supply 9 million gallons of discounted home heating oil to 45,000 low-income families in Massachusetts in December, and another 3 million gallons to local charities. The deal—arranged by Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), the Boston-based nonprofit energy corporation Citizens Energy and left-populist Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias—provides the oil at a 40% discount. CITGO and Citizens Energy, which is headed by former US representative Joseph Kennedy II, were scheduled to sign a contract on Nov. 22.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

CAUCA: ONE KILLED IN EVICTION

On the morning of Nov. 9 some 500 Colombian police agents attempted the forcible removal of 400 members of Paez (Nasa) indigenous communities from the El Japio farm, in Caloto municipality in the southwestern department of Cauca, which they had been occupying since Oct. 12. A 16-year old indigenous youth—Belisario Camallo Guetoto, according to the Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), and Belisario Tamayo, according to most media reports—was killed by a shot to the head. At least 36 indigenous people and 10 police agents were reportedly wounded during fighting which continued through Nov. 10. At least one anti-riot vehicle was set on fire.

Did U.S. Use Germ Warfare Against DC Peace March?
Or Are We Just Being Bionoid...?

by Mark Sanborne

"Bionoia... Catch It!"

The Ecology of Pandemic and the Impending Bio-Police State

by Michael I. Niman

If there's any good to come out of the Gulf Coast tragedy, it's that Katrina is a harbinger warning of what the Bush junta has in store for us should an avian flu pandemic hit America. Katrina, like the tsunami that hit Asia nine months earlier, also demonstrates how greed, political priorities and development priorities compounded the killing power of otherwise "natural" disasters.

A Perfect Biological Storm

Is the Real Enemy Islamic Terrorism, or Bolivia's Indigenous Revolution?

by Benjamin Dangl

The recent shift to the left among Latin American governments has been a cause for concern in the Bush administration. The White House has tried in vain to put this shift in check. Presidential elections in Bolivia on December 18 are likely to further challenge US hegemony. Evo Morales, an indigenous, socialist congressman, is expected to win the election. How far will the US go to prevent a leftist victory in Bolivia? Some Bolivians fear the worst.

In the past year, US military operations in neighboring Paraguay, Bolivia's neighbor on the southeast, have complicated the already tumultuous political climate in the region. White House officials claim the operations are part of humanitarian aid efforts. However, political analysts in both Paraguay and Bolivia say the activity is aimed at securing the region's gas and water reserves—and intervening in Bolivia if Morales wins.

Detainees Launch Non-Violent Resistance Behind Pentagon's Iron Veil

by Tanya Theriault

The veil of secrecy at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when tugged at, continues to reveal the inhumane treatment of detainees held there. Since January 2002, the US has been imprisoning men (at present 505) from some 30 to 40 countries—but primarily Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen—indefinitely, without legal process, as "enemy combatants," so as to dodge the requirements of the Geneva Conventions on torture. Reports of torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo continue to come from a variety of sources. Amnesty International has called the detention of the inmates "unlawful and arbitrary," and found conditions at the prison to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading." The International Committee of the Red Cross took the rare, bold step of making public the abuse and mental deterioration of inmates as a result of their indefinite and often solitary imprisonment, calling interminable detention of prisoners "tantamount to torture." What is hidden about the detention camp at Guantanamo should terrify us, as what we know now to be true makes us tremble in shame.

BOOK REVIEW

Imperial Overstretch:
George W Bush and the Hubris of Empire
By Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell
Zed Books, London, 2004

by Daniel Leal Diaz