Newsbriefs

Continued Unrest
in Southern Mexico
CHIAPAS, DECEMBER 5, 1994
Newly elected PRI governor
Eduardo Robledo is strug-
gling to establish his political
legitimacy in the face of
demands from the Chiapan Peo-
ples Electoral Tribunal (PEPCH)
that the August state election be
annulled because of massive
fraud. The PEPCH collected
almost 2,000 complaints of fraud
in over half the state’s polling
booths. Trying to placate the
opposition, Robledo promised to
form a pluralistic government
with non-party representatives
who will “listen to the needs” of
Chiapas and search for ways to
reduce social inequities and
defuse the armed conflict.
Dozens of municipalities have
declared their autonomy since
the January 1994 uprising. Since
September, the Independent
Union of Agricultural Workers
(CIOAC) has united 20,000
Tojolobal indigenous people in
declaring self-rule. Villages have
expelled local authorities and
returned to decision-making
through regular community
assemblies. “We have closed
schools and clinics, and people
have agreed not to pay taxes,
water charges, electricity, or
government credits,” said Jos6
Antonio Hernandez, CIAOC
regional chief. In Mexico City,
indigenous legal representatives
are demanding government
recognition of the declarations of
autonomy.
The success of the Zapatista
National Liberation Army
(EZLN) in winning political
space and in consolidating their
grip on the liberated zone-cov-
ering a fifth of the state-has
inspired many in the state’s non-
aligned social movements to sup-
port the rebel demands. One
source within the Emiliano Zapa-
ta Peasant Organization (OCEZ)
admitted that hundreds of the
organization’s members had
defected to the rebels, and that
the guerrilla were even training
on OCEZ-occupied land. Such
developments are closing the gap
between open and clandestine
organizing.
In the absence of state authori-
ty, landowners and ranchers in
Chiapas have taken the law into
their own hands, dislodging
indigenous peasants from occu-
pied land. In one violent evic-
tion, ranchers and armed police
ejected 1,000 members of the Xi’
Nich indigenous organization
from a peaceful protest in the
Palenque town square. The clash
resulted in the death of one Xi’
Nich member, and 20 disappear-
ances.
The Mexican military, mean-
while, maintains its tight net
around EZLN positions, and
Zapatista troops are on perma-
nent alert, anticipating a sudden
strike during the first months of
newly inaugurated President
Ernesto Zedillo’s term. Chiapas
Bishop Samuel Rufz continues to
explore options for peace. He
recently launched the National
Intermediation Commission
(CONAI), composed of eight
prominent, well-respected Mexi-
cans. The commission is work-
ing to break the stalled dialogue
and reopen a peaceful road to
end the conflict-a prospect
which seems unlikely in the
immediate future.
-Michael McCaughan
Army Joins Fight
Against Drugs
RIo DE JANEIRO, NOVEMBER 28, 1994
T he direct intervention of the
Brazilian armed forces
marked the beginning of a new,
unprecedented phase in the war
against drug trafficking and vio-
lence in Rio de Janeiro, especial-
ly in the city’s impoverished
favelas where the problem is
most critical.
The military’s participation
was made possible by an agree-
ment signed between President
Itamar Franco, Justice Minister
Alexandre Dupeyrat and Rio de
Janeiro Governor Nilo Batista.
The agreement allowed the State
to avoid decreeing a “state of
defense,” the first step along the
path to a “state of siege” accord-
ing to the Brazilian Constitution.
It is the first time that the
Brazilian armed forces have left
their barracks and taken posi-
tions in strategic points of the
city to combat drug trafficking.
Until now, they have played this
role only in the border areas and
the Amazon.
General Roberto Camara
Senna, who was designated coor-
dinator of the joint actions of the
armed forces and the police,
designed a long-term plan that
foresees the “asphyxiation” of
narcotrafficking groups -by
preventing them from receiving
drugs and arms-followed by the
identification and detention of
their leaders. “This is a complex
problem that will take time to be
resolved. No one should expect
immediate results,” Camara
Senna warned upon assuming
command of the operations.
Using almost 2,000 men,
armored cars, tanks, rapid de-
ployment vehicles, and artillery
helicopters, the army rapidly took
control of the majority of the
city’sfavelas and detained an un-
determined number of suspects.
Human rights organizations
have strongly criticized the mili-
tary operations, especially the de-
tention of people for not carrying
identity documents and the meti-
culous body searches of children.
Vol XXVIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 19951
Vol XXVIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1995 1NEWSBRIEFS
Despite the commotion gener-
ated by the sight of large num-
bers of soldiers patrolling the
streets and the extensive local
media coverage, statistics of
crime and violence in Rio de
Janeiro are no worse than in
other large Latin American cities.
Governor Batista was harshly
criticized for not decreeing a
state of defense, even though he
reminded people that the mea-
sure allows the authorities to
open up private correspondence,
detain suspects without a court
order, and tap telephone lines.
-Aldo Horacio Gamboa
Frente Amplio Makes
Gains in Uruguay
MONTEVIDEO, NOVEMBER 30, 1994
On November 27, the biparti-
san system which has char-
acterized Uruguay for over 165
years may have come to an end.
Uruguayans, voting in their third
national elections since the return
to civilian rule in 1984, recog-
nized the Left coalition party
Frente Amplio (Broad Front) as a
legitimate and viable political
force. In a close three-way race,
the Frente came in third. The pre-
sident-elect is former President
Julio Sanguinetti, who presided
over the nation’s transition from
military to civilian rule from 1984
to 1989. But his victorious party,
the centrist Colorados, received
only a third of the popular vote.
With about two million votes
cast, a mere 28,000 votes separat-
ed the Colorados from the Frente
Amplio. The Colorados received
31.2% of the presidential vote,
the conservative National Party
(also known as the Blancos)
30.0%, and the Frente Amplio
29.8%. The three parties are
expected to be about evenly rep-
resented in the new Congress.
The centrist Sanguinetti is
expected to soften, but not aban-
don the process of neoliberal
reform set in motion by the out-
going National Party president,
Luis Alberto Lacalle. The impor-
tance of these elections, however,
is to be found in the unprecedent-
ed showing of the coalition of
Communists, socialists, ex-Tupa-
maro guerrillas and other leftists.
Receiving 40% more votes than
in 1989, the Frente maintained
control of the city government in
Montevideo and broadened its
base in the traditionally more
conservative interior. As Uru-
guay faces the challenges of
regional economic integration,
the nation must adapt to the reali-
ties of tripartisanism within the
institutional limitations of a two-
party structure.
— Aimee Verdisco and
Christine Ehrick
Hunger Strike
Calls Attention to
Army Abuses
GUATEMALA CITY, NOVEMBER 28, 1994
A 32-day hunger strike by a
U.S. lawyer has succeeded
in drawing the U.S. govern-
ment’s attention back to ongoing
human rights abuses by the
Guatemalan army. The press
coverage generated by Jennifer
Harbury’s search for her missing
husband, a guerrilla commander
with the Guatemalan National
Revolutionary Unity (URNG),
has led to meetings between the
Harvard-educated attorney and
top U.S. officials, and increased
pressure on the army to clean up
its act.
For months, Guatemalan
activists have accused the inter-
national community-especially
the United States-of downplay-
ing continued rights abuses in
favor of pushing through peace
accords to end Guatemala’s 34-
year civil war. According to the
Guatemalan Archbishop’s
Human Rights Office, abuses
have actually increased since
government and URNG negotia-
tors signed a historic human
rights accord in March.
Harbury went on a hunger
strike in a last-ditch effort to
demand the reappearance of
Efrafn Bdmaca VelAsquez, who
she-and now, the U.S. State
Department-says was captured
by the Guatemalan army in 1992.
Backed by international human
rights groups and influential sup-
porters such as former President
Jimmy Carter, Harbury is
demanding that Bdmaca and
other prisoners of war be given
fair and legal treatment.
Harbury’s story has captured
the imagination of many in the
United States. She met and fell in
love with Bimaca, a leading
Mayan URNG commander, in
1991. The two were married in
early 1992, but Bdmaca-also
known as Comandante Everar-
do–disappeared in combat
months later. The army said he
killed himself to avoid capture,
but an escaped fellow rebel
reported seeing him alive and
brutally tortured five months
after his disappearance. An
exhumation in 1993 of BAmaca’s
supposed grave produced a man
significantly shorter and younger
than BAmaca. Several residents
of Bimaca’ s hometown have also
reported seeing him alive in army
custody after he disappeared.
LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN RESOURCE GUIDE
Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios
Legales Alternativos, P.O. Box
077844, Bogota, Colombia. Human
Rights Working Paper.
Intercongregational Commission for
Justice and Peace, A.A. 52332,
Bogota, Colombia. Tel: (57-1) 245-
5526. Colombia Bulletin.
COSTA RICA
Arias Foundation for Peace and Human
Progress, Calle 36, Avenidas 1 y 3,
Casa No. 119, P.O. Box 8-6410, San
Jos6 1000 Costa Rica. Tel: (506) 552-
955. Fax: (506) 552-244.
Asociaci6n de Desarrollo Integral de la
Reserva Indigena Cocles/KkkbLdi,
Apartado 170-2070, Sabanilla, Montes
de Oca, San Jose, Costa Rica. Tel:
(506) 24-60-90. Fax: (506) 53-75-24.
Cefemina: Centro Feminista de Infor-
maci6n y Acci6n, Apartado 5355, San
Jos6 1000 Costa Rica. Tel: (506) 24-
46-20. Fax: (506) 34-68-75.
Friends Peace Center, Apartado Postal
1507, San Jose 1000 Costa Rica. Tel:
(506) 336-168. Building Peace in
Costa Rica.
Programa de Informaci6n para la
Mujer, Apto. 1009, Centro Colon, San
Jose, Costa Rica.
CUBA
Center for Cuban Studies, 124 W. 23
St., New York, NY 10011 USA. Tel:
(212) 242-0559. Fax: (212) 242-1937.
Cuba Update.
Center for Studies of the Americas,
Calle 18 No. 316, 3era y 5ta Avenida,
Miramar Playa, Havana 13 Cuba. Tel:
296-745. Cuademos de Nuestra
America.
Cuba Information Project, 198 Broad-
way, Ste. 800, New York, NY 10038
USA. Tel: (212) 227-3422. Fax: (212)
227-4859. E-mail: nyempower@igc.
apc.org. Cuba Action.
Cuba Solidarity Campaign, 129 Seven
Sisters Rd., London N7 7QT England.
Tel: (44-71) 263-6452. B.C.R.C. Bulletin.
Global Exchange, Cuba Project, 2017
Mission St., Ste. 303, San Francisco,
CA 94110 USA. Tel: (415) 255-7296.
Fax: (415) 255-7498.
National Venceremos Brigade, P.O.
Box 673, New York, NY 10035 USA.
Tel: (212) 246-3811.
Radio Habana Cuba, Aptdo. de Corre-
os 70-26, Havana, Cuba. Tel: 7-4954.
U.S.-Cuba Medical Project, 1173-A
Second Ave., Ste. 232, New York, NY
10021 USA. Tel: (212) 751-0672. Fax:
(212) 752-1809.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Coalition for the Abolition of Slavery in
the Dominican Republic, 2000,
Alexandre de Seve, Montreal, PQ H2L
2W4 Canada. Tel: (514) 521-0095.
Instituto de Investigaci6n, Docu-
mentaci6n Derechos Humanos de la
Republica Dominicana, C/Arzobispo
Nouel No. 2, Zona Colonial, Apartado
de Correos No. 21424, Santo Domin-
go, Dominican Republic.
International Research and Training
Institute for the Advancement of
Women, Avenida Cesar Nicolas Pen-
son 102-A, P.O. Box 21747, Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic. Tel:
(809) 685-2111. Fax: (809) 685-2117.
INSTRAWNews: Women and Develop-
ment
ECUADOR
Agencia Latinoamericana de Informa-
cin, Av. 12 de Octubre 622 y Patria,
of. 503, Casilla 17-12-877, Quito,
Ecuador. ALAI Servicio Informativo.
Latin American Association for Human
Rights, Av. Rumipamba 862 y Republi-
ca Apartado 17-07-9296, Quito,
Ecuador. Tel: (5932) 242472. Fax:
(593-2) 549274.
Union Nacional de Mujeres del
Ecuador, c/o Dr. Irene Paredes, Ver-
salles 1103, Quito, Ecuador.
EL SALVADOR
CISPES National Office, P.O. Box
12156, Washington, DC 20005 USA.
Tel: (202) 265-0895. Fax: (202) 265-
7843. Alertl.
Cristianos por la Paz en El Salvador,
1135 Mission Rd., San Antonio, TX
78210 USA. Tel: (512) 534-6996.
Crispaz/Letter to the Churches.
El Salvador Solidarity Campaign, 129
Seven Sisters Rd., London N7 7QG
England. Tel: (44-71) 272-4580.
Federation of Independent Associa-
tions and Unions of El Salvador, U.S.
Office, 1377 K St., NW, Rm. 114,
Washington, DC 20005 USA. Tel:
(202) 232-8539. Fax: (202) 265-7843.
MADRE, 121 W. 27 St., Rm. 301, New
York, NY 10001 USA. Tel: (212) 627-
0444. MADRE.
Medical Aid for El Salvador, P.O. Box
3282, Los Angeles, CA 90078 USA.
Tel: (213) 937-3596.
National Federation of Salvadoran
Workers, 1300 Connecticut Ave., NW,
Rm, 808, Washington, D.C. 20036
USA.
GUATEMALA
Guatemala Health Rights Support Pro-
ject, 1747 Connecticut Ave., NW,
Washington, DC 20009 USA. Tel:
(202) 332-7678. Fax: (202) 328-3369.
Guatemala Human Rights Commis-
sion/USA, 3321 12 St., NE, Washing-
ton, DC 20017 USA. Tel: (202) 529-
6599. Fax: (202) 526-4611. E-mail:
ghrc@igc.apc.org. Guatemala Bulletin.
Guatemala News and Information
Bureau, P.O. Box 28594, Oakland, CA
94604 USA. Tel: (510) 835-0810. Fax:
(510) 835-0810. E-mail:
gnib@igc.apc.org. Report on
Guatemala.
Guatemalan News Agency, Apartado
Postal 74-206, Delegaci6n Iztapalapa,
CP 09080 Mexico D.F., Mexico.
Cerigua Weekly Briefs.
Ixoquib, P.O. Box 24, Chilmark, MA
02535 USA. TELAR: A Guatemalan
Women’s Magazine/Una Revista de la
Mujer Guatemalteca.
National Coordinating Office on
Refugees and Displaced of Guatemala,
59 E. Van Buren, Ste. 1400, Chicago,
IL 60605 USA. Tel: (312) 360-1705.
Network in Solidarity with the People
of Guatemala, 1500 Massachusetts
Ave., NW, Ste. 241, Washington, DC
20005 USA. Tel: (202) 223-6474. Fax:
(202) 223-8221. E-mail:
nisgua@igc.apc.org. Report on
Guatemala.
Project Balam for the Defence of the
Environment through Peace and Jus-
tice, c/o Guatemalan Community Net-
work, 427 Bloor St., Toronto, ON M5S
1X7 Canada. Tel: (416) 929-8601. Fax:
(416) 929-8601.
U.S.-Guatemala Labor Education Pro-
ject, c/o ACTWU-Chicago Joint Board,
333 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL
60607 USA. Tel: (312) 262-6502. Fax:
(312) 262-6602. E-mail:
usglep@igc.apc.org.
HAITI
Committee against Repression in Haiti,
1398 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn, NY
11210 USA. Tel: (718) 434-3940. Haiti
Report.
Friends of Haiti, 1398 Flatbush Ave.,
Brooklyn, NY 11210 USA. Tel: (718)
434-8100.
Haiti Communications Project, 11
Inman St., Cambridge, MA 02139
USA.
Haiti News, 131 N. Main St., Sharon,
MA 02067 USA. Tel: (617) 784-8067.
Haiti News.
Haiti Reborn, c/o Quixote Center, P.O.
Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782 USA.
Tel: (301) 699-0042. Fax: (301) 699-
0042.
Haiti Support Group, Trinity Church,
Hodford Rd., London NW11 8NG Eng-
land. Tel: (44-81) 201-9878.
Haitian Information Bureau, c/o Lynx
Air, Box 407139, Fort Lauderdale, FL
33340 USA. E-mail: hib@igc.apc.org.
Haiti Info.
National Coalition for Haitian
Refugees, 275 Seventh Ave., 25th
floor, New York, NY 10001-6708 USA.
Tel: (212) 337-0005. Fax: (212) 337-
0028. HAITI Insight A Bulletin on
Refugee and Human Rights Affairs.
Washington Office on Haiti, 110 Mary-
land Ave., NE, Ste. 310, Washington,
DC 20002 USA. Tel: (202) 543-7095.
Fax: (202) 547-9382. E-mail:
wohaiti@igc.apc.org. Haitian News
and Resource Service.
HONDURAS
Committee for the Defense of Human
Rights in Honduras, Plaza Los
Dolores, Edificio 447, A. Postal 21-
477, Tegucigalpa, M.D.C., Honduras.
Instituto de Investigaciones Socioe-
con6micas de Honduras, Apartado
Postal 20-057, Colonia San Angel,
01000 Mexico D.F., Mexico. INSEH
News Briefs
JAMAICA
Friends for Jamaica, P.O. Box 20392,
Park West Sta., New York, NY 10025
USA. Caribbean Newsletter
Joint Trade Unions Research Develop-
ment Centre, 1A Hope Blvd., Kingston
6, Jamaica, West Indies. Tel: (809) 92-
72468.
Sistren Theatre Collective, 20 Kensing-
ton Crescent, Kingston 5 Jamaica,
West Indies. Tel: (809) 92-92457.
MEXICO
American Friends Service Committee,
Mexico-U.S. Border Program, 1501
Cherry St., Philadelphia, PA 19102
USA. Tel: (215) 241-7132.
Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, Uni-
versity of California, San Diego, 9500
Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92093-0510
VOL XXVIII, No 4 JAN/FEB 1995 41
“The battle she’s fighting is
part of the struggle of the
Guatemalan people,” says
Miguel Morales of the
Guatemalan Mutual Support
Group for Families of the Disap-
peared (GAM). “If this is hap-
pening with the husband of a for-
eigner, what’s happening to
Guatemalans in the rural interior
of the country? In remote vil-
lages, people can’t even report
forced disappearances because of
harassment by the PACs [paramili-
tary civil patrols], military-intelli-
gence agents, or the army.”
According to human rights groups,
some 200,000 Guatemalans–
mostly poor and indigenous-have
been murdered or disappeared in
three decades of brutal counterin-
surgency war.
The sudden burst of publicity
around Harbury’s case prompted
the State Department to reveal that,
according to information gathered
by various U.S. agencies, Bimaca
was captured in March, 1992 and
seen alive as late as that July. Sev-
eral high-level U.S. officials have
met with Harbury. The State
Department has, however, rejected
her calls for economic sanctions,
despite increased defiance by the
Guatemalan government.
The Guatemalan army denies it
keeps prisoners of war, and insists
that Bdmaca is dead. Defense Min-
ister Gen. Mario Enrfquez and other
officials have engaged in a series of
nasty public attacks against Harbury.
They have questioned the legality
of her marriage and threatened to
bar her from the country. Guate-
malan President Ramiro De Le6n
Carpio has formed a government
commission to investigate Harbury’s
charges, but continues to insist that
BAmaca is dead. Yet another
exhumation in November failed to
produce the rebel commander, and
Harbury says the Guatemalan gov-
ernment is merely stalling.
Harbury ended her strike in order
to file criminal charges against
eight army officers implicated in
BAmaca’ s capture and torture.
-Laura Proctor
Proposition 187 Comes to
El Salvador
SAN SALVADOR, NOVEMBER 25, 1994
The possible deportation of hun-
dreds of thousands of undocu-
mented Salvadorans from the Unit-
ed States has generated concern
bordering on panic here. Undocu-
mented Salvadorans are doubly
threatened, by the federal cutoff of
Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
on January 1, and by the denial of
basic public services to all undocu-
mented aliens, approved by Cali-
fornia voters in November as
“Proposition 187.”
Salvadoran President Armando
Calder6n Sol said that his country
was unprepared for a massive
deportation given the country’s
problems with employment, hous-
ing, health and education. “Even if
it’s beans and tortillas, right now
everyone can eat,” said the rightist
president, warning that the country
might not be able to accommodate
its “distant brothers.” Jesuits here
have criticized Calder6n’s “out-
bursts of solidarity,” saying that
beans and tortillas were becoming
luxuries in El Salvador. “We
should look at ourselves,” said
Father Javier Ibisate, a Jesuit priest
and economist. “The officials com-
plaining most furiously about Cali-
fornia racism are the same ones
who are denying services to Sal-
vadorans who have remained
here.”
The most pressing issue is remit-
tances. Since 1988, the million or
so Salvadorans living in the United
States have sent an estimated $4.2
billion back to El Salvador. This
year, remittances are expected to
reach $1 billion, while export earn-
ings from the sale of coffee will be
only about $600 million. “Poor
Salvadorans,” said Father Ibisate, “are rescuing the economic model
created by the rich for the benefit
of the rich.”
-InterPress Service
Menem’s Praise of Military
Provokes Outcry
BUENOS AIRES, NOVEMBER 11, 1994
In mid-October, President Carlos
Menem endorsed the proposed
promotion of two navy captains
accused by human rights organiza-
tions of torturing prisoners in the
“dirty war” during the military
juntas of 1976-1983. Before the
two officers testified before a spe-
cial Senate commission during
proceedings to consider their pro-
motions, Menem urged the Con-
gress “not to look back” at the
bloody repression of the past, but
to get on with healing wounds and
unifying the country. The Senate,
however, turned down the officers’
bid for promotion after the two
men admitted that they knew pris-
oners had been tortured by the mil-
itary to gain information, and that
they had personally participated in
torture sessions.
One week later, the president
stunned many Argentines by prais-
ing the military’s role during the
1970s and 1980s. “It was thanks to
the presence of the armed forces
… that we fought and triumphed in
the dirty war which took our com-
munity to the brink of collapse,”
said Menem. The president said
that his own imprisonment by
those same military forces gave
him “more authority than many to
talk about this.”
Human rights groups reacted
furiously to what they considered
Menem’s attempt to whitewash the
military’s bloody past. Hebe
Bonafini, the president of the
Association of the Mothers of the
Plaza de Mayo, the organization of
families of the disappeared,
warned that conditions in Argenti-
na were ripe for the return of
repression and violence.
Bonafini cited the recent
appointment of Olimpo Garay as
head of the prison system. Garay,
who headed the dreaded detention
camps during the dirty war, was
forced to resign his new post after
the prisoners held a hunger strike
to protest his appointment.
Some political analysts have
suggested that Menem’s praise of
the armed forces was an effort to
neutralize the growing discontent
within the military over low
salaries and the Senate’s refusal to
promote the two navy officers.
Menem, however, rejected this
view, saying that his relations with
the military were excellent and that
“there is absolute tranquility in the
armed forces.”
-NotiSur
Ortega’s Faction Takes
Control of Sandinista Party
MANAGUA, NOVEMBER 7, 1994
he slowly expanding split in the
Sandinista National Liberation
Front (FSLN) widened abruptly on
October 25 when the director of the
FSLN-owned Barricada, Carlos
Fernando Chamorro, was sacked
from his post because of “differ-
ences” with the party leadership.
The action was seen as the latest
effort to marginalize FSLN social
democrats from any positions of
power.
Over the past few years, under
Chamorro’s leadership, the Barri-
cada editorial policy has gradually
moved away from a strict party
line, and has at times been openly
critical of Ortega. In a final state-
ment published in Barricada,
Chamorro referred to his firing as
“an extreme dose of political intol-
erance.”
The fallout from Chamorro’s dis-
missal has been extensive, with
FSLN leader Bayardo Arce resign-
ing as president of Barricada’s
board of directors, along with the
entire editorial board and 20 of the
newspaper’s editors and journalists.
Chamorro was replaced by Lum-
berto Campbell, a member of the
FSLN directorate from Bluefields
with no journalistic background.
Tomis Borge, a staunch Ortega
supporter, is to replace Arce as
president of the board of directors
and the editorial board.
Fueling the tensions, the poet and
former minister of culture, Ernesto
Cardenal, resigned from the party,
accusing Daniel Ortega of having
“taken over the party” to further his
own political interests.
Henry Ruiz, Dora Maria Tellez,
Luis Carri6n, and Mirna Cunning-
ham-all members of the FSLN
directorate-issued a joint state-
ment claiming that party hardliners
were using party resources to attack
other Sandinistas.
— NotiSur
Cocaine Comes to
Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast
PUERTO CABEZAS, NICARAGUA, DEC., 1994
N icaragua’ s Atlantic Coast has
always been isolated and
underdeveloped. What little infra-
structure there was before the Con-
tra war is now in shambles. But one
foreign business dealing in “nontra-
ditional exports” is booming. The
Cali cocaine cartel is quickly
becoming the employer of last
resort. On Nicaragua’s northeast
coast, the free market means that
cocaine is king.
Divers and fishermen meet
Colombian smugglers on the high
seas to trade fish and rock lobster
for cocaine. The Colombians use
the fish to launder their cash on the
Colombian island of San Andrns,
while the Nicaraguans resell the
cocaine for transshipment north or
for local consumption. Hungry,
demobilized Contras are also trad-
ing guns, left over from the war, for
drugs and commodities like stereos
and clothing. Nicaraguan newspa-
pers estimate that as many as 7,000
AK-47s and scores of rocket
launchers have been swapped for
drugs and merchandise in the last
three years.
The Nicaraguan army has a mini-
mal presence on the Atlantic Coast.
The police in Puerto Cabezas have
access to one helicopter for half a day
a month. Their few 75-horsepower
speed boats are short on gas and no
match for the Cali cartel’s 250-
to 500-horsepower engines. Nic-
aragua’s 500-mile coast is the per-
fect trampoline for drug traffickers
wishing to divide, consolidate or
reroute their cargo. The region’s
18,000 demobilized Contras and
Sandinista soldiers make a willing
labor pool.
Earlier this year, ex-Contras from
the Miskito group Yatama gunned
down three Colombians who had
come ashore to the remote hamlet
of Sandy Bay to sell cocaine at
what villagers called “ridiculously
low prices.” One rumor has it that
the Colombians were killed be-
cause they were from the Medellin
cartel and cutting in on a Cali fran-
chise. After killing the traffickers,
the Miskito gunmen allegedly took
and distributed much of the deal-
ers’ cocaine before calling in the
police for a high-profile drug
recovery.
Mirna Cunningham, a Miskito
nurse recently elected to the nation-
al directorate of the Sandinista
Front sees the drug trade as just the
latest version of colonial dependence.
“It makes perfect sense,” says Cun-
ningham. “We’ve had ten years of
war which tried to crush an alterna-
tive economic model and now no
reconstruction program. What else
are the thousands of demobilized
troops to do? They’ve been told to
insert themselves into the world
economy so they export cocaine to
you in the United States.”
-Christian Parenti
Sources
Michael McCaughan is a NACLA corre-
spondent based in Chiapas.
Aldo Horacio Gamboa is a freelance cor-
respondent based in Rio de Janeiro.
Aimee Verdisco and Christine Ehrick are
Fulbright scholars currently conducting
research in Montevideo.
Laura Proctor covers Guatemala for Paci-
fica Radio.
InterPress Service is an international news
service based in Italy. Its dispatches can
be read on-line in the Peacenet confer-
ences: ips.espanol and ips.english.
NotiSur is available as a closed Peacenet
conference: carnet.ladb. For subscription
information: Latin American Data Base,
Latin American Institute, University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131;
(800) 472-0888.
Christian Parenti is a freelance correspon-
dent based in London.