Newsbriefs

LETELIER ASSASSIN STILL
NOT BEHIND BARS
SANTIAGO DE CHILE, AUGUST 2, 1995
Chilean President Eduardo
Frei and current army chief
and former dictator Gen. Augusto
Pinochet met for an hour on
August 1 to discuss civilian-mili-
tary relations. Tensions were
aroused by the May 30 Supreme
Court ruling that upheld the 1993
conviction of two military gener-
als for plotting the 1976 assassi-
nation of former foreign minister
Orlando Letelier and his U.S.
aide Ronni Moffit in Washington,
D.C. Retired Gen. Manuel
Contreras, the head of the DINA,
Chile’s secret police, during the
early years of the dictatorship,
and his second-in-command
Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza were
sentenced to seven and six years,
respectively.
Chilean police arrested
Espinoza on June 20, after he
eluded capture for three weeks
with the tacit support of the mili-
tary. Contreras, however, contin-
ues to resist going to prison. On
June 11, he took refuge at a mili-
tary base near his private ranch
for 11 hours. Two days later, with
the support of the army and navy,
he was spirited by air to a naval
hospital in Talcahuano, where he
remains. His lawyers claim that
he is suffering from such ail-
ments as high-blood pressure,
diabetes, and a hernia.
The meeting between Frei and
Pinochet came after a 300-car
motorcade carrying many senior
active-duty military officers
descended upon Punta de Peuco
prison in a July 22 demonstration
of solidarity with Espinoza. The
prison, where Espinoza is being
held, was specially built for mili-
tary officers convicted of human
rights abuses.
Some believe that Frei called
the meeting with Pinochet to urge
him to remind his subordinates of
their constitutional duty. Others
speculate that Pinochet encour-
aged the officers’ participation in
the demonstration to put pressure
on Frei not to imprison Contreras,
and to pass a punto final law that
would close all human rights
cases pending against members of
the armed forces.
Pro-democracy politicians and
human rights groups said that the
democratic process in Chile had
been compromised by the mili-
tary’s initial defiance of civilian
authority and that while they
were encouraged by Espinoza’s
arrest, the constitutional crisis
would not end until Contreras
goes to jail.
— InterPress Service
NEW AMNESTY LAW
IN PERU
LIMA, JULY 8, 1995
Shen President Alberto
Fujimori signed a contro-
versial amnesty bill on June 14,
the simmering battle that has
marked his relationship with
human rights groups during his
first term in office erupted again.
The bill, passed by a 47-11 vote
in the Fujimori-controlled legisla-
ture, absolves military, police and
civilians for any human rights
abuses or other criminal acts
committed from May, 1982
through June 14, 1995 if they
were related to the counterinsur-
gency war.
The amnesty law, quickly
signed by Fujimori the day after
it was passed, promptly resulted
in the release of those convicted
in the 1992 kidnapping and mur-
der of a professor and nine stu-
dents from the Enrique Guzmin
y Valle University outside Lima.
According to the National
Human Rights Coordinating
Committee (CONADEH), the
law will also absolve those guilty
of eight other massacres in which
hundreds of people were killed.
While backers of the amnesty
law justified the measure as nec-
essary for “national reconcilia-
tion,” opposition political groups,
human rights organizations, fam-
ilies of victims, and church lead-
ers were all quick to denounce
the legislation.
-NotiSur
CAMPAIGN TO
RELEASE PRISONERS OF
CONSCIENCE
LONDON, JULY 21, 1995
undreds of Peruvian politi-
cal prisoners, accused of
crimes of “terrorism,” have been
anxiously waiting to hear
whether they will be released
shortly. There have been persis-
tent rumors that President
Fujimori might try to improve his
government’s poor international
reputation by releasing at least
some prisoners of conscience as a
way to “balance” the amnesty
law passed in June.
According to Amnesty Inter-
national, there are several hundred
prisoners of conscience (POCs) in
Peru, in addition to thousands of
imprisoned members of guerrilla
organizations. Virtually all these
people were sentenced by Peru’s
“faceless” judges-anonymous
individuals, often military officers
without legal training, who sit in
judgment of detainees accused of
crimes of terrorism. POCs are
people who have not advocated or
engaged in acts of political vio-
lence, yet who in many cases have
been accused of crimes of terror-
ism, the definition of which was
considerably broadened by the
government two years ago.
The case of the environmental-
ists Maria Elena Foronda Farro
and Oscar Dfaz Barboza has
become the subject of an interna-
tional campaign by Amnesty and
environmental groups such as
Greenpeace. Arrested in Sep-
tember, 1994, the two activists
Vol XXIX, No 2 SEPT/OCT 19951
1
Vol XXIX, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1995NEWSBRIEFS
received prison sentences of 20
years for alleged crimes of terror-
ism. Critics contend that their
real crime was organizing grass-
roots protests against the pollu-
tion caused by fish-processing
factories in the town of Chimbote.
The head of the Peruvian armed
forces is a director of one of these
factories.
Maria Elena Foronda and many
other prisoners were convicted
under the so-called Repentance
Law, which was in force from
May, 1992 to October, 1994.
Under that law, captured mem-
bers of Shining Path and the
Ttipac Amaru Revolutionary
Movement (MRTA) were able to
secure their own release by accus-
ing other people of membership
in guerrilla organizations. This
led to many false accusations
against environmental and com-
munity activists who oppose the
use of violence-people whom
the guerrillas often perceive as
enemies. Foronda was impris-
oned on the basis of accusations
made by an imprisoned member
of the MRTA, even though she is
a known reformist.
-Richard Gillespie
THE PRI BUYS AN
ELECTION IN TABASCO
MEXICO CITY, AUGUST 3, 1995
Sixteen boxes of documents
surreptitiously delivered to
the opposition Party of the
Democratic Revolution (PRD)
have revealed that Mexico’s rul-
ing Institutional Revolutionary
Party (PRI) spent $237 million
new pesos-$68 million dollars,
about 60 times the legal limit-
on a gubernatorial election in the
southeastern state of Tabasco last
November. This comes to about
$800 pesos ($235 dollars) for
every vote garnered by the PRI.
The documents, which corrobo-
rate long-standing accusations of
illicit campaign spending by the
PRI, were delivered to the oppo-
sition in a clearly calculated man-
ner, sparking angry discussions
about “traitors” within the ranks
of the world’s oldest continually
ruling party.
On November 20, 1994, PRI
gubernatorial candidate Roberto
Madrazo defeated his PRD oppo-
nent, Andr6s Manuel L6pez
Obrador, in an election tainted by
accusations of fraud. The watch-
dog organization Civic Alliance
dismissed the process as a “per-
fect farce,” and a subsequent
report by two senior officials at
the Federal Electoral Institute
(IFE) confirmed that irregularities
were widespread. In response, the
PRD launched a civil-disobedi-
ence campaign to force
Madrazo’s resignation, in the
process shutting down one-third
of the extensive government-
owned oil facilities in the state.
In January, President Ernesto
Zedillo reportedly agreed to hold
new elections in Tabasco as part
of his national political accord.
When the news reached the state,
however, thousands of militant
priistas responded by shutting
down the state capital, Villa-
hermosa, and assaulting PRD
activists. Zedillo buckled under
the pressure, and in May publicly
affirmed his support for Madrazo
during a visit to Tabasco: “We
will work together until the year
2000,” he said.
On June 5, while L6pez
Obrador and his supporters were
camped out in Mexico City’s
main square after a 41-day protest
march from Tabasco to the capi-
tal, unidentified men unloaded
the boxes from a truck and quick-
ly disappeared. Fifteen PRD
staffers spent four days examining
thousands of check stubs, ledgers,
invoices and receipts-the financial
archive of the PRI in Tabasco–
before announcing their find.
The documents reveal a
labyrinthine network of patronage
and corruption. Among those who
received money were religious
leaders, businesspeople, members
of opposition parties-including
the PRD-and PRI stalwarts at
every level. A significant portion of
the total was spent on thousands of
vehicles to take voters to the polls,
as well as outrageously high fees
for Madrazo’s political advisors.
But many Mexicans have yet to
learn the full details of “Tabasco-
gate” because the national media,
and particularly the pro-govern-
ment Televisa network, have been
reluctant to cover the story.
Newspapers in Tabasco, mean-
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while, have consistently misrepre-
sented or ignored the PRD’s
charges against Madrazo.
The documents are currently in
the possession of the federal attor-
ney general’s office, though PRI
officials in Tabasco insist that the
case should be handled by state
judicial authorities, many of whom
have direct ties to Madrazo. The
PRD, as well as the conservative
PAN, is demanding Madrazo’s res-
ignation. L6pez Obrador-a top
candidate to succeed Porfirio
Mufioz Ledo as the PRD’s presi-
dent-said on July 19 that if the
attorney general fails to act deci-
sively, his party will mount a
renewed civil-disobedience cam-
paign and take the case to the Inter-
American Commission on Human
Rights of the Organization of
American States in Washington.
“We will call attention,” said L6pez
Obrador, “to the fact that a candi-
date for governor of a Mexican
state spent more money in his cam-
paign than President Clinton spent
in his.”
-Scott Sherman
PRO-ARISTIDE FORCES
WIN HAITI ELECTIONS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, AUGUST 1
Preliminary
results from Haiti’s
June 25 legislative and local
elections showed that the three-
party coalition, Lavalas Political
Organization (OPL), backed by
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
will control both houses of the leg-
islature as well as the governments
of most major cities. Although
most opposition parties protested
the elections, international observers,
including U.S. and UN officials,
called them legitimate. They claimed
that irregularities in the process
were due largely to inadequate
infrastructure and technical capaci-
ty, not deliberate fraud.
In the important race for mayor
of Port-au-Prince, popular leftist
folk singer Emmanuel Charle-
magne defeated the incumbent,
Evans Paul, once a close ally of
Aristide. Charlemagne took 45% of
the vote to Paul’s 18%. Paul, who
spent most of the years following
the 1991 military coup in hiding, is
seen by many as the U.S. choice to
replace Aristide. During the cam-
paign, Charlemagne criticized the
U.S. invasion that made possible
Aristide’s return to power, and he
also questioned the channelling of
U.S. Agency for International
Development (U.S.AID) money
through the mayor’s office rather
than through the office of the presi-
dent. Despite his criticisms,
Charlemagne said he would support
Aristide’s economic policies.
Twenty-three of the 27 participat-
ing political parties condemned the
widespread electoral problems, and
insisted that elections be reheld and
the Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP) be replaced. Opponents
charge that the electoral council
favored Aristide-backed candidates
and allowed widespread fraud. On
July 26, two members of the CEP
announced their resignations, in a
move to mollify the opposition.
The electoral commission also
announced that makeup elections
will be held in communities in eight
of Haiti’s nine provinces. In all,
more than 100,000 people were
unable to vote because ballots
arrived late at polling places or not
at all. In some cases, arsonists
burned the ballots. Many voters
could not locate their polling places
or found their names missing on
registration rosters. Candidates’
names or symbols were sometimes
missing from ballots.
— NotiSur and Haiti Info
Sources
InterPress Service is an international news service based in Italy. Its dispatches can be read on-line in the Peacenet con- ferences: 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
Richard Gillespie is professor of Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of Portsmouth in Great Britain.
Scott Sherman’s report on media cover- age of the 1994 Mexican elections was published by the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center at Columbia University.
Haiti Info is a bi-weekly news bulletin published in Port-au-Prince. For subscrip- tion information: HIB, do Lynx Air, Box 407139, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33340; (e- mail: hib@igc.apc.org).