Indigenous Groups
Challenge U.S. Drug
Company
QUITO-Indigenous communi-
ties in the Amazon are consider-
ing a legal challenge to a patent of
ayahuasca, a native plant sacred
to indigenous groups who have
cultivated it since pre-Columbian
times for reglious ceremonies
and medicinal purposes. The
patent was granted by the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office to
the owner of a California-based
pharmaceutical company.
“Our goal is to have the aya-
huasca patent annulled, and to
teach all international biopirates a
lesson,” said Rodolfo Asar, com-
munications director of the
Ecuador-based Coordinating Body
for Indigenous Organizations of
the Amazon Basin (COICA), a
group representing over 400
indigenous groups from eight
countries.
The conflict over the plant
began ten years ago when Loren
Miller, director of the Inter-
national Plant Medicine Corp-
oration, took a sample of the plant
back to the United States. Miller
patented it, obtaining exclusive
rights to sell and breed new vari-
eties from the plant. COICA only
learned of the patent claims re-
cently, and immediately de-
nounced his actions.
Miller, whose company is cur-
rently developing psychiatric and
cardio-vascular pharmaceuticals
from the plant, has ignored
repeated requests from indige-
nous groups to give up the patent.
In response, COICA informed its
members that Miller was an
“enemy of indigenous peoples,”
and that “his entrance into all
indigenous territory should be
prohibited.” The organization
also posted a notice on its Web
site stating that it would not be
responsible for any physical harm
to Miller if he ventured into
indigenous territory.
U.S. officials have reacted
strongly to COICA’s threats. The
U.S. Embassy in Ecuador and the
Inter-American Foundation (IAF),
a government-funded develop-
ment agency which has provided
the indigenous organization with
more than $1 million in financial
support, called for a retraction.
“We do not represent the private
interests of Mr. Miller,” said
Adolfo Franco, vice-president of
the IAF. “However, the COICA
resolution is abusive and repre-
hensible, constituting a threat
against the security and well-
being of Mr. Miller, and we can-
not support that.”
The response from indigenous
groups has been equally strong. “The dignity of our peoples is
highly valued, much more than
your million dollars,” Antonio
Jacanamijoy, COICA’s general
coordinator, said in response to
Franco’s remarks. “Without lis-
tening to our reasons, your orga-
nization unconditionally defends
the economic interests of Mr.
Miller.”
Edward Hammond, a U.S.
researcher with the Canadian-
based Rural Advancement
Foundation International, says
that U.S. patent law is largely to
blame for this and similar con-
flicts. “In order to claim a plant
patent under U.S. law, you do not
need to be the breeder or the cul-
tivator of a plant in order to claim
intellectual property. What you
do need is a pair of scissors, a
passport and a backpack,” says
Hammond. “This was not some
plant that no one knew about. It is
widely used and cultivated
throughout the Amazon and has
been selectively bred by indige-
nous people for centuries,” he
noted. Hammond says this case
illustrates the need to revise U.S.
patent laws to protect the property
rights of indigenous peoples.
-Danielle Knight/
InterPress Service
Attempt to Censure
Senator Pinochet Fails
VALPARAISO-With the key
votes of 11 legislators from the
Christian Democratic Party
(PDC), Chile’s Chamber of Dep-
uties voted down a motion to cen-
sure former dictator Gen.
Augusto Pinochet, which sought
to remove him from his lifetime
seat in the Senate. After an 11-
hour session on April 9, the lower
house voted 62-52 to reject the
motion that would have im-
peached the retired Commander
in Chief of the Armed Forces for
“dishonoring” the country.
The motion accused Pinochet
of responsibility for two incidents
of army insubordination against
the civilian government of
Patricio Aylwin in December
1990 and May 1993. The charges
also included slanderous remarks
made by Pinochet against the rel-
atives of the victims of his
regime, comments against the
German army and other acts
which legislators said seriously
damaged Chile’s prestige and
international image.
Given the majority commanded
in the Senate by right-wing par-
ties and the designated senators,
the motion was doomed from the
start. Nevertheless, the sponsors
of the motion and human rights
organizations maintained that
approval of the motion by the
lower house would have consti-
tuted a political and moral victory
over the former dictator.
Pro-Pinochet lawmakers and the
government successfully pressed
for a secret ballot, thus making it
easier for PDC legislators to vote
against the motion. Nevertheless,
the 24 PDC deputies who voted to
Vol XXXI, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1998 1 Vol XXXI, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1998 1NEWSBRIEFS
censure Pinochet made their votes
public by displaying the color of
their ballots.
President Eduardo Frei was
strongly opposed to the motion,
calling it “inconvenient” and ar-
guing that instead of condemning
Pinochet, it would have condemned
the entire transition to democracy.
Former President Aylwin also
opposed the measure. The right
argued that if Pinochet was found
guilty of the charges, it would
incriminate both Aylwin and Frei
for allowing the illegal actions of
the former army commander.
The vote has intensified the
tensions between the PDC and
their junior partners in the ruling
Concertaci6n coalition, the Soc-
ialists and the Party for Demo-
cracy, with whom they are al-
ready at odds over the selection
of the coalition’s candidate for
the December 1999 presidential
elections.
The episode has also caused a
major split in the PDC. Several of
the 24 PDC legislators who sup-
ported the motion criticized the
pressures applied by the govern-
ment and by party president
Enrique Krauss to vote against
the motion. Members of the
Christian Democratic Youth oc-
cupied party headquarters the day
following the vote carrying plac-
ards that asked for forgiveness
for the PDC vote and demanded
Krauss’ resignation.
-NotiSur/InterPress Service
Mexican Government
Targets Foreigners
CHIAPAS-On April 12, Mex-
ico’s Interior Ministry ordered
the immediate expulsion from
Mexico of 12 foreign solidarity
activists who had attended a cer-
emony establishing a pro-Zapa-
tista autonomous municipality in
northern Chiapas two days ear-
lier. By expelling the foreigners,
and jailing nine of the indigenous
organizers of the autonomous
community, the government was
striking back at what have
become the two most successful
tactics of the indigenous uprising
in Chiapas-the creation of a
semipermanent protective buffer
of First-World solidarity acti-
vists, and the development of
unarmed bases of support for the
Zapatista National Liberation
Army (EZLN) in the form of par-
allel local governments called
autonomous municipalities.
The expulsion of foreign
nationals, especially those associ-
ated with the Diocese of San
Crist6bal, headed by the radical
bishop Samuel Ruiz, has intensi-
fied over the past year. Foreigners
in Chiapas have become targets of
political convenience in the gov-
ernment’s campaign to present
both the EZLN and Bishop Ruiz
as somehow un-Mexican. Several
cabinet ministers have stated that
both the creation of autonomous
municipalities and the invitations
extended to international ob-
servers are affronts to Mexican
dignity and sovereignty.
The current impasse in Chiapas
stems from the deep disagree-
ments over whether or not the
government is complying with
the San Andr6s Accords. Since
peace talks collapsed in 1996
after the government attempted to
modify the agreements it had
already signed, tensions have
been mounting. In early 1997, the
EZLN began encouraging the
formation of autonomous local
governments. “The autonomous
municipalities are the political
solution which the EZLN has
constructed to channel the in-
digenous rebellion,” wrote col-
umnist Luis Herndndez in a re-
cent edition of the Mexican daily,
Continued on page 45
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
La Jornada. “They are, simultane-
ously, the response to the govern-
mental impasse in the negotiations,
constituting a de facto application
of the San Andr6s Accords.” There
are now 38 such entities in Chiapas.
The Zedillo government’s re-
sponse to the impasse has been a
growing military and paramilitary
presence as well as a new unilateral
proposal for constitutional reforms
that it says would put it into compli-
ance with the San Andr6s Accords.
Because it was never discussed with
either of the mediating groups or the
EZLN, Zedillo’s new proposal–
regardless of its content-is widely
seen as an attempt to skirt the nego-
tiating process. It lacks credibility
precisely among the groups to
whom it is being presented.
According to the National Med-
iation Commission (CONAI), the
government’s strategy has been to
change the public perception of the
conflict from one between the
EZLN and the government to one
between diverse groups within the
state of Chiapas which the govern-
ment itself should mediate. In
this context, the old mediators
have become inconvenient, and the
government has launched a cam-
paign against CONAI as well as
the Mediation and Pacification
Commission (COCOPA). Interior
Minister Labastida has complained
that CONAI-especially its direc-
tor, Bishop Ruiz-is “partial” to
the Zapatistas and therefore unable
to play the role of impartial media-
tor. The COCOPA, on the other
hand, which is composed of con-
gressional representatives of all the
political parties, has become
divided along partisan lines and is
therefore ineffective, according to
Labastida.
Meanwhile, at the conclusion of a
Mexico City march commemorat-
ing the seventy-ninth anniversary of
the assassination of Emiliano Zapata
on April 10, several hundred mem-
bers of the National Indigenous
Congress (CNI), a group sym-
pathetic to the EZLN, set up camp
in the central plaza, the Z6calo, and
announced they would remain there
until dialogue was resumed in
Chiapas. Two days later, from its
Z6calo encampment, the CNI
announced the creation of 20 new
autonomous municipalities in the
southern states of Oaxaca, Guerrero
and Veracruz. “In the face of the
aggression which has tried to push
us back,” said Marcelino Dfaz de
Jestis, the group’s director, “we will
respond by creating new auto-
nomous municipalities.”
-Fred Rosen
Women Zapatista
Supporters Threatened
With Rape
CHIAPAS-On April 20, 190
women residents of the town of
Taniperlas, Chiapas, which recently
became a pro-Zapatista autonomous
municipality, signed a letter de-
nouncing rape threats made against
them by members of the Anti-
Zapatista Revolutionary Indigenous
Movement (MIRA), a local paramil-
itary group which operates with the
support of the police, the Mexican
army and the ruling Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI).
The signatories of the letter, who
are members of the Association of
Collective Rural Interests and
Zapatista supporters, stated that the
paramilitaries threatened to enter
their village and rape all the women
“that very night” if their husbands
did not return. The men of Taniperlas
had abandoned the community and
taken refuge in the jungle to avoid a
confrontation with the MIRA.
-Fray Bartolom’ de Las Casas
Human Rights Center
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
Multilateral Invasion
Force for Colombia?
BOGOTA- In an April 6 letter to
Gen. Manuel Josd Bonett, comman-
der of the Colombian military, the
head of U.S. Southern Command,
Charles Wilhelm, informed Gen.
Bonett that he had asked the U.S.
Congress for urgent support for
the Colombian military’s coun-
terinsurgency war against leftist
guerrillas. Wilhelm stated that “at
this time the Colombian armed
forces are not up to the task of con-
fronting and defeating the insur-
gents. Colombia is the most threat-
ened in the area under the Southern
Command’s responsibility, and it is
in urgent need of our support.” A
report prepared last November by
the U.S. Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA)-the U.S. military’s
principal intelligence service-con-
cluded that the Colombian armed
forces could be defeated within five
years unless the country’s govern-
ment regains political legitimacy
and its armed forces are drastically
restructured.
According to Wilhelm, the
Colombian military and police need
U.S. aid to improve their mobility
and logistical support and to
increase their capacity for direct
attacks, nighttime operations, com-
munications, intelligence and river
and coast-guard deployments. Bonett,
who made the letter public, agreed
that the Colombian armed forces are
in “a position of inferiority” with
respect to the rebels, saying that he
would gladly accept U.S. military
aid, including atomic bombs.
In his letter, Wilhelm denied that
the U.S. government was seeking
to head up a multilateral force to
intervene in Colombia. Wilhelm
was responding to reports in the Ar-
gentine press charging that he had
received permission from Colom-
bian leaders to assemble a multilat-
eral force, and that he had asked the
Argentine and Brazilian presidents
for their support. He claimed to
know nothing about the alleged
multilateral force, and insisted that
no such thing had been discussed
either by the Colombian military or
by the government, calling the
press reports on the matter “incom-
plete and imprecise.”
Buenos Aires radio station Radio
Mitre was the first to pick up the
story about a multilateral invasion
force, citing military and diplomatic
sources. The report was quickly and
vehemently denied as “absurd” and
“unfounded” by Colombian, Argen-
tine and U.S. authorities. According
to the report, which was also pub-
lished by center-left Buenos Aires
daily El Clarin, Wilhelm discussed
the multinational force at a meeting
in Miami in February with
Argentine army chief Gen. Martin
Balza. The alleged plan called for
troops from Panama, Venezuela and
Ecuador to enter Colombian terri-
tory as a “peace force.”
Sources:
Danielle Knight is Global Environment Editor at the Washington, D.C. office of
InterPress Service, an international news
service. Its dispatches can be read on-
line in the Peacenet conferences:
ips.espahol and ips.english.
NotiSur is available as a closed Peacenet
conference: carnet.ladb. For subscription
information: Latin America Data Base,
Latin American Institute, University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131;
(800) 472-0888.
Fred Rosen is Editor (on leave) of NACLA
Report on the Americas. He is currently
engaged in research in Mexico City.
The Fray Bartolom6 Las Casas Human
Rights Center is based in Chiapas,
Mexico, and can be contacted at cdhb-
casas@laneta.apc.org. Information about
the Center’s activities can be obtained at
http://www.laneta.apc.org/cdhbcasas/.
Weekly News Update of the Americas is
published by the Nicaragua Solidarity
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