WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS ISSUE #460
November 22, 1998

NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499


1. Thousands Protest US Army Training School
5. Colombian Air Force Busted for Drugs; DEA Agent Killed
6. Colombian Rebels Attack Paramilitaries
7. Colombian President Decrees Bank Bailout

*1. THOUSANDS PROTEST US ARMY TRAINING SCHOOL

On Nov. 22, more than 2,300 veterans, nuns, priests, labor
organizers, students, activists and others committed civil
disobedience by walking into the US Army base at Fort Benning,
Georgia, in a mock funeral march to protest the US Army School of
the Americas (SOA), located at the base. Protesters carried
coffins and small white crosses bearing the names of some of the
victims of the Latin American military officers who are trained
at the school at US taxpayer expense. Substantial documentation
links many SOA graduates to the murder and torture of civilians,
among other crimes. [Reuter 11/22/98; SOA Watch press release
11/19/98]
 
Actor Martin Sheen was among those who spoke to the crowd that
gathered outside the gates of the base before the civil
disobedience action took place. Organizers estimated the crowd at
about 7,000, and said that 2,319 people risked arrest by entering
the base. Columbus Police spokesperson Lt. M.C. Todd estimated
that there were fewer than 2,500 people in attendance at the
rally, while a Weekly News Update on the Americas volunteer
present at the event estimated between 5,000 and 6,000. Whatever
the actual attendance, it was certainly larger than at any of the
eight previous annual protests at the base, which are timed to
mark the anniversary of the Nov. 16, 1989, killings of six
Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter by a Salvadoran army
unit. Of the 26 soldiers implicated in that massacre by a United
Nations investigation, 19 were trained at SOA. [Reuter 11/22/98;
Eyewitness report by telephone 11/22/98]
 
The army responded to this year's protest by putting those who
crossed the line into buses and dropping them at a park several
miles away with a warning not to return to the base the same day.
The protesters were not arrested and their names were not
recorded. [Eyewitness account 11/22/98] Last year 601 people were
arrested after entering the base [see Update #408]; most were
later issued formal warnings that they must stay off the base for
a year or face prison, while 25 protesters who had prior arrests
at the base served six months in federal prison. 
 
At a Nov. 21 press conference at the main gates of Fort Benning,
Robert Leni told how at age 11, he witnessed his four older
brothers being dragged away to concentration camps during the
1973 military coup in Chile. His father was tortured in jail for
1,000 days. SOA Watch notes in a press release that 10 graduates
of SOA are among the 30 Chilean officers cited recently in a
Spanish court case against Chilean former dictator Gen. Augusto
Pinochet for genocide, terrorism, and torture. [SOA Watch press
release 11/19/98]
  
*5. COLOMBIAN AIR FORCE BUSTED FOR DRUGS; DEA AGENT KILLED

On Nov. 10, US customs officials seized about 1,600 pounds of
cocaine from a Colombian Air Force (FAC) cargo plane that landed
at Fort Lauderdale International Airport. FAC chief Gen. Manuel
Sandoval immediately resigned his post. At the news conference
where he announced his resignation, Sandoval said that the C-130
plane had gone to Florida to pick up "logistical" material and
that it had been searched by drug-sniffing dogs before it left
the Military Air Transport Command (CATAM) base in Bogota.
Sandoval denied widespread involvement of the Colombian military
in the drug trade but admitted that "a small number of people are
committing crimes inside the air force." 
 
US State Department spokesperson James Rubin said the Colombian
government was cooperating fully with the investigation and that
"this incident need have no effect whatsoever on our views of
President [Andres] Pastrana's determination to work with us to
fight the export of drugs from Colombia." 
 
The discovery came just a week after three FAC officers were
sentenced to more than seven years in prison for conspiring to
smuggle heroin to the US in 1996 aboard the plane used by then-
president Ernesto Samper Pizano. The heroin was discovered before
Samper flew to New York, where he was to deliver an anti-drug
speech at the United Nations. [New York Times 11/11/98]
 
On Nov. 12, eight FAC officers at the CATAM base were arrested in
connection with the case, and three of the base's top officers
were forced to resign, including commander Col. Arturo Duenas.
The FAC announced on Nov. 19 that CATAM's new commander is Brig.
Gen. Alvaro Roman. The FAC said that it would suspend all flights
to the US indefinitely; when air transport is necessary, the FAC
will now contract with commercial airlines or shipping companies.
[El Colombiano (Medellin) 11/20/98]
 
US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Frank Moreno was
shot to death on Nov. 22 in a bar in Bogota by an assailant who
fled the scene. Moreno had been stationed in Colombia for a year.
[Bloomberg News Radio (NY) 11/22/98]
 
Correction: The item about Orlando Henao Montoya in Update #459
("In Other News...") referred at one point to the accused
Colombian drug trafficker as Montoya. He should have been
referred to as Henao.
 
*6. COLOMBIAN REBELS ATTACK PARAMILITARIES

The Jose Maria Cordoba bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) announced in a Nov. 18 communique that early that
same day its combatants had killed 32 rightwing paramilitary
members and injured several others in an attack on the
paramilitary camp of La Secreta, near the town of Pavarando, in
the northwestern Colombian region of Uraba. According to the
FARC, the paramilitary camp was guarding an airstrip for drug
trafficking. The FARC said two of its combatants were injured.
Carlos Castano Gil, head of the paramilitary Campesino Self-
Defense Groups of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU), said in a Nov. 19
phone conversation with the Caracol radio network that the
corpses of 16 rebels and 19 paramilitaries were at the La Secreta
base; he said the FARC attacked his men while they were sleeping,
but that they defended themselves, killing 16 rebels. In its
communique, the FARC charged that the paramilitaries were
supported in combat by Black Hawk helicopters, which took off
from the military base at Mutata, "reaffirming once more the open
connection between army and paramilitaries in Uraba." [FARC
Communique 11/18/98; CNN en Espanol 11/19/98; Reuter 11/19/98; El
Colombiano (Medellin) 11/20/98] Colombian officials have had
trouble reaching the site of the clash since it is presumed that
the FARC has placed landmines on the access roads. [EC 11/20/98]
 
The banana-growing region of Uraba, which stretches up to the
border with Panama, has historically been one of the most violent
areas of Colombia. The region was a longstanding military
stronghold for the FARC and the Maoist rebel group Popular
Liberation Army (EPL), as well as a political power base for the
leftist Patriotic Union (UP) party, set up in the mid-1980s. But
the rightwing paramilitary death squads, which human rights
groups say are backed by the Colombian army and the banana
companies, drove the rebels out of Uraba in an 11-year campaign
that ended last year. The FARC has reportedly vowed to retake the
zone; guerrilla sources say they have been massing a 1,000-strong
fighting force in order to reestablish a power base there.
[Reuter 11/19/98]
 
On Nov. 18, a group of some 300 paramilitaries began a massacre
in the rural area of Yolombo, in northeastern Antioquia
department; by the time it was over, 13 civilians had been killed
and another six were abducted and remained missing. Area
residents said the paramilitaries took revenge against local
campesinos after a clash with leftist rebels. [EC 11/22/98]
 
*7. COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT DECREES BANK BAILOUT

For three hours on Nov. 16, Colombian president Andres Pastrana
Arango declared a state of economic emergency so he could issue
decrees instituting special financial measures to deal with
problems he attributed to the global economic crisis. The
measures include reimbursement for people who lost money when
some 30 financial institutions went bankrupt this year;
Colombia's banks lost $69 million in September of this year
alone. 
 
The government also cancelled the overdue interest payments owed
by members of the Savings and Housing Cooperative, and approved
long-term soft loans that would enable them to pay off their
mortgage debts. The government will lend $316 to all Savings and
Housing account holders who earn less than two minimum salaries
($260 a month) and who were pushed into liquidation by the
financial crisis. This measure will benefit some 8,000 families,
according to government estimates. Mortgage payment defaults have
risen to more than $1.3 billion across the country and some 5,000
families have already lost their homes. [Inter Press Service
11/17/98; Agence France Presse 11/17/98]
 
The $1.6 billion cost of the new financial measures will be
offset by a 2% increase in taxes on bank transactions, Pastrana
said. Pastrana also announced a new $1 billion cut in public
spending to further reduce the budget deficit, which is close to
4% of the Gross National Product. The last economic emergency in
Colombia was decreed in October 1982, when then-president
Belisario Betancur nationalized several banks. [AFP 11/17/98]
 
The tax on bank withdrawals--including cash withdrawals and check
writing--entered into effect on Nov. 17 and will remain in force
until Dec. 31, 1999. The hope is that it will pull in $1.5
billion for the Financial Institution Guarantee Fund, which acts
as an insurance company, guaranteeing up to 80% of the value of
deposits. The business sector supports the new tax, which Finance
Minister Juan Restrepo said was needed to prevent "a financial
catastrophe." 
 
But analyst Eduardo Sarmiento, former dean of the private
University of Los Andes' Faculty of Economics, said that through
the tax on transactions, the banks were "privatizing their
profits and socializing their losses." Wilson Borja, president of
the Federation of State Workers, agreed. "It is unacceptable for
Colombians in general to have to pay for a crisis that was
sparked by the speculative management of banks," Borja said. From
January to August 1997, the financial sector reported $417
million in profits, compared to $44 million in losses in the
first seven months of 1998. 
 
Constitutionalist lawyer Hector Charry questioned whether the
declaration of economic emergency met the requirements set by the
1991 Constitution, which only allows such a declaration "when an
event occurs that perturbs or threatens to perturb the country's
economic order" or that constitutes a grave public calamity.
Charry believes that that the Constitutional Court, which has 40
days to study the constitutionality of the declaration of the
state of emergency, may decide not to approve the measures. [IPS
11/17/98]
 
The leftist National Liberation Army (ELN) responded to the new
measures on Nov. 20 with a wave of bombings that caused serious
damage to seven branches of Colombia's top banks in Bogota. No
one was injured in the blasts. Six of the bombings were directed
at offices of the Banco Ganadero, which is the country's third
largest bank in terms of assets and is controlled by Spain's
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya. The seventh exploded at the Banco Cafetero,
Colombia's second largest bank, which is linked to the powerful
National Coffee Growers' Federation. The ELN took responsibility
for the attacks in calls to local radio stations. [Reuter
10/20/98]