Thousands in Madrid march against Bush

Madrid, Spain, June 10— Thousands of Spaniards marched peacefully through downtown Madrid on Sunday to protest the upcoming visit of President Bush.

Demonstrators carried signs saying “Bush Go Home” and criticized the president’s stance on the death penalty, the environment and trade, as they marched from Madrid’s Plaza de Espana to the Puerta del Sol square.

Bush arrives Tuesday in the Spanish capital for talks with conservative Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar on the initial stop of his first major overseas trip.

The six-day, five-nation tour will put Bush face to face with European leaders critical of his policies on missile defense, trade and the environment.

In Spain, unions, anti-globalization and anti-death penalty groups have planned several days of protests.

Spanish foreign minister Josep Pique said Sunday he understood the desire to protest against capital punishment during Bush’s visit because “unfortunately in American society a majority is still in favor of the death penalty.”

Police estimated more than 3,000 people attended the rally, filling the four-lane Gran Via boulevard for about an hour. A helicopter hovered overhead.

At the Puerta del Sol, a banner stretched across the speaker’s platform said: “No to interventionism. No to neoliberal globalization. No to the destruction of the climate.”

“The visit of Bush represents the evil image of the Empire,” union leader Adolfo Jimenez told the crowd.

“We cannot but condemn the cooperation of the Spanish government with the United States” by allowing American troops on Spanish bases, he added. Some 3,500 Americans are stationed on military bases in Spain.

The death penalty is a key theme of anti-American sentiment in Spain, following Sunday’s return of a Spanish citizen who spent more than three years on death row in the United States.

“Thank you, Spain!” Joaquin Jose Martinez said as he arrived at Barajas airport. “There are no words that can describe what I feel. All I can say is I’m very proud to be Spanish right now.”

Last week, a Florida jury in a retrial acquitted Martinez in a double slaying after pleas from Spanish King Juan Carlos and the Madrid government. Thousands of Spaniards contributed to the defendant’s legal fees.

At the rally, demonstrators condemned Monday’s scheduled execution of Timothy McVeigh, convicted in the Oklahoma City bombing, and demanded a new trial for Mumia Abu Jamal, the black US journalist sentenced to death for murder.

Source: Associated Press

US opposes housing as a human right

By Betsy Pisik

New York, New York — The United States is facing new criticism at the United Nations from officials who accuse the Bush administration of undermining an effort to define housing as a “human right.”

Miloon Kothari, the UN rapporteur on housing issues, fired the opening salvo at the beginning of a three-day housing conference this week, accusing the United States of watering down a draft declaration that initially defined housing as a legal entitlement.

“Through negotiation, it was taken out,” Kothari said. “It is not an innocent omission. “The United States in particular has been opposed to any mention to the right to adequate housing.”

Michael Southwick, a State Department human rights official, yesterday dismissed the criticism as “sloganeering.”

“We don´t like the sloganeering aspect of this rights debate, which everyone knows is very big in the UN system right now,” said Southwick.

“There´s the right to housing, the right to food, there´s a right to everything, sometimes, that you can think of,” he said. “It tends to become an entitlement and a legally enforceable kind of thing.”

Instead, Southwick said, “an economy, good government, the rule of law, democracy — those are the kinds of things that create housing.”

The Bush administration prefers the language that is now part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which calls housing “a component to an adequate standard of living.”

The dispute within the housing conference reflects a pervasive anger at the United States that has marked the first four months of the Bush administration.

Many, if not most, members of the world body are upset over the United States´ unpaid UN dues, its rejection of a treaty on global warming, and President Bush´s effort to develop a missile-defense system.

The United Nations recently voted to kick the United States off the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission, where it was a frequent defender of Israel and critic of China.

It also ousted the United States from the International Narcotics Control Board.

In Washington, many members of Congress are equally angry at the United Nations, which is widely viewed by conservatives as a forum to bash the United States.

Congress recently voted not to pay some dues to the United Nations next year unless the United States gets back its seat on the Human Rights Commission.

The housing conference, which ends today is a follow-up to an international conference in Istanbul five years ago that attempted to improve access to adequate shelter for the world´s poorest urban dwellers.

Seventy percent of the world´s governments recognize housing as a right, or entitlement, according to UN Habitat, the Kenya-based agency that is coordinating the conference.

Nearly half the world´s population lives in urban areas, with more than 1.2 billion of those city-dwellers living in inadequate shelter.

Forty percent of the US homeless population are employed full-time.

Source: The Washington Times

Guatemala: military men get 30 years for bishop’s murder

By Néfer Muñoz

San Jose, Costa Rica, June 8 (IPS)— Three military men and a priest were sentenced to long prison terms today in Guatemala for the 1998 murder of Roman Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi, who was killed two days after presenting a report that contained grave accusations against the army.

Retired Colonel Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, 60, his son, Captain Byron Lima Oliva, 31, and former sergeant Obdulio Villanueva, 36, were given 30 years in prison, while Catholic priest Mario Orantes, 38, was sentenced to 20 years.

The sentence was made public at 3:30 p.m. local time after 18 hours of deliberations by the judges, while the army, government, human rights groups and the public anxiously awaited the ruling.

The prosecution also accused Gerardi’s cook, Margarita López, 61, of covering up the crime, but she was acquitted on grounds of insufficient evidence.

Gerardi, a human rights advocate, was found dead on April 26, 1998, two days after he released the report “Guatemala, Never Again,” which held the army responsible for the lion’s share of the 200,000 murders that occurred in 36 years of armed conflict (1960-96).

Reporters, people close to the victim and the accused, and diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell, spent hours in a packed courtroom awaiting the verdict.

The military officers showed up at court in full-dress uniform, while Orantes wore a black clergy shirt.

Dozens of nuns, priests and human rights activists held a candlelight vigil outside the court building with placards bearing the bishop’s image and a banner that read “Justice for a Just Man, Mons. Gerardi: a Martyr for Truth.”

The decision, which was read out by the president of the court that heard the case, José Eduardo Cojulún, was the culmination of a trial that opened on Mar 23, and in which 115 witnesses and experts testified and 46 public hearings were held. The entire process was marked by threats, attacks and the deaths of potential witnesses under mysterious circumstances.

“Despite the threats against judges and witnesses, justice has prevailed,” Celia Medrano, coordinator of the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights in Central America, told IPS. “This is a clear sign that impunity is losing ground in Guatemala.”

Medrano said the verdict would have repercussions beyond this particular case, by dealing a harsh blow to the army and those who have abused the powers of the state.

“This legal decision is a thermometer of the power struggle in Guatemala,” she stated.

Several people who were to take the stand as witnesses died under shady circumstances, like Luis Carlos García Pontaza, who supposedly committed suicide in prison on Jan. 29. Six homeless people who were near Gerardi’s home the night of his murder have also died since 1998.

Guatemalan political scientist Carmen Ortiz, with the non-governmental Association of Social Research and Studies, told IPS that the sentence was “historic.”

Five years after a peace deal was signed by the government and the guerrillas, this sentence is a sign of hope, and strengthens Guatemala’s justice system, said Ortiz.

“The army has always been an untouchable elite. In fact, from the start it wanted to try the accused in a military court,” she added. “This shows that we are all equal before the law, and that we must not allow certain sectors to enjoy privileges.”

The Catholic Church and the prosecution were calling for 30 years in prison on charges of extrajudicial execution for the three military men and the priest. The prosecution also sought three years for the domestic, who faced charges of covering-up the murder, but she was absolved.

All five suspects pleaded innocent.

Defense lawyers Julio Roberto Echeverría and José Toledo insisted that the trial be held behind closed doors.

Echeverría and Toledo protested that the Church had “engaged in litigation through the media,” and that President Alfonso Portillo had pushed the Public Ministry (the public prosecutor’s office) to act, because in his election campaign he had promised “results.”

Declassified U.S. State Department documents described the main suspect, Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, as a “conservative and anti-democratic intelligence official,” determined to preserve the army’s power despite the transition to subordination to civilian rule that began in the 1980s.

Lima Estrada received training in intelligence and counterintelligence at the U.S. Army School of the Americas when it was still operating in Panama, and in at least eight other countries, including Chile, where he trained with the Carabineros militarized police.

His son, Captain Byron Lima Oliva, is also an expert in intelligence and counterintelligence, and was a member of the president’s guard.

Lima Oliva worked with the governments of Ramiro de León Carpio (1993-96) and Alvaro Arzú (1996-2000), and served on the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Cyprus.

The third accused military man, Obdulio Villanueva, had also served on the presidential guard.

Villanueva was imprisoned for another murder in 1996, and was released two days after Gerardi’s assassination. However, the prosecutors found that he made frequent forays outside the prison.

IMF reform sparks protests, clashes in Colombia

Bogota, Colombia, June 8— Thousands of teachers, doctors and union activists demonstrated across Colombia on Thursday, blocking roads and clashing with police in protest of an IMF-backed bill that could slash funds for health and education in the war-torn Andean country.

The protests, which have been building since teachers and doctors went on strike May 15, escalated after a congressional panel late Wednesday gave a green light to the controversial law — ushering it ahead for a final, full floor vote.

“We will continue fighting this patriotic battle, which defends the spirit of the constitution, to have resources set aside for health and education,” said Gloria Ramirez, head of the Colombian Teachers’ Federation.

Marches in the capital and most major cities Thursday were largely peaceful. However, hooded youths bashed in windows at some businesses in Bogota and police and demonstrators were injured when riot police cleared a blocked highway in the northeastern city of Bucaramanga.

Colombia’s Finance Minister Juan Manuel Santos has threatened to resign if Congress fails to approve the International Monetary Fund-backed “transfers bill,” before lawmakers head into recess on June 20.

The law would amend the constitution to cap the level of federal transfers to states — which now absorb about half the government’s revenues. It would free up funds to trim Colombia’s budget deficit and pay off foreign debt.

The IMF deemed the law crucial when it inked a 1999 bailout agreement, and market watchers have warned it could yank $2.7 billion in standby loans if the belt-tightening reform fails its last hurdle.

But teachers and health workers’ unions say that the law would inevitably lead to cutbacks for schools and hospitals because it leaves spending priorities up to the states. About 300,000 teachers and 125,000 public health workers have been on strike or participating in work slowdowns since last month to protest the measure.

Ramirez said the protests were not only against the controversial budget cuts but the entire “neoliberal model” she said was being imposed on the country from abroad.

An armored personnel carrier tried to disperse protesters with a water cannon in the capital Bogota Thursday afternoon, dousing the flames of molotov cocktails smashed on the street. Police smashed the gates of a hospital to reach a swarm of demonstrators on rooftops and in the front patio.

In Colombia’s northeast, riot police attempted to break up road blocks, injuring several people and leading to an unknown number of arrests.

Unionized workers at state oil firm Ecopetrol joined the protest, but refining continued normally, the company said.

The protests have escalated despite repeated pleas to the public from Santos, a favorite of Wall Street who is viewed as the economic policy backbone of a government more concerned with ending Colombia’s 37-year-old guerrilla war.

In a recent televised address to the nation, the Finance Minister warned the financial measure could decide the fiscal future of Colombia.

Amid protests, Santos cheered Wednesday’s vote in Congress and said overcoming opposition had been an uphill challenge — especially as Colombia readies for congressional and presidential elections in less than a year.

“It (the vote) was not easy since public opinion has not been very positive,” Santos said.

A Finance Ministry spokesman said a date for the final vote on the transfers law had not yet been set, but could take place late next week.

Source: Associated Press, Reuters

Iran-Contra gun runners now work ‘Plan Colombia’

By Ken Guggenheim

Washington, DC, June 5–– Fifteen years ago, Eagle Aviation Service and Technology Inc. helped Oliver North run guns to Nicaraguan rebels in what would become known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Today, the company flies State Department planes on dangerous drug eradication missions in Colombia. The work of EAST, as the company is known, has received little attention, even as lawmakers scrutinize the use of contractors in the Latin American drug fight.

One lawmaker who wants to ban the use of private contractors for anti-drug missions in the Andean region said EAST’s work in Colombia merits scrutiny.

“I think this kind of questionable background of being involved in covert, unapproved missions does add another level of questioning: Who are these people and who is holding them accountable?” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.

EAST doesn’t work directly for the State Department. For 10 years, it has been a subcontractor of DynCorp Aerospace Technology, the company hired by State to fly and maintain aircraft for counter-drug missions in Colombia.

EAST pilots spray herbicide on coca, the raw material for cocaine. They frequently face gunfire, sometimes from leftist guerrillas protecting drug traffickers. Three of its pilots have been killed in two crashes, neither blamed on gunfire.

The company also works for the Defense Department. In 1999 and 2000, EAST received more than $30 million under several Defense contracts, which included providing engineering, supplies, and other services for Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, according to Pentagon records.

Current and former State Department officials said EAST’s Iran-Contra past has nothing to do with its Colombia work. “That was 15 years ago. The issue is what they’re doing, not what they did,” said Jonathan Winer, a former State counter-drug official.

Concerns in Congress about contractors have escalated since Peru’s military fired on a plane of U.S. missionaries April 20. Contractors aboard a CIA-operated surveillance plane identified the plane as a possible drug flight. An American woman and her infant died.

EAST’s president, retired Air Force Col. Thomas Fabyanic, declined to discuss the company’s work. “EAST is a privately held company and therefore we are not obligated to release any information in that regard,” he said in a telephone interview.

In the 1980s, EAST and its founder, Richard Gadd, helped North, then a National Security Council official, secretly supply weapons and ammunition to Nicaragua’s Contra rebels at a time that Congress had banned the government from providing lethal aid.

North also arranged for another of Gadd’s companies to win a State Department contract to deliver legal, humanitarian aid. That created what Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh called “a rare occasion that a U.S. government program unwittingly provided cover to a private covert operation.”

Revelations of the Contra arms operation and that it had been partly funded by weapons sales to Iran led to convictions of top Reagan administration officials.

Gadd testified in the Iran-Contra case under a grant of immunity from prosecution, and neither he nor EAST was accused of illegalities.

DynCorp declined to say how much it pays EAST as part of its five-year, $170 million contract with the State Department for anti-drug operations.

Fabyanic said his company was prohibited from discussing its Colombia operations under the terms of the contract with DynCorp.

Asked if EAST’s role in Iran-Contra should be considered significant to its Colombia work, Fabyanic answered: “Why would it be?”

DynCorp spokeswoman Charlene A. Wheeless said her company checked out EAST’s background before contracting it and found no wrongdoing.

“We feel strongly that EAST is a reputable company,” she said. “They do a great job for us as a subcontractor. We feel that they act responsibly.”

In his Iran-Contra testimony, Gadd said EAST was one of several companies he formed after retiring in 1982 as a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force, where he specialized in covert operations.

In the 1980s, the Contra rebels were trying to topple Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. The Reagan administration backed the Contras, viewing the Sandinistas as a Marxist threat to Central America. Democrats who controlled Congress believed the United States should stay out of the conflict and barred U.S. officials from providing lethal aid.

North turned to retired Gen. Richard Secord to set up a private arms pipeline to the Contras. Secord hired Gadd in 1985 to oversee the weapons delivery.

Through EAST, Gadd helped acquire planes to carry arms and ammunition from Portugal to Central America, and to make airdrops directly to Contra fighters. EAST also built an airstrip in Costa Rica near the Nicaraguan border.

EAST received $550,000 for its covert work, according to Walsh’s final report.

Source: Associated Press

Swedish police prepare for protest before EU summit

Goteborg, Sweden, June 10— Police are preparing for protesters at next week’s summit of European Union leaders and President Bush with [what is called] friendly dialogue and pledges to avoid provocations.

But should that fail, they warn, mounted officers and riot police won’t be far away.

At least 12,000 protesters are expected to rally through the southwestern coastal city of Goteborg, where Bush will meet Thursday with the 15 EU leaders.

To prepare, officials have begun erecting fences and towing unauthorized cars from around the conference site.

Jails have been emptied to make room for the people whom some leaders refer to as “troublemakers.”

Some 200 shops, restaurants and an amusement park will be closed, with special passes required for up to 3,000 people who live or work within the zone.

In December, a group of police officers traveled to Nice for France’s EU summit to observe how their French colleagues handled clashes with 4,000 rock-throwing protesters.

After seeing that, Swedes wanted to try a different approach.

“We entered a dialogue with the demonstrators to find out what they don’t like about us and what we don’t like about them,” Nordenstam said.

One result was an agreement that helmeted police in riot gear “that demonstrators find provocative” will be kept out of sight during the protests, he said, while demonstrators promised not to wear masks and hoods - which are illegal here during protests.

Unarmed and wearing plain clothes, Nordenstam’s team will walk with the protesters to “smooth over problems.”

Riot police will be ready on nearby streets.

Two dozen demonstrators have camped out in tents across from the conference center and are promising to resist attempts to remove them.

Source: Associated Press