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COLUMN
SEVENTY-FOUR, AUGUST 1, 2002
(Copyright © 2002 The Blacklisted Journalist)
FROM PORTSIDE
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(the left side in nautical parlance) is a
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of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It
says it aims to provide varied material of interest to people
on the Left.
* * *
BRIEFS
* * *
KISSINGER FACES EXTRADITION\
Subject:
Kissinger May Face Extradition to Chile
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:51:40 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: portside@yahoogroups.com
To: ps <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Kissinger
may face extradition to Chile
=======================================
Judge
investigating US role in 1973 coup considers
Jonathan
Franklin in Santiago
Wednesday
June 12, 2002
The
Guardian (UK)
Henry
Kissinger may face extradition proceedings in connection with the role of the
United States in the 1973 military coup in Chile. The former US secretary of
state is wanted for questioning as a witness in the investigation into the
events surrounding the overthrow of the socialist president, Salvador Allende,
by General Augusto Pinochet.
It
focuses on CIA involvement in the coup, whether US officials passed lists of
leftwing Americans in Chile to the military and whether the US embassy failed to
assist Americans deemed sympathetic to the deposed government.
##
* * *
NEW EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING
Subject:
Warming world on thin ice
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 18:41:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod@yahoo.com>
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To: ps <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Warming
World on Thin Ice
June
9, 2002, The Observer of London
By
Joanna Walters
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0609-02.htm
Ian
McNaught-Davis has spent a long time in the mountains. Stocky and affable, the
president of mountaineering's international association, the UIAA, is not easily
fazed. But when he hiked into the glaciers surrounding the world's highest
mountains on a UIAA mission funded by the United Nations Environment Program, he
was profoundly shocked.
After
hiking through zero visibility and atrocious weather for five days, McNaught-Davis
was confronted with a shocking truth: the glaciers
on Everest were melting alarmingly quickly.
The
glacier no longer reached to where Hillary's base camp tents were pitched: it
had melted three miles up the valley.
The
Imja lake did not exist 35 years ago. Experts of the United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) in Geneva warned June 5, 2002 of bursting Himalayan glacial
lakes, threatening the lives of millions of people, because of ice melt caused
by global warming.
And it is happening so quickly that map makers cannot keep up. Locally, the prospect of these glacial lakes bursting their banks and obliterating whole villages is frightening. Globally, McNaught-Davis believes what mountaineers are seeing first is a bellwether for the climate change affecting us all. ##
* * *
GUATEMALAN DEATH SQUADS ARE BACK
Subject:
Return of Guatemalan Death Squads
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 06:15:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod@yahoo.com>
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To: ps <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Return
of Guatemalan Death Squads
=================================
By
Andrew Bounds
Published:
June 7 2002
The
bullet that killed Guillermo Ovalle as he was eating lunch in a Guatemala City
cafe delivered a simple message: the death squads are back.
Mr
Ovalle worked for the foundation set up by Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta
Menchu, one of a number of organisations trying to prosecute generals
responsible for atrocities in the country's genocidal civil war. Shadowy armed
groups now appear to be trying to intimidate them into silence.
Shortly
after Mr Ovalle was killed in what appeared to be a messy hold-up someone called
the foundation and played a funeral march down the telephone, confirming the
incident was anything but accidental.
The
assassination in May was the most serious of a growing wave of attacks on human
rights activists in Guatemala, including kidnappings, beatings, break-ins and
death threats.
The
methods have all the hallmarks of those who prosecuted the dirty war against
leftist guerrillas and the indigenous Mayan population, particularly in the
Six
years after the conflict ended Hina Jilani, the United Nations' top human rights
official last week called on the government to "unmask" the death
squads.
President
Alfonso Portillo admitted clandestine groups with military links existed but
said he was powerless to combat them.
It
is perhaps no coincidence that the attacks are increasing as the human rights
community celebrates the anniversary of its greatest victory, the conviction on
Juan
Gerardi, the auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City, was bludgeoned to death in his
home on April 26, 1998, two days after presenting an exhaustive report detailing
the army's role in hundreds of massacres in a war that killed 200,000.
The
court found Colonel Byron Lima Estrada, his son Capt Byron Lima Oliva, Jose
Obdulio Villanueva and Mario Orantes, Msgr Gerardi's assistant, guilty of
involvement in a murder plot hatched by the army.
The
verdict came after three months of evidence and three years of investigation
marked by incompetence, interference and delays.
It
was achieved under incredible diplomatic pressure from the international
community, who saw the Gerardi murder as a test case for ending the army's
impunity.
However,
a year on and with an appeal pending, it looks more like a one-off victory.
"I
think it was a historic verdict. But we cannot talk of the end of impunity
because there are so many unresolved cases," said Edgar Gutierrez, who
worked on the Gerardi report and is now in government. "It is the exception
to the rule."
Such
cases include genocide charges laid against former heads of state, including Gen
Efrain Rios Montt, head of Mr Portillo's Guatemalan Republican Front and
president of Congress.
A
recent UN report said the armed forces remained overmighty and prepared more for
internal repression than external conflict.
In
violation of UN-monitored 1996 peace accords, the two units responsible for the
bulk of human rights abuses - the presidential bodyguard, to which Capt Lima and
Mr Villanueva belonged, and military intelligence - have not been disbanded.
HUNGER SPREADS IN ARGENTINA
Subject:
Hunger Spreads in Recession-wracked Argentina
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:50:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: portsideMod <portsidemod@yahoo.com>
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To: ps <portside@yahoogroups.com>
Soup
kitchens and Dumpster-diving; hunger spreads in
============================
Wed
Jun 12,
By BILL CORMIER,
Associated Press Writer
BUENOS
AIRES, Argentina - Jose Perez and his wife Maria have 11 hungry mouths to feed.
So they travel each week to Argentina's biggest vegetable market to raid the
Dumpsters.
Rotten
tomatoes, blackened potatoes, rubbery bell peppers --the throwaways from the
central market are all the Perez family will eat today. Oblivious to trucks
rumbling into the market with loads of fresh oranges, melons and other produce,
they fend off the flies and claw through the mushy debris for anything edible.
A
four-year-old economic downturn has become the worst recession in Argentine
history. The jobless rate has soared to 20 percent, the peso has devalued more
than 70 percent against the dollar, and more than one-third of the 36 million
people now live in poverty. "My husband hasn't been able to work a decent
job in years, and we still have to eat," said Maria, hefting a paring knife
in calloused hands as she hacked out black spots in rotting potatoes.
Jose,
a laid-off electrician, carried a plastic bucket of water to wash the vegetables
that often give his family stomach aches. Nearby, a grizzled man in an old army
jacket already had a meager pot of potatoes and cabbage bubbling over a smoky
fire. "Tell Mr. Bush we still want to pay back the debt, but give us more
time," he said with a laugh. He meant the 141 billion Argentina owes after
January's default, when the crisis exploded.
Hunger
is becoming evident in Argentina--from the overrun soup kitchens to the streets
of the capital where armies of people sift the trash each night for anything to
recycle, sell or eat.
Sociologist
Artemio Lopez, at the Equis consulting group, said the price for the
government's "basic food basket" of essential goods like bread, rice
and eggs soared 47.4 percent in the first five months of the year. "With
each passing day there is more hunger in Argentina," said Lopez, who
estimates the proportion of the population that cannot afford the basics has
nearly doubled to 21 percent in a year.
To
properly feed a family of four cost 215 pesos in March and 252 pesos in April,
government figures show. That's an increase from 61 to 72 dollars, and salaries
haven't risen at all.
* * *
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