World Bank Forgives Nicaragua's Debt
On January 22 the World Bank officially notified Nicaraguan finance minister Eduardo Montealegre that it was forgiving the country’s debt.

The World Bank’s share reportedly represents about 85 percent of a total external debt estimated at $6.345 billion. Nicaragua has been seeking debt relief since 1999 under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program.

Nicaragua is the 10th country to qualify for the program. Montealegre said he expected that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would forgive Nicaragua’s debt in the near future.
 

Bolivian Labor Federation Calls Strike
Bolivia's largest labor federation has called a nationwide strike for next month to protest government policies and demand the closure of Congress.

The strike call comes three months after massive street protests left at least 56 dead and forced the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

Jaime Solares, president of the Bolivian Workers Central, said late Thursday that the Feb. 21 strike will include the blockade of roads across the country to protest a 3 percent across-the-board salary increase for government workers.

The labor federation is asking for a minimum monthly wage of $820, up from the currently wage of $55.

Solares said Sanchez de Lozada's successor, President Carlos Mesa, "has been nothing but the continuation of the government of the toppled president."
 

Court Ruling In Casa Alianza Director Case To Be Made This Friday
“For more than 20 years I have dedicated my life to defending children’s rights. If I have to loose my freedom because of this, it would be a shame, but that’s life. I have not lied and I continue to insist that what I said was true”.

That is how Bruce Harris finished his declaration this fifth day of the trial against him before the 12th Criminal Sentencing Court after which the debate was concluded.

The three judges who form the sentencing Tribunal, including the presiding judge Aura María Guadrón Díaz, will dictate their ruling this coming Friday, January 30th at 15:00 hours.

Harris, a 48-year-old Briton and Regional Director for Latin American programs of Casa Alianza – a branch of the New York based Covenant House, is being accused in a case of criminal defamation, calumny and slander by Susana Luarca de Umaña, the former wife of the President of the Guatemalan Supreme Court.

Luarca, through her lawyer, asked the court to impose an eight-year jail term on Harris as well as ordering his immediate detention and for him to be deported from Guatemala upon completion of the prison term.

The case is related to a 1997 press conference offered by the Solicitor General’s Office to which Harris was invited in representation of Casa Alianza. During this event a series of irregularities and illegal acts that allowed for the questionable international adoptions of children were made public. The name of the notary accusing Harris figured amongst the 19 professionals and individuals who participated in the questionable adoptions.

Nevertheless, Luarca de Umaña was not the theme of the press conference nor was the target of personal attacks. The press conference, as confirmed by the then Solicitor General, Asisclo Valladares, only pretended to publicly denounce the anomalies occurring in international adoptions that continue even today in Guatemala.

“Those of us who try to defend human rights here in Guatemala are being threatened by these types of legal proceedings so that people will not speak out about violations. To this day, no-one can deny that the situation of anomalies in international adoptions exists and despite this the Public Prosecutor, who received a copy of the Casa Alianza and Solicitor General’s joint investigation in October 1997, has done nothing to investigate the cases”, insisted Harris to the members of the Tribunal and to the scores of people and press who are closely following this case.

Despite the fact that the case is directly related to freedom of expression, this case against Harris is being ventilated in a criminal court and not in a Printers Tribunal – a civil court – as the Guatemalan Constitution supposedly guarantees. The Constitutional Court determined in a January 1999 ruling that Harris did not have freedom of expression because “he was not a journalist”.

The notary Luarca de Umaña demanded that Harris be sentenced to two years of jail for calumny; one year for slander and five years for defamation as well as payment of damages for one million quetzales (US$ 125,000; approx 80,000 pounds sterling) without explaining how she reached this figure.

Despite the fact that the Public Prosecutor has had copies of the complaints against the 19 individuals since October 1997, to date no indication of any movement of the complaints has been forthcoming, implying that that investigation continues to be open.

According to Harris’ lawyer, Victor Hugo Navarro, the legal representative of the notary, Walter Robles, has been unable to prove the existence of a predisposed effort by Harris to defame his client. Nor has he been able to prove the damages caused by the human rights defender.

Observers from a variety of organizations and many diplomats have externalized their concern that a condemnatory sentence of Harris in this case would have a severe chilling effect on those human rights defenders who speak out against human rights abuses in Guatemala.

 

Mexico Accepts Peace Corps for First Time
Mexico has broken a decades-old tradition of rejecting U.S. aid workers, granting permission for the first group of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers ever to work here.

Mindful of national sensitivity over U.S. influence, though, the government plans to keep the group out of public view.

Still, for a country that has kicked out or criticized U.S. experts in the past - and for one touchy about being viewed as underdeveloped - it's a big change.

The decision was made in November. The first 15 volunteers, scheduled to arrive this summer, won't be performing the Peace Corps' usual tasks in construction, rural schools, clinics or farmer training. They will be tucked away in research centers to work on information technology, science and business development.

"This is not the typical (Peace Corps) program. These people are not going to be working out in the villages," said Efrain Aceves Pina, international affairs director for Mexico's National Science and Technology Council.

The Peace Corps is happy with Mexico's plan even though it is accustomed to more contact with everyday people, said agency spokeswoman Barbara Daly.

"The Peace Corps always works to integrate ourselves in the local culture," she said. "The volunteers live in the community and live with host families during the training."

Housing for the volunteers has not yet been decided.

The decision to accept the Peace Corps coincided with a low point in U.S.-Mexican relations. Washington had been miffed by Mexico's lack of support for the war in Iraq.

Mexican officials insist the idea of accepting the volunteers came up as a natural extension of existing scientific and technical cooperation programs. But many analysts think President Vicente Fox went along to try to smooth relations with President Bush.

"After the clash on Iraq, Fox is eager to please the United States," historian Lorenzo Meyer said. "He's trying to prove that he and Bush are the best of buddies."

Washington spends billions of dollars on military help, economic development and other aid programs elsewhere in Latin America, but Mexico gets next to nothing, apart from some small training programs for police and soldiers.

Even that can cause problems. News of a U.S. training program for the Mexican army made front-page headlines here in October, stirring such controversy that the U.S. Embassy issued a statement stressing that the total amount of aid was just $1.25 million - compared to U.S. outlays of about $700 million a year in the Andean countries of South America.

Mexico has rejected other U.S. aid programs aimed at persuading farmers to substitute legal food crops for illegal harvests like opium and marijuana, two illicit crops now widespread in some regions of Mexico.

"It's not that we have declined any aid out of spite," said Jose Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor. "It's just that we think our sister nations (in Latin America) have a greater need for these programs, so out of solidarity we decided to let them have the scarce funding."

Meyer said the idea of accepting aid grates on his countrymen.

"Mexico has never wanted to accept aid," he said. "It's like accepting charity, a pittance."

Part of Mexico's hesitation comes from bad past experiences.

American anthropologist Oscar Lewis didn't mean to offend when he came to Mexico to interview a poor, problem-plagued Mexican family for his 1961 book "The Children of Sanchez." The book became a social science landmark, defining what came to be known as "the anthropology of poverty."

But it angered some Mexicans so much that the country's Society for Geography and Statistics filed a criminal complaint in 1965 accusing Sanchez of sedition, violating public morality and defaming Mexico.

Prosecutors dropped the case, but the feeling of insult didn't fade. In 1966, private publishers in Mexico put out a biting book about social problems in U.S. ghettos titled "Stories for Oscar Lewis."

Perhaps the most troubled American project was the Summer Institute of Linguistics, a group of researchers who were invited in the 1930s to work on improving literacy rates in Mexican Indian villages.

While they made great contributions in that field, the American linguists also helped sow the seeds of bloody divisions in traditionally Catholic Indian communities, by introducing Protestantism.

The linguists documented dozens of Indian languages and translated the Bible into those tongues. They set up medical services, agricultural training programs and even operated a jungle air service.

By the 1980s, however, the Americans - affiliated with a Protestant Bible-translation society - were being accused of being everything from missionaries to CIA agents. The government withdrew permission for the project, and most volunteers had been asked to leave by 1990.