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[Translation of an article from Listín Diario of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for April 18.]

Members of the Dominican community in Puerto Rico will hold a vigil at

Richard Nixon and Rafael Trujillo

7:00 tonight at the Casa de España in San Juan during release of the book Trujillo, my father…in my memories by his daughter Angelita…

The work, first released in Miami, could not be released here on February 25 as planned because of the relatives of victims of the regime and the social activists who gathered outside the location where the ceremony was to be held. They considered it an offense to the country and a mockery of those affected by the dictatorship.

“It is well known that the bloody dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo subjected the Dominican Republic to 30 years of crime and moral degradation; during his dictatorship thousands of Dominicans were jailed, assassinated and forced into exile in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba and other countries,” a press release states.

Dominican residents of the neighboring island said they are not promoting censorship of Angelita Trujillo’s book but are protesting against the Fundación Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, which is attempting with this kind of activity to blur the historical memory of those who suffered directly the bloody effects of the dictatorship.

“It is a bad example for the new generation of Dominican and Puerto Rican youths who don’t know the wickedness that three decades of trujillista dictatorship represent for the Dominican people,” the press release says.

It adds that Rafael Leonidas Trujillo was responsible not only for the murders of thousands of Dominicans but that he also perpetrated the genocide of 18,000 Haitians in 1937, as well as the deaths of other foreigners.

Leaves executive power and international advisors with no checks and balances

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for April 17.]

by Blanche Petrich

Port-au-Prince, April 16 – President René Préval received a blank check of incalculable value last night when the senate, in a one-hour session in the absence of the opposition bloc and with no debate, approved a new national emergency law granting him extraordinary powers and leaving no checks on the executive and his international counterpart, the Interim Committee for National Reconstruction.

The Committee will centralize all decisions concerning post-earthquake management of the country and, with no oversight by the legislature, will disburse the 5.3 million dollars approved for the next year and a half by the donors’ conference. The arrangement will be directed jointly by former United States President Bill Clinton and Minister of the Interior [sic] Max Bellerive. (more…)

Piñera makes himself vulnerable with the appointment of a pinochetista as UN ambassador

[Translation of an article from El Mostrador of Santiago, Chile, for April 13.]

The president said during his campaign that nobody connected with the dictatorship would occupy an upper-level position. Although ambassadors are not cabinet members, our representative in the United Nations will be the face of Chile when it comes to the government’s defending its human rights record or when it needs to negotiate resolutions. Such are the problems and the advantages of a controversial appointment.

by Felipe Saleh

In the mid ‘70s, Octavio Errázuriz Guilisasti, currently advisor to the president of Copesa [Consorcio Periodístico de Chile, a large media conglomerate], was secretary of the embassy in Washington. Chile was an unavoidable topic on the international agenda; in October, 1975, Sergio Diez, Pinochet’s UN representative, was denying officially that detainees were being disappeared. Errázuriz was embassy secretary. A year later, Orlando Letelier was killed by a car bomb and the United States approved the Kennedy ammendment to cut off weapons shipments to Chile. (more…)

Government report says 3,365 killed between January and March alone

[Translation of an article from El Universal of Mexico City for April 14, based on a dispatch from the Spanish news agency Efe.]

According to official figures, violence linked to organized crime and drug trafficking has left more than 22,700 dead since December, 2006, when President Felipe Calderón launched an offensive against drug cartels.

In a confidential report to legislators, the Calderón government states that between January and March of 2010 alone 3,365 killings have been reported, that 2009 was the most violent year, with 9,635 deaths, and that the state of Chihuahua is the most heavily affected. (more…)

[Translation of an article from the Honduran website Revistazo for April 13.]

The Truth Commission came to life today with the approval of the decree that creates it. Among other provisions, what has caught the attention of the public is that once they have finished investigating events before, during and after the coup d’état, members will select the documentation they consider confidential, the contents of which they will then not have to reveal for ten years. (more…)

[Translation of an article from the Honduran website Revistazo for April 12.]

by Eleana Borjas

Despite the fact that the national constitution is clear concerning the closing and censoring of communications media and the information they convey, criminal court Judge Martha Murillo has dismissed charges against former officials who ordered the closing of television station Cholusat Sur (channel 36), Radio Globo and Radio Catracha, among others, during the de facto government of Roberto Micheletti Baín.

The ministry of the interior had charged Miguel Ángel Rodas, former head of the Comisión Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CONATEL), with abuse of authority and crimes against the media for ordering the closing of Cholusat Sur and Radio Globo last September 28.

The communications media, which were opposed to the de facto government, particularly to its violation of the human rights of those demonstating in the streets against the overthrow of Manuel Zelaya Rosales, were subjected to persecution, harassment, and censorship of their programming and the blocking of radio and television frequencies.

The accused claimed it was elements of the Honduran armed forces that had carried out the closings, making orders from pertinent authorites irrelevant.

In statements about the ruling, journalist and Cholusat Sur director Edras Amado López commented that Judge Murillo had sent a letter to her superiors asking to be recused from hearing the case but “was required to hold the hearing”…

What does Préval have in mind?

[Translation of an unsigned article from Haïti-Progrès for April 4.]

Around the end of February and the beginning of March, the electoral process was on everyone’s lips. Especially after President of the Republic René Préval asked the Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP – Provisional Electoral Council) to initiate the process and to draw up an electoral calendar. Toward mid-March, the much disparaged head of the CEP boasted, “My agency is technically ready to organize the next step having to do with legislative and presidential elections.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from TeleSUR for April 5.]

Repression by the Peruvian police against a miner’s demonstration in the southern region of Arequipa on Sunday left at least one dead, according to Javier Velásquez, prime minister of that South American country, while leaders of the protest say three died as a result of police action.

The death acknowledged by Velásquez occurred when police attempted to disperse a demonstration in Madre de Dios, in the southeastern jungles of the country, which the miners had staged to protest a government decree. (more…)

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for April 4.  See related article below.]

By Israel Rodríguez

The Comité Nacional de Estudios de la Energía (CNEE – National Committee for Energy Studies), which brings together academics and specialists in the field, has warned Mexico of the potential danger to the country’s petroleum industry of international treaties and settlements of disputes with transnational enterprises, since producing countries usually lose in this type of dispute. (more…)

He accuses the company of trying to destroy his country and delegitimize its court system

[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City, based on Agence France Presse and Prensa Latina dispatches.]

Quito, April 3 – Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa announced on Saturday that he will propose to the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasor) the creation of a united front against transnationals like the US company Chevron, which he accused to attempting to destroy his country.

Correa described as “scandalous” a ruling issued by an international tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, favoring Chevron-Texaco because, he said, it destroys the sovereignty, the institutions and the juridical security of the South American country. (more…)

[Translation of an article from O Globo for April 1.]

by Luiza Damé

Brasilia – Speaking at the closing of the Conferência Nacional de Educação,

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva yesterday credited teachers’ strikes for advancing Brazilian education – precisely at a time when the state of São Paulo, led by Social Democrat José Serra, is faced with work stoppages and protests by teachers belonging to a union allied with the Worker’s Party. Lula and Minister of Education Fernando Haddad defended the adoption of a national policy on teachers’ salaries  and criticized states that have resisted the implementation of a salary floor of 1,024 reais [about 578 US dollars] a month for public school teachers. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Haïti-Progrès for April 2.]

While the security situation is not encouraging and is troubling to many, the police commanders of the occupying force, MINUSTAH, offer reassurance. Spokesman George Ola-Davies has declared that “the security situation is stable.” (more…)