by the El Reportero news services
Evo Morales
On 1 January opposition prefects said that they would attend talks with the government despite the government’s refusal to accept their demands for autonomy.
The prefects are in such a weak political position that they have to accept the government’s terms for the negotiations on 7 January. The government has underlined its confidence in two ways. First, it started implementing its budget for 2008, ignoring the amendments made by the opposition-controlled senate.
Secondly, President Evo Morales attended a New Year’s Eve lunch with the military high command in which he said that if it was up to him he would not allow the current senior officers to move on to the retired list.
“But,” Morales went on, “military traditions have to be respected and the traditional changes have to be made.” The outgoing heads of all the armed services, headed by General Wilfredo Vargas, have been in command since Morales took office in January 2005.
Mexico to track migrations over border
MEXICO CITY – Mexico plans to use cards with electronic chips to better track the movements of Central Americans who regularly cross the southern border to work or visit. Starting in March, the National Immigration Institute will distribute the cards to record the arrival and departure of so-called temporary workers and visitors. They will replace a non-electronic pass formerly given to foriegners who cross into Mexico, which has proven “easily alterable and subject to the discretion of migration agents,” the institute said Thursday.
The U.S. government has spent tens of millions of dollars issuing similar visa cards digitally embedded with the holder’s photo and fingerprints, but U.S. border inspectors almost never check them, and vehicle lanes are not equipped with the necessary scanners to read them, The Associated Press reported earlier this year.
Mexico detained more than 182,000 undocumented migrants in 2006, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador en route to the United States. But many others cross legally from Guatemala and Belize to work or visit, and the new cards are meant to guarantee their security, the institute said.
Nicaragua court probes Volz case
MANAGUA, Nicaragua – Nicaragua’s Supreme Court on Wednesday said it had begun investigating two judges who overturned the 30-year sentence and conviction of an American in the killing of his Nicaraguan girlfriend.
Appellate Judges Roberto Rodriguez and Alejandro Estrada were on a three judge panel that freed Eric Volz, 28, of Nashville, Tenn., last week. The two cited “reasonable doubt” in overturning the conviction. The third judge voted to uphold the original verdict.
The decision sparked outrage among some Nicaraguans who allege the American received special treatment in the local justice system and should not have been released.
Rafael Solis, the Supreme Court’s vice president, said the two judges were scheduled to appear before investigators on January 8. The court will determine whether they acted inappropriately and turn its findings over to criminal investigators if any wrongdoing is found, Solis told a news conference.
Volz, a surfer-turnedreal-estate-broker, and a Nicaraguan man, Julio Martín Chamorro, were sentenced in February for the death of 25-year-old Doris Ivania Jiménez, who was found raped and strangled in a clothing store she owned in Rivas, 55 miles south of the Nicaraguan capital of Managua. The court upheld Chamorro’s conviction in the murder.
(Associated Press contributed to this report.)
