by the El Reportero wire services

Álvaro Uribe

COLOMBIA: On 19 April President Alvaro Uribe acknowledged on national TV that Colombia’s standing in the international community was being affected by the wave of accusations against him and his family.

At present the president’s reputation lies in the hands of two men: Jorge Noguera, the former head of the Colombian intelligence services (DAS), and Gustavo Petro, the leftwing senator whose testimony has played an important part in revealing the government’s links with paramilitaries.

If Petro can provide more evidence for his accusations against Uribe, the president’s position could become untenable. If Noguera, who stands accused of deleting drug traffickers’ records from the DAS’s database, is found guilty, Uribe says he will apologize to the nation. It is difficult to see how his political stock, certainly internationally, could recover from such a blow.

Debate continues over biofuels

In the first article attributed to Fidel Castro since he stood down from the presidency at the end of July last year, the Cuban leader argued billions would die of starvation as a result of the increased production of biofuels.

This followed Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez own attack on the use of food stuffs for fuel. Given that as late as 28 February Cuba and Venezuela had signed a joint agreement to build 11 ethanol plants on the Caribbean island, the change in policy was swift, seemingly prompted by U.S. President George W. Bush’s signing of a biofuel agreement with Brazil’s President Lula da Silva.

Other related story – Energy summit was stage for oblique regional leadership contest

South America’s first energy summit was expected by many to be the stage for a confrontation between Venezuela and Brazil over the latter’s ethanol deal with the US. Condemned by both Caracas and Havana as a scheme likely to divert foodstuffs away from the world’s hungry masses, the summit was seen as an opportunity for aspirants to regional leadership to gain ground. As it turned out, Venezuela backtracked on the ethanol issue, but maneuvered frantically to win on other issues.

Nicaragua wants ‘freedom’ from IMF in five years

MANAGUA – Although it will shortly seek a new loan agreement with the organization, President Daniel Ortega said that his country will freeitself from International Monetary Fund.

“Within five years Nicaragua will be free from the fund,” said Ortega, a former Marxist cold-war rebel leader who regained power after elections last year.

Starting April 30, the impoverished Central American nation will seek to extend its loan program with the IMF at a meeting in Managua. Ortega has vowed to work with business leaders and multilateral lenders.

But like his mentor, leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Ortega is often deeply critical of the fund, which many in Latin America accuse of ignore the needs of the poor.

“It is a blessing to be free of the fund, and for the fund it will be a relief to rid itself of a government that defends the interests of the poor,” Ortega said.

Nicaragua’s previous $140 million IMF program expired on Dec. 12, a month before Ortega took office for the second time.

by David Bacon

­New America Media­

Luis Gutiérrez

For the last several months, agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have carried out well-publicized immigration raids in factories, meatpacking plants, janitorial services and other workplaces employing immigrants. ICE calls the workers criminals because immigration law forbids employers to hire them.

But while workers get deported and often must leave their children with relatives or even strangers, don’t expect to see their employers go to jail.

Further, ICE won’t and can’t, deport all 12 million undocumented workers in the country. This would quickly halt many industries.

Instead, these raids have a political purpose.

Last fall, after agents raided Swift 8 Co. meatpacking plants, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the media the deportations would show Congress the need for “stronger border security, effective interior enforcement and a temporary-worker program.” Bush wants, he said, “a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can’t otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program.”

In his recent visit to Mexico, President Bush again proposed new guest worker programs. He proposed to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the U.S., and put them to work here on temporary, employment-based visas.

A few weeks ago, Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D111.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) introduced a bill into Congress which would set up the kind of guest worker program the president called for. Corporations could bring in 400,000 guest workers annually, while the kind of sanctions that have led to the wave of workplace raids would be put on steroids.

Then last week, the administration and Republican Senator John Cornyn proposed to eliminate all family-based immigration visas, and allow people to come to the U.S. only as a result of recruitment by corporate employers.

All immigrants would become guest workers.

Labor schemes like this have a long history. From 1942 to 1964 the bracero program recruited temporary immigrants, who were exploited, cheated, and deported if they tried to go on strike. Growers pitted them against workers already in the country to drive down wages.

Cesar Chávez and other Latino leaders campaigned to get the program repealed.

Advocates of today’s programs avoid the bitter “bracero” label, and call them “guest worker” “essential worker” or Just “new worker” schemes. You can’t clean up an unpleasant reality, however, by renaming it.

Guest worker programs are low-wage schemes, intended to supply plentiful labor to corporate employers, at a price they want to pay.

Companies don’t recruit guest workers so they can pay them more, but to pay them less. According to Rob Rosado, director of legislative affairs for the American Meat Institute, meatpackers want a guest worker program’ but not a basic wage guarantee for those workers.

“We don’t want the government setting wages,’’ he says. “The market determines wages.’’

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent report, Close to Slavery, shows that current guest worker programs allow labor contractors to maintain blacklists of workers who work slowly or demand their rights. Public interest lawyers spend years in court, trying just to get back wages for cheated immigrants.

Meanwhile, the Department of Labor almost never decertifies contractors who abuse workers.

The AFL-CIO opposes guest worker programs, and says immigrants should be given permanent residence visas, so they have labor rights and can become normal members of the communities they live in. Since 1999’ the AFL-CIO has called for legalization of the 12 million people living in the U.S. without documents. Most unions oppose employer sanctions and the recent immigration raids’ because they’re often used to threaten and punish workers when they speak out for better wages and conditions.

Today over 180 million people in the world already live outside the countries where they were born.

In the countries that are the main sources of migration to the U.S., trade agreements like NAFTA and market-based economic reforms, have uprooted hundreds of thousands of farmers and workers’ leaving them little option other that coming north.

A rational immigration policy should end trade and investment policies abroad that produce poverty and displace people. In the U.S.’ immigration policy should emphasize rights and equality, and protect all families and communities of immigrants and native-born alike.

Using immigration raids instead as a pressure tactic to get Congress to approve guest worker programs is not a legitimate use of enforcement. It undermines the family and community values for which this country stands.

Hispanic Link.

by Marvin J. Ramírez

Good business for the city A SFPD cop takes away the auto of a couple at 22nd and Mision streets for not having a driver’s license, after he stopped them for having the windows too dark.

NEWS ANALYSIS – Besides for being known for its immense colorful gay population and its Golden Gate Bridge and tourist attractions, San Francisco is also known for its caring for the defenseless, those with AIDS, and especially those persecuted by the United States Immigration and Custom Enforcement U.S.I.C.E.

For that endeavor, San Francisco enacted a Sanctuary ordinance almost a decade ago, to protect the immigrant communities from immigration agents seeking cooperation from local police to arrest them.

San Francisco is a city of sanctuary, “where immigrants are welcome and safe, regardless of legal status.” Under the 1989 City of Refuge law, meant to protect Central American war refugees,” no city employee shall use city resources to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law.”

However, the city’s employees are indeed using the city’s resources when the police department waits in corners in areas where most of the undocumented residents frequent and shop, and tow their cars.

This sanctuary law has really made a difference in the lives of thousands lawful residents who have undocumented family members until the state enacted laws against them. These people work and live like ordinary citizens, but as opposed to those who are documented, they can’t obtain a DMV license, but have to drive as a necessity.

A tow truck driver receives the authorization from a police officer to tow the car of an undocumented person.

They drive with fear of getting caught by aggressive cops who sometimes enjoy doing that dirty job, as they act with indifference to the pain caused on these people when confiscating the only means of transportation they have for the family. They use their vehicles to take their family members to school, to the doctor, to work, or when there is a medical emergency.

San Francisco politicians, however, have been silent on this area, impounding the vehicles of those stopped for usually minor traffic offenses, and taking their cars for lacking a driver’s license.

These mostly humble, working people with families and children, are the same undocumented immigrants supposedly protected by the City’s Sanctuary law from ICE, but obviously is not protecting their private property in San Francisco.

El Reportero has received complains that motorcycled officers follow them and stop them for no reason or simply for suspicion that they might be undocumented immigrants based on their humble appearance. The traffic stop usually ends up with the confiscation of the person’s vehicle in the absence of a driver’s license or auto insurance, and the passengers grabbing their belonging and walking away, sometimes with groceries and children.

Then the business interest takes place, giving the city and the towing companies huge profits no one can refuse.

A 30-day impounding has been the rule, which most victims of this action consider too much of a financial burden.

Neither from the Mayor or the Board of Supervisors, has come a word in addressing this issue. By simply enacting an ordinance that could provide a driving permit within the city for those who lack a social security number – a California requirement to grant a DMV license – the problem could be resolved.

The Board of Supervisors could draft a resolution immediately prohibiting the SFPD from temporarily enforcing the state law that allows them to impound their vehicles until an immigration reform bill is passed by the U.S. Congress. Because, aren’t the undocumented immigrants also protected under the sanctuary ordinance when they drive?

By following this suggestion, the city will again become the spearhead in the defense of immigrants, especially in this area where the state has failed them most: to grant them a driver’s license, which will allow them to get insurance and therefore protect us all.

According to following passages of an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the State Senate already has voted late last year 25 to 14 to create a special exemption in state law that would reduce the mandatory 30-day impoundment of cars driven by unlicensed drivers, so that offenders who have never had a valid license can get their cars back after 24 hours. Right now, when officers impound the cars of unlicensed drivers, the mandatory term is 30 days.

The article reported that Pomona resident John Whitney, a member of the Christian group One LA that started the drive for the bill express that he supports a 30-day impound for drunken drivers and others who drive without a license, but as a “conservative Christian evangelical,” he wants to see different treatment for those who cannot get a license because they are not legal residents. He added that some tow companies charge too much to car owners; after 30 days, the cost exceeds what many hard-working immigrant families can readily absorb.

One bill supporter is Pomona Police Chief James Lewis, according to the article. Earlier this year, his department reduced the length of impoundment time from 30 days to one day. Whitney believes that when Pomona police impound a car for one day instead of one month, they enjoy better relations with the community, and improved community policing.

(The San Francisco Chronicle contributed to this article).

­

by the El Reportero news services

Hugo Chávez

LEON, Nicaragua: Venezuelan Preside­nt Hugo Chávez sang his anti-Bush praying of “gringo go home” on Sunday night in a friendly reunion with Nicaraguan revolutionary Daniel Ortega in front of thousands of cheering supporters.

With U.S. President George W. Bush on a five-country tour of Latin America, Chávez is haunting the man he sees as his ideological nemesis, vowing to revive a global socialist opposition to the U.S.

As Bush traveled from closely allied Colombia to Guatemala on Sunday evening, Chávez and Ortega traveled 90 kilometers (55 miles) to the city of Leon, where they left flowers at the tomb of poet Ruben Dario and announced that Venezuela would build a new oil refinery nearby.

George W. Bush

Cheered by thousands, Chávez said Bush’s tour was a failure.

Chávez and Ortega agreed to press forward with plans for an oil refinery with a planned capacity of 150,000 barrels a day.

Ortega estimated the facility would cost US$2.5 billion (€1.9 billion), to which Chávez added: “We don’t need to go begging before the International Monetary Fund or from anybody because now we’ve created the Banco del Sur, which will also be in Nicaragua.”

Mexico tries a slower path to changes on immigration

Strategy includes strengthening domestic job market.

MEXICO CITY — When President Bush lands in the Yucatan colonial city of Merida on Monday night, he will encounter a new Mexican government that wants the same thing the old one wanted: comprehensive immigration reform in the United States.

What’s different is that Mexican President Felipe Calderón, in office since December, is trying a slower and subtler approach. Calderón and his lieutenants have even invented a buzzword to define their strategy, saying they will “desmigratizar” the bilateral agenda, or remove immigration from the forefront of U.S.-Mexico relations.

“He’s having to find a new vocabulary,” said Juan Hernández, who headed a cabinet-level office for Mexicans living abroad during the administration of Calderón’s predecessor, Vicente Fox.

Calderón has spoken out against U.S. border policy, calling border fences “deplorable” and predicting that security measures will lead to an increase in migrant deaths. Still, the president’s top aides say he is convinced that, to achieve immigration reform, he must demonstrate to the U.S. Congress that Mexico is willing to address the factors propelling illegal migration, especially the country’s weak job market and low standard of living.

(The Washington Post, Associated Press contributed to this report).

by Alex Meneses Miyashita

Maggie Rivas

Hispanic advocates and executives from the Public Broadcasting System came to no resolution after 90 minutes of discussion and debate March 6 regarding a seven-part World War 11 documentary by Ken Burns that ignores the role of Latinos in the conflict.

Neither side yielded in what was otherwise described as a cordial meeting.

Hispanic advocates are demanding that PBS suspend the program’s Sept. 23 scheduled release until it includes the Latino contribution. PBS remains firm on its intent to air the documentary intact while offering alternatives that the Latino advocates rejected out of hand.

The Latino group, led by former San Diego State University staff member Gus Chavez, has requested a formal response from PBS to its demands (listed below) by March 13.

The community advocates maintained that releasing the documentary without portraying the Latino involvement would be “an insult to our community.” They also asked for a meeting with Burns, who has a contract with PBS until 2022. So far he has declined to respond to their invitation.

Contacted by Weekly Report, a PBS spokesperson said the company will reserve comment until it communicates with the Latino participants again.

In a statement, PBS gave the explanation, “It was never the goal of the filmmakers to create a comprehensive history of the War, thus many, many stories are left untold.

PBS said that editing the film would infringe on the filmmaker’s artistic expression.

It also stated that with the national airing of the documentary, The War, on Sept. 23, it will conduct an outreach initiative to generate local productions that add more perspectives of the conflict. During the meeting, the PBS executives said they would work to ensure that Latino participation is addressed with local additions.

Group members said that is not enough. “We’re not going to compromise, that’s the bottom line,” Chavez told Weekly Report.

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez said, “We really have to have the Latino voice in that big documentary. Burns could not find a Latino in six years. It’s perpetuating the invisibility of Latinos.” She added it will be easier for them to exclude the community next time.

Rivas-Rodriguez is co-author of “A Legacy Greater than Words,” which showcases interviews with Hispanics in World War II.

Chávez added that the group is planning to contact corporations that provide support to PBS if it decided to air the documentary without changes.

President Bush has requested a slash of $145 million of federal PBS funding for next year’s budget, he said, adding, “This is not the time for you to be messing with this.”

The group plans to reach out to leadership at national and local levels, among other actions such as a national call-in day to protest the airing of the documentary. “This kind of omission is a national tragedy,” Chávez said. “It totally denies our experience.”

He called the meeting generally productive, saying Kerger “seemed to be shook up.” He remains optimistic that changes will be added to the documentary, he said.

PBS did change its initial Sept. 16 release date, Mexican Independence Day, to Sept. 23, following pressure from advocates.

An estimated 500,000 Latinos participated in the war, according to Chávez. American GI Forum chief operating officer Rolando Esparza told Weekly Report that Latinos earned proportionally more Medals of Honor during the last century than any other group, stressing the contribution the community had made to the country’s armed forces.
­Hispanic Link.