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Please Note: Articles posted on this page are for the current month. For news articles from previous months please visit the News Archives page. News Articles Listed Below:
High Technology Money Pours Into Idaho Hate Networks, (posted 12/21/98) Two wealthy transplants pour money into white supremacist movement December 20, 1998 SANDPOINT, Idaho-Two former California businessmen are pouring dollars into the often cash-strapped white supremacist movement, allowing it to reach out to thousands of households in northern Idaho. Vincent Bertollini and Carl Story, who grew wealthy in California's computer industry, financed the mailing of racist and anti-Semitic posters and videos to some 3,000 homes this fall. Human-rights activists are alarmed at the infusion of money into the movement and say they are scrambling to counter the mailings. Bertollini and Story have adamantly refused interviews. "Our message speaks for itself," Bertollini wrote in an e-mail response to an interview request. "We do not grant interviews." Their message is a stew of quasi-biblical prose that attacks Jews and contends that "Jesus said they were murderers and liars from the beginning." Calling themselves The 11th Hour Remnant Messenger, the two men paid to create and mail the glossy, 6-foot-long by 3-foot-wide poster with colorful artwork that purports to show "The Adamic Race Pure Blood Seedline." The poster asserts that nonwhites are the product of sexual relations between Eve and Satan, who begat Cain, "a hybrid, mongrel, bastard and soul-less child." It is the posters' quality as much as their message that alarms human rights groups. According to Bertollini, the posters cost $9.45 each to print and mail. By comparison, Kinko's in Spokane charges 80 cents a piece for 3,000 copies of a four-page color brochure. "The difference is they've got money," said Bill Wassmuth, director of the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment. "That enables them to extend their message on a broader range." The Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Alabama, which monitors hate groups across the country, expressed surprise at the quality and sophistication of the mailings. The center had never heard of the two men, said researcher Mark Potok. "The problem of the white supremacist movement for decades has been financing," Potok said. It took Timothy McVeigh half a year to raise the $10,000 to buy the materials for the Oklahoma City bomb, he said. The emergence of Bertollini and Story, and their money, is "terribly important," Potok said. The Remnant Messenger also paid for the recent production of a video mailed to Sandpoint homes showing Richard Butler, founder of Aryan Nations, explaining his views. Additionally, Aryan Nations handed out copies of Remnant Messenger's poster at its parade through downtown Coeur d'Alene last summer and sent thousands more copies to people on its mailing list. Northern Idaho has long been hospitable to white supremacist groups, with Aryan Nations headquartered in Hayden and the anti-government Militia of Montana based in Noxon, Montana, just across the border from Sandpoint. It counts several active congregations of Christian Identity, a white supremacist religion that considers white people the true Israelites and superior to Jews and nonwhites. The region was also home to Randy Weaver, the white separatist whose wife and 14-year-old son were killed in an 11-day standoff with the FBI at Weaver's remote cabin in Ruby Ridge in 1992. Bertollini, 59, and Story, 65, friends for 30 years, moved to Sandpoint in 1995. Despite their reluctance to speak with reporters, the two men have hardly kept low profiles in this lakeside tourist town of 5,200 people. They live in large homes in posh neighborhoods and are known to dine out often, frequently leaving $100 tips for waitresses. Public records show Bertollini has performed at least one wedding in Bonner County as a lay minister for the Remnant Messenger. The Spokesman-Review newspaper of Spokane, which has reported extensively on the two men's activities, says they used engineering and marketing skills to help build two California computer chip companies-I.I. Industries of Cupertino, since absorbed by other firms, and Silicon Valley Group-into multimillion-dollar concerns. They formed The 11th Hour Remnant Messenger in 1990. Gretchen Albrecht-Hellar, leader of the Bonner County Human Rights Task Force, said she was alarmed by the recent poster mailing and worried that the concentration of white supremacists in Idaho was serving as a magnet for others of like minds. The task force charges just $1 for lifetime dues and cannot compete with the money behind Remnant Messenger, she said. The Rev. Paul Graves, a Sandpoint city councilman, is organizing a January protest by area ministers. "They're a flat-out distortion of scriptural record," Graves said of the posters. "They totally distort Christianity." Bertollini was a surprise visitor at a recent meeting rally called by Sandpoint residents disturbed by the mailings. The only person in the crowd wearing a suit and tie, Bertollini arrived in the company of Richard Butler. A Spokesman-Review reporter was covering the meeting and recorded the exchange with the press-shy Bertollini. "Is there anything in our literature that says anything about hate?" Bertollini asked the crowd. "No. It just says we white people are different. "Our intent is to bring truth to a world that believes a lie. It's a burden, a burden on my heart, and it's Carl Story's burden, too." Nonwhites "have a special place on this planet," but white people "are caretakers of the world," he told the reporter. "Don't you see that? Isn't that simple? Isn't it obvious?" Mediators Attempt to Ease Escalating Racial Tensions, (posted 12/21/98) With black parents accusing Westside school of institutional racism and some teachers saying criticisms are unfair . . . By LOUIS SAHAGUN, In the stately red brick campus of Hamilton High School, administrators are struggling to defuse tensions between African American parents who have accused the school of institutional racism and teachers who say they have been unfairly attacked. Two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District dispatched mediators to resolve the disputes at Hamilton, where the delicate balance of interracial coexistence has been upset. "We're in the middle of trying to solve a complex, emotional and volatile situation," Principal David Winter said. "I'm looking at all the information I can get and trying to find the right path." The parents are blaming the Westside school for black students' generally low standardized test scores, and questioning why black students are suspended more often than others. They also are upset with teachers they believe have been trying to turn students against their efforts to promote a better educational atmosphere for African American students. Stuart Bernstein, administrator for the cluster of schools that includes Hamilton, said the campus' ability to address the various issues could have important implications for the entire school district. "Resolving these issues will require a willingness to admit we have blind spots," Bernstein said. "Yes, black kids are not achieving. That's not the blacks' problem, it's all of our problem. The question now is what are people of good intentions going to do about it?" Tensions escalated last month when the African American Parent Coalition for Educational Equity circulated a letter among Hamilton teachers in which they accused unnamed teachers of using "race as a criteria for determining the quality of education that they choose to provide to their students." The letter also said those same teachers were slandering some parents and "creating an intolerable atmosphere of hostility, divisiveness, vindictiveness and retaliation towards students." That "Call to Action" was written by businessman Wil C. Wade, whose daughter attends Hamilton's music magnet. Wade said the coalition was angry that at least one teacher had discussed in the classroom the motives of certain black parents and teachers who were involved in efforts to improve programs for African American students. But the coalition is even more concerned about students' grades. "I really think that the real issue gets down to racism in the classroom," Wade said in an interview. "Our group was formed by extremely concerned parents who have found that within the Los Angeles Unified School District, and specifically at certain schools, there is a pervasive pattern of educational inequity particularly for children of color." Some parents called his letter inflammatory. Some teachers said the letter was intimidating and a potential infringement on their authority to conduct classes as they see fit. Two weeks ago, students, many of them African American, launched a letter-writing campaign in support of the targeted teachers. "The trouble started with adults, but the bad news is that it's starting to trickle down to students," said 17-year-old senior Nefertiti Takla. "I want there to be an end to all this." Located on Robertson Boulevard just north of the Santa Monica Freeway, Hamilton is a complex of three schools. Besides the main community school, which is predominantly black and Latino, it includes nationally acclaimed music and humanities magnet schools, each of which is about 40% white. The conflict has forced school officials to face tough, racially charged issues, and has created an emotionally charged atmosphere in which relationships are strained by suspicion. "Teachers are fearful that they can't speak freely to a friend, a student, a parent or colleague," said one teacher, who asked that his name not be used. "If they anger a student, there might be bizarre consequences like being labeled a racist. If they talk to a parent, they might be accused of racism." The issues have caught school officials off guard. "When there's an earthquake, we know what to do, we have a plan. But this is different," said Assistant Principal Michelle King, who is African American. "This is about things that are emotional, deep-seated, even taboo. When issues of race come up on campus, it makes people uncomfortable." Still, parents are demanding to know why in a school where African Americans make up 42% of the student body, more than half of the students suspended each year are black. Of the 75 students suspended last month, for example, five were white, 29 were Latino and 41 were African American. During the same period the year before, 99 students were suspended-six of them white, 37 Latino and 56 African American. King, who is responsible for disciplinary issues at Hamilton, defended the numbers. "Any student who is tardy seven times, or fights, will be suspended," she said. "Our black students are tardy more often-and get in more fights-than other students. I don't know why." The conflict over black students' generally poor test results is more complicated. Principal Winter said parents have alleged in meetings with him that black students are not doing as well as whites because of inequities in the quality of their education. They suggest, he said, that teachers generally have lower expectations of blacks, which translates into poor achievement. Recent Stanford 9 test scores showed that black students in Hamilton's community school were 15 percentile points behind white students in reading, and 24 percentile points behind them in mathematics. The gaps are even greater at the magnet schools. Similar disparities exist between standardized test scores for Latinos and those of whites, although so far they are not part of the dispute at Hamilton. Those disparities mirror national trends in which the average African American scores below 75% of whites on most standardized tests. There are a variety of theories for the gap. Most recently, Meredith Phillips, an assistant professor of policy studies at UCLA, and Christopher Jencks, a Harvard professor of social policy, suggested in their book, "The Black-White Test Score Gap," that the differences are tied to home life. They ruled out schooling, segregation, income, wealth, single-parent homes and genetics as determining factors. Genethia Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a candidate for the school board, has been helping the parents group learn to analyze the test scores and other data. Hayes said the group has about 40 members. "This is simply an attempt by African American parents to raise questions they should be raising. Educational outcomes are disparate, and these folks want to know why that is," she said. Winter said he welcomes the parents' involvement. "We're trying to raise the achievement levels of the community school to the levels of our magnets," he said. "I'm hopeful the parents will be willing to work with us in looking at the data so that we can make improvements where we need to." The black parents coalition formed in May after members of a committee in charge of school improvement funds tussled over an allotment for the gospel choir. African Americans were angry that some white members wanted to reduce support for the program. Resentment deepened when teacher Alan Kaplan later turned the squabble into a lesson for his U.S. history class. Coalition members first took their complaints to Winter in June, alleging that Kaplan and other unnamed teachers were racially insensitive. Soon after they raised their concerns about test scores and discipline. Separate investigations conducted by Winter and the district found that allegations against the teachers were baseless. Nonetheless, Winter said, he has asked two teachers to participate in mediation with the parents. Those teachers were reluctant to meet with parents unless Winter signed a document stating that no personnel actions would be taken as a result of anything said by teachers during mediation. So far, black parents have refused to meet with mediators. In the meantime, the district has decided to hire the nonprofit Achievement Council to help analyze Hamilton data with a goal of improving student achievement. In addition to hiring outside mediators, the district has sent to Hamilton its own counselors with expertise in race relations. But those efforts have done little to assuage either the parents group or the teachers who say they have been unfairly criticized. One white teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "This is a crazy situation, and it should never have been allowed to get this far. But [the coalition] is not going to tell us how to do our job. "Unless things change dramatically for the better, the game's over at this school," he said. "Reforms are going to fall apart at Hamilton if everything is based on suspicion and political games." Winter said he is more optimistic. "We're working our butts off to create an equitable school here," Winter said. "We're going to use this so-called crisis as a point from which to move forward in a positive way." Performance Gap in Test Scores Hamilton High School has a student population of 2,748, and includes magnets for the humanities and music. A major concern of one parents group is the difference in academic achievement between black and white students. Teh 1996-97 Stanford 9 scores for the three largest ethnic groups are listed below. HAMILTON SENIOR HIGH READING Grade 9 Black: 23 Latino: 19 White: 38 Grade 10 Black: 20 Latino: 13 White: 38 N/A
*Numbers may not total 100 because of rounding. Source: Los Angeles Unified School District. Humanizing the Holidays, (posted 12/21/98) FROM UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE The end of December and the beginning of January marks a sacred period for much of the world and is generally a time of sharing and spiritual renewal. But sharing is more than gift-giving. In fact, despite our corporate culture, which has convinced us otherwise, this special time of year has little to do with buying gifts. This time of renewal is when we reflect upon our relationships and our place in the universe, not simply a time for pulling out hair trying to decide which last-minute (meaningless) gift to buy. In a strike against global corporatism, this year we decided to make our own holiday cards, and in return we received a most special gift. We did this, in part, because we've long heard that most people tend to forget the gifts they receive, except the handmade ones. But most of all, we wanted the gifts to come from our lives, believing that what we create becomes part of the relationship we share with others. Painting and drawing cards is a time-consuming process. That's the upside. It gives us little time for watching television and lots of time for appreciating each other. It's a great feeling to know that at the end of the day, we've created things that didn't exist at the beginning of the day. Because we're fortunate to have friends and family from many walks of life and many faiths, we get to spend time thinking about what to paint and what message to send. Of course, this involves going beyond generic messages and painting something that will have special meaning for the person who receives the card. Sometimes this even requires reading a book about other people's cultures. More important, it requires us to be more perceptive and more appreciative of other cultures. This is our first year doing this, and we can say that it's more fun and fulfilling than buying typical holiday cards or even "culturally appropriate" cards or gifts. It indeed is a spiritual time. Like many people, we don't live near family. This is one way of being with them, even if we're thousands of miles away. To be sure, we're not artists. That's why we mention this. Anyone can make his or her own cards and can become an artist-for any occasion. The cards may drip with too much paint or may be faded from not enough paint. We may not paint straight lines nor paint like Diego Rivera, but we are certain that the thought that went into making the cards will truly be appreciated. And we enjoy mixing watercolors as we create Southwestern winter suns, blue deer and Mayan birds of peace. One of the side benefits of all this is that it makes us more observant and gets us outdoors even more. The gift we receive from all this is in our own spiritual renewal and reflections about our relationships. We know it means going beyond sending mass e-mail messages to our "closest thousand friends" and even beyond making the obligatory long-distance phone calls. Additionally, we now seem to be better aware of those who manage to break through the crass commercialization of this year-end period-a time that has been virtually hijacked by global corporations that have little interest in people's spiritual lives or humanity's spiritual health. Recently, a television anchorwoman noted that in the past few decades, physical and medical science have seen many phenomenal advances, but that comparable advances have not occurred in the field of social relations. The question is, in effect, when can we expect to see the social equivalent of a cyber chip in the field of human relations? Perhaps instead of searching for a high-tech solution to human relations, the answer is to simply put human beings back into the equation-back into all of our relations, one person at a time. This means going beyond volunteering-which everyone should do-or simply sending in a tax-deductible donation to our favorite charity once a year. As we have learned from our native traditions, we celebrate life all year long and appreciate Mother Earth year-round (not just on Earth Day). Now, in this dehumanizing cyberworld we live in, it is time that we should all think of our relationships in a special way -- 365 days of the year. COPYRIGHT 1998 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE While there are but a few days before Christmas, there's still plenty of time for people to craft personal cards and gifts. It's a small gesture, but one which will bring a smile to a loved one. Both writers are authors of Gonzales/Rodriguez: Uncut & Uncensored (ISBN 0-918520-22-3 UC Berkeley, Ethnic Studies Library, Publications Unit. Rodriguez is the author of Justice: A Question of Race (Cloth ISBN 0-927534-69-X paper ISBN 0-927534-68-1 Bilingual Review Press) and the antibook, The X in La Raza II and Codex Tamuanchan: On Becoming Human. They can be reached at PO BOX 7905, Albq NM 87194-7904, 505-242-7282 or XColumn@aol.com Gonzales's direct line is 505-248-0092 or PatiGonzaJ@aol.com. Journalist Murdered, (posted 12/21/98) American Reporter in Mexico Was Murdered, Forensic Report Shows By JULIA PRESTON MEXICO CITY-American reporter Philip True, who disappeared while hiking through rugged mountains in western Mexico, was killed by being hit over the head and choked, Mexican forensic examiners said Thursday. Earlier reports said he had died in an accidental fall. President Ernesto Zedillo ordered federal and state authorities to "spare no resources" in investigating the slaying. Reports from Mexican and U.S. officials on Wednesday suggested that True, 50, the Mexico-based correspondent for The San Antonio Express-News, had fallen to his death from a cliff in the Sierra Madre. But Mario Rivas Souza, the coroner of the state of Jalisco, where True was killed, said after studying the autopsy results, "It is a homicide. It is not an accident." The autopsy, which was performed in Guadalajara, also showed that True had been sexually brutalized, forensic experts told Mexican and U.S. officials. Justice officials said they were flying the body to Mexico City Thursday to perform a second autopsy. True's decomposed remains were discovered early Wednesday at the bottom of a ravine. A Huichol Indian resident of the barren area led a search party to where he had seen True's body days before, by a cliff. The body was no longer there, but a trail of blood, apparently from a head wound, and feathers from True's sleeping bag, led the searchers to a two-foot-deep grave concealed with brush where True was buried. Some of his possessions were missing, but he was still wearing his good-quality watch. The autopsy results showed True had been dead for about eight days. True, who had been a solo hiker since he was a teen-ager, set out on Nov. 28 for a two-week trek through the Sierra de los Huicholes, a sparsely populated and nearly inaccessible region. The autopsy showed that True was strangled with a rope or bandana. The coroner said other bruises were not consistent with a fall. True became The Express-News correspondent in Mexico City in 1996. Colleagues remembered him as an affable, hard-working reporter who reveled in covering the complexities of Mexico. His wife, Marta, is five months' pregnant. Franc Contreras, Mexico City Language No Barrier for Rhodes Scholar, (posted 12/21/98) Dictionary, Determination Aided Dominican Republic Native's Journey to Academic Excellence By Fern Shen He could have dwelled on his accomplishments at the prestigious institution where he has done sophisticated molecular biology research-the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Or he could have reflected on the world-famous British school where he will spend a year as a Rhodes scholar-Oxford University. But, Jose Danilo Vargas, 21, of Gaithersburg, wanted his audience to think for a minute about a humbler sort of place-McDonald's fast-food restaurants. "A lot of my friends are working at McDonald's, when I know they could go really far. They could be doing what I am doing, even more," said Vargas, speaking several days after the Loyola College senior was named as one of 32 American undergraduates to win the prestigious award for next year. Vargas, who wants to focus on microbiology and public health during his year in England, knows what it is to overcome adversity. Speaking practically no English when he came to the United States at 13 from the Dominican Republic, he struggled with language classes, raised his mediocre grades and, by the time he hit Col. Zadok Magruder High School, was in the highly competitive Howard Hughes Medical Institute program. For three summers, he conducted research in different offices at NIH, becoming versed in the arcana of research techniques such as immunofluorescence microscopy and DNA sequencing. It was a long journey that the tall, soft-spoken Vargas made in an amazingly short time. "I remember realizing one day in history class, that I don't even know the [English] word for 'land,' " Vargas recalled. "That was a scary moment. I thought, 'How can I ever become a doctor, how can I even go to college, if I don't know these simple things?' " But now he tells the Hispanic students he mentors-in several different programs-how he persevered. "I looked up every other word in the dictionary. The dictionary was my friend. I tried to look at it as an intellectual challenge," he said. "I learned the word for land. Then I came to know continent. Then isthmus. Every time I made a step, I felt such a feeling of accomplishment." Vargas's teachers and mentors can't say enough about his accomplishments, his promise. "After 16 years in research, I can tell when someone is motivated, I can tell when someone is bright. . . . You talk to them, young as they might be, and feel like you are on the same wavelength," said Juan Bonifacino, chief of the cell biology and metabolism branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "I felt this with Jose," said Bonifacino, who supervised Vargas last summer in his work on Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome, the most common genetic disorder in Puerto Rico. People who have the disease suffer from albinism, have a tendency to bleed and generally die before they reach 50. Vargas played a critical role in helping Bonifacino and his colleagues in their effort to understand a mutant protein's role in causing the disease. Vargas, a biology major who is Loyola's first Rhodes scholar, did his work at NIH as a participant in its Undergraduate Scholarship Program. The program offers scholarships for disadvantaged students to pursue college degrees in the life sciences. Vargas said that although he was helped by Bonifacino and many other teachers and mentors, his success is due mostly to his parents. "When I was discouraged, they wouldn't let me give up," he said, remembering several times he wanted to "go back to the Dominican Republic, back to my comfort zone and just play soccer, be with friends." Vargas's mother, an educational psychologist, helped him bring up his grades with a special technique she perfected for Hispanic students and is trying to make more widely available. The program emphasizes everything from study habits and desk location to methods of boosting parental support and networking opportunities. "We've got this in three Washington, D.C., high schools, and we hope to get it in others," Elida Vargas said. "We hope that Jose Danilo will be an inspiration to students and to parents." © Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company Lawrence Picks 1st Hispanic Police Chief, (posted 12/18/98) By Caroline Louise Cole, Globe Correspondent, 12/17/98 LAWRENCE - A 28-year veteran of the New York City Police Department will become this city's first Hispanic police chief Jan. 18. John J. Romero, 48, was chosen over five in-house candidates as well as two other finalists because of the breadth of his experience and his ethnic upbringing, city officials said. Romero, who is fluent in Spanish, is the son of a Puerto Rican mother and Dominican father. The choice of Mayor Patricia Dowling, the new chief's appointment was confirmed by the City Council Tuesday night. A native of Manhattan, he is currently deputy commander of Precinct 34 in Manhattan's Washington Heights section, a position he has held for 2 1/2 years. He manages 300 officers and support workers. "Romero would never have risen to his current position were it not for his ability handling people and his understanding of crime," said Councilor Marc LaPlante. "He has terrific credentials for this job. " While Romero has the support of many Latinos in this predominantly Hispanic community, some Hispanic leaders opposed his appointment or were lukewarm on it. Among them was Councilor Jose Santiago, former Methuen police officer and newly elected state representative. Santiago abstained from voting yesterday and could not be reached for comment. Councilor Frank Kivell noted that Santiago had run for City Council on a platform of city jobs for city residents. Reached in New York at Precinct 34, Romero said he plans to move to the city shortly. "The multicultural composition of the city is very similar to what I am dealing with now," said Romero. "What we've done here will help me in my new position." Kivell said he was impressed with Romero's success reducing homicides in his precinct, from 119 in 1991 to 12 so far this year. "I am also impressed with his commitment to community policing and a zero tolerance of any crime," Kivell said. "He recognized the same [people] who are doing graffiti and driving without a license are very likely involved in the bigger stuff." Romero, who will be paid a salary of between $90,000 and $100,000, expects to negotiate a three-year contract. He replaces acting Police Chief Ronald Guilmette, who declined to be considered for the permanent post because he did not want to move into the city. This story ran on page B03 of the Boston Globe on 12/17/98. © Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company. Famed Puerto Rican Nationalist Wraps Her Heart in Island's Flag, (posted 12/18/98) By Jonathan Tilove SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico-If Puerto Rico were to become an independent nation, Lolita Lebron would be a national hero. And if Puerto Rico were to become the 51st state, well, says Lebron, "the nationalists will never permit Puerto Rico to become a state. It would be the negation of ourselves as a people, as a nation." "I love your country," says Lebron. "It's just that we are we and you are you, and it cannot be otherwise." Lebron, now 79, most memorably expressed herself on this point on March 1, 1954, when she rose from her seat in the Ladies' Gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives, wrapped herself in the Puerto Rican flag, cried out in English "Free Puerto Rico now!" and opened fire. While Lebron aimed at the ceiling ("I wanted to bring the roof down"), by the time she and the three other nationalists she led that day were through, five members of Congress lay wounded. Today, after 25 years in prison, a grant of clemency by President Carter, and nearly 20 years back home, Lebron is a living reminder of how determined at least a few Puerto Ricans are to see that their island not be incorporated into the United States. But Lebron, who now disowns violence, is more than that. "Terrorists Given Heroes' Welcome in Puerto Rico," read the front page headline in the Washington Post the day after Lebron and her comrades returned home after a quarter-century in prison. "Their loudest cries," the story noted, "were 'Lolita! Lolita!'" "She's a female Mandela," says Ricardo Alegria, director of the Center of Advanced Study of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean in Old San Juan. "Everyone in Puerto Rico-though many don't believe in her political ideals- everyone has respect for her." "She's become a living symbol of Puerto Rican nationhood," says Julio Muriente, a political scientist at the University of Puerto Rico who heads the New Puerto Rican Independence Movement. "You should see people when they see her in the street." Just the other day a stranger approached Lebron and asked if it were she, and if she would permit an embrace. "I am your Lolita," she replied. As they hugged he cried, telling her, "This is the greatest moment of my life." "The man was not a nationalist," says Lebron. Lebron was certain she would die that day. It was a dreary March 1, says Rosa Meneses Albizu Campos, the granddaughter of Pedro Albizu Campos, the nationalist leader who ordered the attack on the Capitol. "The others said, 'Let's leave it for tomorrow because it's raining.' She said, 'No. I am going. You don't have to but I am going.' She started off and they followed her." She had been a beauty queen, Queen of the Flowers of May, in Lares, a town in the heart of Puerto Rico mournfully celebrated yet today for the Grito de Lares-the Shout of Lares-a failed rebellion against Spanish rule in 1868. Her father labored on a coffee plantation. Lebron went to school through the eighth grade. She wrote poetry, and still does. At 22, unmarried, she left Puerto Rico for New York, leaving behind a baby daughter to be raised by family, and seldom seen by her again. She bore a son in New York, where for more than a decade she worked and burrowed into nationalist politics. She was 35 when she led the attack on the Capitol, "a Puerto Rican heroine of sublime beauty" in the words of Pedro Albizu Campos. There were 243 members of Congress on the floor when the nationalists opened fire, Lebron aiming up but two of the men with her aiming down (the third man's gun jammed). None of the congressmen shot was killed. None is alive today. After being tried and convicted for the attack, she was tried and convicted of conspiracy, but not before she moved the jury to tears telling her story. It was Lawrence E. Walsh's first case as a federal judge, and Walsh (who would gain fame as the Iran-Contra special prosecutor) recalls her fondly. "Give her my best," he says, pleased to hear she is alive and well. "Tell her I feel sorry we both were in the positions we were in." Soon after her arrest her young son died, apparently drowned. She read about it in the newspaper. And on March 1, 1977, her daughter, Gladys Mendez, died after falling out of a speeding car. Lebron was released from the federal women's prison in Alderson, W.Va., long enough to attend the funeral, which became a worshipful mass rally for "Lolita." In prison, Lebron says, God began to talk to her. "I am that person in the world that claims to have a message of God for the atomic age," she says. Today, Lebron is warmer, rounder, mellower. She is grandmotherly. Lebron bemoans Puerto Rican dependence-on welfare, on drugs, on a United States too many fear they cannot live without. "The majority of Puerto Rican people don't want to be free," says Lebron. "They are afraid of losing their American citizenship, very afraid." Lebron, who, as a nationalist, will not vote until Puerto Rico is free (though she says it's okay with her if others vote for independence), calls on the United States to "repent for the wrong it has done" by extending independence while permitting, for at least a while, dual citizenship. Her people, she says, must be taught, "Do not fear freedom." "I hope to live until my country becomes a free and sovereign nation," says Lebron, who in the meantime is preparing her message from God for release to the world. "I haven't done anything yet. I have much more to do," she says. "I am not a political person, but they have made me a political person and I will have to die political," says Lolita Lebron. "But I fly higher than that." Strong Words, (posted 12/18/98) HAITI PROGRES President Rene Preval called attention to himself last week with a militant speech which surprised the nation and sent politicians and pundits diving for microphones. "The real problem is the distribution of wealth in this country where 1% of the people control 50% of the country's wealth," Preval declared Dec. 6 before a crowd of peasants in Kenscoff, referring to Haiti's tiny super-rich elite. It was the first time he spoke in such terms since his ascension to the presidency in 1996. He accused foreign powers of plundering Haiti's wealth since colonial times. "Haiti may be the poorest, but there are a lot of other countries which are just like us," Preval said. "Big countries have sucked out our wealth for centuries and centuries." He condemned France for making Haiti pay a $150 million francs ~ a colossal sum in the nineteenth century ~ in reparations after the colony won its independence in 1804. "We have spent much more of our history working as slaves for foreigners and sending our wealth overseas than working to build up Haiti," he said. Preval also chastised foreign aid as a ruse. "Each time they come with a little $1 million, $2 million or $3 million, they say they are helping us," Preval said. "But they are just giving back what they already stole from us." He also charged that colonists and neo-colonists had caused most of Haiti's ecological damage. Referring to two of Haiti's off-shore islands, he said that "before the [1915-1934]U.S. occupation, La Gon ve and La Tortue were once beautiful lands, as was the Forest of Pines," a wooded area around Kenscoff. "But they gave the whole forest to an American company which cut down the trees without planting new ones," Preval said. "We must be very careful not to blame the peasants for deforestation. No, it was the colonists, the occupiers and the dictators who cut down the trees." The speech comes shortly after Preval made a visit to neighboring Cuba from Nov. 9-14. During the trip, he accepted Cuban President Fidel Castro's offer of 500 Cuban doctors to help with the giant health problems left in the wake of Hurricane Georges. "Haiti does not need invasions of soldiers," said Castro in making the offer. "It needs an invasion of doctors and Cuba is ready to give this aid." But the imminent arrival of Cuban doctors has prompted reactionary politicians and a handful of rich Haitian doctors to make a ruckus. On Haitian radio shows, they claim that the Cubans will "steal the jobs" of Haitian doctors, 80% of whom leave the country anyway for better paying practices overseas. Other right-wingers say that the Cuban doctors are a "Trojan horse," aimed at spreading "Communist influence." "The Cubans are going to make experiments on Haitians," charged Duvalierist radio commentator and convicted coup-conspirator Serge Beaulieu, in a remark typical of the anti-Cuban attacks. In fact, Preval claims that the example of Cuba is influencing him. "We were just in Cuba, where they told us the biggest problem they are facing is the [U.S. imposed] embargo," Preval told the Kenscoff crowd. But when an advance delegation of five Cuban doctors returned with Preval to Haiti, they told him after a few days of investigation that "your biggest problem is not an embargo but order," the president said. "There is too much chaos, and for the chaos to end, the wealth of the country has to be better distributed so there can be development." Perhaps due to this advice or the attacks on him after his Cuba trip, Preval reserved some of his strongest words for the local elite, whom he accused of hoarding land, of not paying taxes, and of not investing in Haiti. "The country has resources and there are a lot of people with money," Preval said. "There are people who eat in Port-au-Prince, and then drink water in Miami. Today, they have to answer to the people." He said that there had to be "a social dialogue and a reshuffling of the cards." "The people who have the wealth of the country in their hands must open their hands," Preval said, and then he made a remark which the mainstream press will surely seize upon. "If they don't open their hands, the State will force them to open their hands. That is how to have reconciliation. You can't hold everything in your hands and ask someone to reconcile with you." The speech is reminiscent of the policies articulated and pursued in 1991 by then President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, for whom Preval was Prime Minister. However, as President, Preval has followed a course diametrically opposed to the Lavalas movement's democratic nationalist program of "participation, justice, and transparency." He has championed the neoliberal restructuring of Haiti's economy, continuation of foreign military occupation, unpopular and illegal executive measures, a clique-like power structure, and the tolerance of impunity, corruption, and nepotism. His words from last Sunday have alarmed some of his allies and left popular organization militants scratching their heads. Some politicians tried to capitalize on the disparity between the speech and what Preval has done during his administration. "He has to reconcile his policies with his words," remarked Marc Bazin, the perennial US-aligned neoliberal candidate. "This speech appears much more like a politician's speech than an announcement of a new economic policy." But most of the "classe politique," which is desperate to recover even a shred of long-lost credibility, homed in on the "grands mangeurs" (big eaters), the name for enriched bureaucrats who have come to symbolize Preval's regime. Serge Gilles, whose PANPRA party participated as a civilian facade for the putschist military regime, said that half of the rich 1% cited by Preval were "people who had accumulated their fortunes over generations" while the rest were "newly rich grands mangeurs, of whom the president did not speak." Victor Benoit of CONACOM said that Preval's speech was "not at all coherent given the climate of corruption in 'Lavalas' circles." The same argumentation was set forth, with greater vitriol, by Evans Paul of the KID, who called the speech "irresponsible" and asked if it was "a way to ignite civil war in the country, which is already anarchic and violent." Whatever the motivation behind Preval's speech, it is sure to shake up the political chessboard even further. The US government is surely dismayed and the Haitian elite flustered. Most importantly, Preval's words, however sincere or demagogic, could release from its bottle the genie that is the Haitian people's desire for social change. Eight years of coups, invasions, confusion, and structural adjustment have temporarily corked the impetus of the 1990 Lavalas movement. But the people's aspirations are still bubbling and ready to blow. All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED. Please credit Haiti Progres. Mexican Journalist Missing, (posted 12/18/98) Journalist missing NEW YORK-The CPJ is expressing concern for journalist Philip
True, Mexico correspondent for the "San Antonio Express-News".
True left his home in Mexico City on 28 November 1998 for a hiking
trip through the rugged Sierra Madre Mountains of Nayarit. He
was last seen in the village of Chalmotita on 4 December. According to his wife, True is an experienced hiker who has never failed to return at the anticipated time. RECOMMENDED ACTION: APPEALS TO: Please copy appeals to the source if possible. For further information, contact Joel Simon at CPJ, 330 Seventh Ave., New York NY 10001, U.S.A., tel: +1 212 465 1004, fax: +1 212 465 9568, e-mail:
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