US Lawmakers Urge Probe of CAFTA Protester Deaths

[struggle4progress]

Fri Mar 18, 2005 04:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eleven U.S. lawmakers urged the Guatemalan government on Friday to fully investigate fatal violence by security forces this week against protesters opposing a free-trade pact with the United States.

"Given the long history of the Guatemalan state's violent responses to protest, we regard official claims that police were fired upon and that the heavy-handed response was necessary ... with a healthy degree of skepticism," the 10 Democrats and one independent said in a letter to Guatemala's ambassador to the United States.

In their letter, the members of the U.S. House of Representatives said "two protesters were shot and killed by police (on Tuesday) when they fired live rounds to disperse a march of teachers and farmers near Huehuetenango. <snip>

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the United States' largest labor organization, also called for an investigation in a separate letter to Guatemalan President Oscar Berger. <snip>

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=7948597

[arcos]

1. Excellent... hopefully US congress will not approve it nt

[Robbien]

2. So we complain about abuse against protesters, but only if

those protesters are in other countries.

CAFTA is beneficial to the corporate elites and will hurt poorer countries. Wonder who instigated these protest marches in favor of CAFTA?

Common Dreams had an article today entitled:
Global Bully Goes to Guatemala

There's something profoundly disturbing -- sickening, really -- about watching a bully at work.

You feel either complicit, or powerless, or both.

The global bully, the United States, has just coerced Guatemala, its latest victim, into repealing an important law to lower the price of pharmaceuticals and promote generic competition. The U.S. ambassador to Guatemala acknowledged that the Guatemalan law was intended to advance public health objectives. But, no matter, he said -- U.S. commercial interests in the form of Big Pharma demanded that the law go.

http://www.counterpunch.org/mokhiber03182005.html