In her latest pro bono public relations initiative on behalf of right-wing Latin American regimes, The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady interviews a former commander of the 5th Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)—Daniel Sierra Martínez, alias “Samir”— who deserted the organization in 2008 and is now serving as a primary accomplice in Colombian government efforts to prove campesinos are terrorists. […]
Latin Waves is a weekly syndicated radio program focused on building community across borders. The show was started as a resource to educate the public about the extraordinary changes and social movements that are happening in Latin America. Host Sylvia Richardson talks to Upside Down World editor Cyril Mychalejko about Canadian Mining in Latin America, violence associated with mining projects in the region, and the urgent need for reforms to be passed in Canada.
Six days after heavily armed men took the life of a respected anti-mining activist in Cabañas, El Salvador, another prominent community leader has been assassinated. On December 26 at 3:30 pm Dora “Alicia” Sorto Rodriguez, 32, was killed as she returned from doing laundry at the river near her home in Cantón Trinidad, in the municipality of Sensuntepeque, Cabañas.”Alicia,” as she was known to friends, was eight months pregnant and carried her 2-year-old son in her arms as she was shot dead.
“As a revolutionary I will be today, tomorrow and forever on the front lines of my people, all the while knowing that I may lose my life." – Walter Trochez, 25, murdered in Tegucigalpa on 12/13/09
The bodies of slain activists are piling up in Honduras. While it’s being kept quiet in most Honduran and international media, the rage is building among a dedicated network of friends spreading the word quickly with the tragic announcement of each compañero/a. […]
President Rafael Correa, elected in 2006, and reelected in 2009 under the new constitution, is leading Ecuador through what he calls a new “revolution,” one bringing the creation of “socialism for the twenty-first century.” I recently returned from Ecuador, on hand for a bicentennial meeting of historical scholars, and had the opportunity to meet with leading political advisors and talk with ordinary women and men about the changes coming to their country. I came away with one inescapable conclusion: United States policy is completely out of step with the needs and concerns of Ecuador and Latin America.
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I was surprised to discover at the end of October while reading the newspaper in Honduras that a coup d’état had been detected in Nicaragua. According to the 21 October edition of the Honduran daily La Tribuna, former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán had applied the term golpe de estado to the recent ruling by the Nicaraguan Supreme Court of Justice that Article 147 of the national Constitution prohibiting the immediate reelection of presidents was "inapplicable" in the case of current President Daniel Ortega’s proposed candidature in 2011. […]
Recently, Toronto-based Pinetree Capital bought a few million shares of Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, making it the largest share owner of a failing company currently embroiled in a lawsuit. Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a couple of mining concessions in the Intag region of Ecuador. The Vancouver-based company is infamous for using the equivalent of paramilitaries in the anti-mining community of Junín. […]
December 20, 4:00pm – Hitmen gunned down and killed our compañero Ramiro Rivera Gomez, Vice president of the Comité Ambiental de Cabañas, [Cabañas Environmental Committee], in the Canton of Trinidad, city of Ilobasco, Cabañas. Rivera was a leader in the resistance against the Pacific Rim Mining Company.
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It is ironic that while Canada’s Governor General Michaëlle Jean was replacing the white rose to commemorate 24 hours of “peace” in Guatemala inside the country’s Constitutional Palace, 150 National Civil Police agents were outside violently evicting workers from their make-shift homes in the Central Plaza. […]
Some 30,000 people were disappeared during Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Kidnapped by commando groups in the middle of the night, they were taken to clandestine detention centers. The largest and most notorious torture center, The ESMA Navy Mechanics School in Buenos Aires still stands today, but as a museum for Memory.
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