This is Part Two of a series of interviews with members of El Salvador’s social movements titled “What We Want: Voices from the Salvadoran Left.”
Josefina Lazo and Sandra Henriquez are members of the first vendors association of San Salvador, which represented 1,000 vendors 25 years ago. In San Salvador today, 30-33 associations are active with a representation of about 20,000 vendors.
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There is a dire need for international reflection regarding the role of U.S policy abroad, and especially in response to US Government publications regarding the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA). In actuality, if passed, the FTA would further destabilize Colombia’s small-property farmers, take away an estimated 250,000 jobs, maintain state sanctioned impunities for military and paramilitary violences against Colombia’s civilian populations, and threaten biodiversity within the country. […]
On April 20, 2009, various organizations and individuals from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community of San Salvador rallied in front of the Legislative Assembly to protest an unwarranted attack on their civil rights. Legislative Assembly Deputy Rodolfo Parker has reignited efforts to pass an amendment that would specify that marriage only be between a man and a woman and deny same sex couples the right to adopt a child. […]
A University of Kansas professor is under fire for a mapping project in Mexico partially funded by the U.S. Defense Department, as colleagues in the field of geography are calling for an investigation, while growing local opposition to the project leaves it in peril.
Canada’s Nortec Ventures Corp., a mining company based in Vancouver, announced this month its intention of buying Copper Mesa Mining Corporation’s Ecuadorian assets. […]
This is Part One of a series of interviews with members of El Salvador’s social movements titled “What We Want: Voices from the Salvadoran Left.”
Ana Martínez is an organizer and activist who was born in El Salvador in October 1980 – the same month and year that five armed leftist groups politically converged under the name of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) to confront military and civilian death squads and overthrow the Salvadoran oligarchy.
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The weekend that the hemisphere’s Presidents met in Trinidad at the Summit of the Americas marked the same weekend that Cuba defeated the US in the Bay of Pigs invasion 48 years ago. At the Summit, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega recalled the invasion in a speech that rightly criticized US imperialism throughout the 20th century. President Barack Obama replied, "I’m grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old." […]
Of all the memorable statements coming out of the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad this weekend, the one that stood out the most for me was President Barack Obama’s public expression of how he intended to approach his first major meeting with his hemispheric counterparts.
"I have a lot to learn and I’m very much looking forward to listening," the president said in his opening address. […]
The peace community of San José de Apartado was created in 1997 by five hundred displaced villagers from seventeen different towns in the wider region, following a wave of massacres perpetrated mostly by paramilitary groups. While forced out of their homes, these farmers were determined that they would not give up their lands. The only way to do so, they resolved, was through self organization and refusing to take part in the conflict in any way.
At the upcoming Summit of the Americas, Obama’s simple acknowledgement of the mistakes the Bush Administration made in policy towards Venezuela, especially the 2002 coup, could turn Chávez from a difficult adversary into a pragmatic partner. […]
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