Archives – Page 64 – Upside Down World

Venezuelan Oppostion Turns to Violence in the Face of Election Defeat

April 18, 2013 Zoë Clara Dutka 0

On Monday night at least 7 people were killed, 61 injured, and many institutional buildings, including multiple public health clinics, were set ablaze by right-wing mobs all across Venezuela. These attacks were encouraged by Henrique Capriles’ call to action that reached a fiery pinnacle the day after his defeat in Sunday’s electoral race. His shouted to his followers to take to the streets and, “Take all of your hatred out, all your frustration, in the name of peace.”

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Mexico: Airport Threatens Farmworkers Again in Atenco

April 17, 2013 Clayton Conn 0

Atenco became recognized worldwide in 2001-2002 for its struggle to defend and protect its land. Armed with sticks and machetes – their primary farm tool and icon of struggle – the ejidatarios had gone to the streets to protest and express their rage for not being consulted about the land procurements. The ejidatario’s accomplishment in stopping the international airport was celebrated by many as a victory against the encroachment of foreign capital that sought to eradicate the farmworker’s way of life.

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Maduro Wins Venezuelan Presidential Election

April 15, 2013 Chris Carlson 0

Nicolas Maduro has won the Venezuelan presidential election with 50.66 percent of the vote against 49.07 percent for opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. Maduro gave a victory speech immediately after, while Capriles initially refused to recognize the results.

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“Sons and Daughters of the Earth”: Indigenous Communities and Land Grabs in Guatemala

April 11, 2013 Alberto Alonso-Fradejas 0

In the last ten years, the expansion of corporate sugarcane and oil palm plantations in northern Guatemala has encroached on the lands of Maya Q’eqchi’ indigenous people. These plantations have already displaced hundreds of families—even entire communities—leading to increased poverty, hunger, unemployment, and landlessness in the region. In the face of violent expulsion and incorporation into an exploitative system, peasant families are struggling to access land and defend their resources as the basis of their collective identity as Q’eqchi’ peoples or R’al Ch’och (“sons and daughters of the earth”).

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Honduras: Terror in the Aguán

April 11, 2013 Greg McCain 0

During the first week of April, the Honduran daily newspaper La Prensa ran a series of articles that included photos, a video and a link to a montage of past articles entitled Terror en el Bajo Aguán. The major thrust of the series is that there are heavily armed clandestine groups of men training in the region. The photos and video show them, all wearing ski masks, with AK47s, M16s, and .223 assault rifles, all of which are military issue.

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Ecuador: Protests Mount over Mining, Oil

April 10, 2013 WW4 Report 0

Some 30 protesters crashed the opening of the sixth Expominas trade fair at the Quito Exhibition Center April 3, where Ecuador’s government sought to win new investors for the mineral and oil sectors. The protesters, mostly women, interrupted the event’s inaugural speech with an alternative rendition of the song “Latinoamérica” by the Puerto Rican hip-hop outfit Calle 13, with lyrics referencing places in the country threatened by mining: “You cannot buy Intag, you cannot buy Mirador, you can’t buy Kimsacocha, you can’t buy my Ecuador.”

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“We’re Witnessing a Reactivation of the Death Squads of the ‘80s” in Honduras: An Interview with Bertha Oliva of COFADEH

April 9, 2013 Alex Main, CEPR 0

“It’s certain that death squads are a product of the impunity that we’ve seen in Honduras. The death squads of the past were never really dismantled. What we’re witnessing is a reactivation of these death squads. And we’re seeing it quite clearly. We’ve seen videos of incidents in the street where masked men with military training and unmarked vehicles assassinate young people,” said Bertha Oliva, the General Coordinator of the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared and Detained in Honduras (COFADEH).

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Brazil: Incomplete Justice for Murders of Amazon Activists

April 9, 2013 Fabiola Ortiz 0

Peasants and human rights defenders in Brazil are indignant over the acquittal of the man accused of ordering the May 2011 murders of two prominent Amazon activists, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo. When the sentences were read out, activists and rural workers burned crosses and threw stones at the courthouse windows.

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Teaching Peace: The University of Resistance in Colombia’s San Jose de Apartado Community

April 4, 2013 James Bargent 0

The community of San Josecito in northern Colombia is an idyllic collection of wooden houses linked by dirt streets where the only traffic is the free-roaming livestock. Yet it is a community where every man, woman and child has a tragedy to tell. It is also a community that, since its inception, has lived with the ever-present threat of violence and the knowledge that to leave its wire-fenced perimeter is to put your life at risk.

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Campaign for Presidency Kicks-off in Venezuela: An Interview with Carmen Hidalgo

April 4, 2013 Jody McIntyre 0

It is Tuesday, April 2nd; music and people fill the streets of Caracas. This is the official opening day of the campaign for Presidential elections in Venezuela, due to take place on April 14th after the death of Hugo Chavez. The candidates, Nicolas Maduro, former bus driver, ex-Vice-President and the man Chavez personally named as his successor, and Henrique Capriles, the main opposition candidate who lost to Chavez last November, are both kicking off their tours of the country. But, as journalist Reinaldo Iturriza once told me, these are not “normal elections” that take place here in Venezuela. From the beginning, the political campaigns are vibrant, colorful and visible everywhere you turn.

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