Nicaragua
- NYT article: "Trial On Guatemalan Civil War Carnage Leaves Out U.S. Role"
- Commentary: "Follow Guatemala's Lead: Convene A Genocide Case Grand Jury"
- NYT article: "Victory In Guatemala? Not Yet"
Closing arguments were made today (May 9, 2013) in the genocide trial against retired Generals Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez in Guatemala City. The prosecution has asked for a 75 year prison sentence for the two generals. A decision is pending.
Killings of poor campesinos continue unabated in northern Honduras, as military-backed landowners use violence to get ever more land, to produce "green energy" agro-fuels for global markets.
Two articles about the amazing "exhumation process" in Guatemala, that began in 1992! Since 1994, Rights Action has been honoured to fund and otherwise support the exhumation ofmass graves, the re-burial of loved ones, the building of commemorative monuments, and work for individual and collective justice.
A delegation of academics, human rights and labor activists, visited the community of Ahuás in the Department of Gracias a Dios in a region known as La Moskitia. On May 11, 2012 four helicopters conducted an apparent drug interdiction near the town of Ahuas. At least one of the helicopters opened fire on a passenger boat killing two pregnant women, a 14-year-old boy and a 21-year-old man, while seriously injuring at least four more. The purpose of the visit was to inquire into this tragedy.
The Summits of the Americas began in 1994 as forums to promote free trade. In 2009 the Summit's focus shifted to demands for the inclusion of Cuba in regional political bodies and the end of the U.S. economic embargo, a debate which continued in this month's Sixth Summit in Cartagena.
1. FSLN founder Tomas Borge dies at 81
2. Ben Linder remembered, 25th anniversary of his murder by USA-Contras
"Militarization in Central America is less about controlling crime than ensuring access to natural resources" (Annie Bird)
As a Mexico Style "Drug War" is launched in Central America, US and US Allied Security Forces are increasing participating in police actions in Central America. On February 7, Oliver Garza, a high level State Department Security Advisor took up residence in the US embassy in Honduras. Garza comes to Honduras from the State Department agency most directly in charge of US security operations in Colombia and Mexico, and in 2002 his name was associated with a scandal in which 3,000 AK-47's were shipped from the Nicaraguan National Police to Colombian AUC paramilitaries.
The struggle against impunity, and for truth, memory and justice for the genocide in Guatemala continues, both in Guatemala and in the USA. The US government is partially responsible for Guatemala's genocide and State terrorism against its own population in the late 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.
