News Update
Here, in the shadow of the nickel mining operation of CGN (Guatemala Nickel Company), until recently owned and operated by HudBay Minerals, we spoke of how sales were going at German's new (tiny) store that was inaugurated December 22, 2011, about his long-term health needs, and of the three civil cases brought in Canadian courts against HudBay Minerals.
Miami Herald article "HONDURAS IS TEST OF NEW U.S. POLICY ON GAY RIGHTS"
Last fall, we reported on Honduras being the 'Murder capital' of the world, statistically; of being the 'Journalist-killing capital' of the world, proportionate to population; and now it is reported to have one of the highest levels of repression against and killing of LGBT people. These extreme levels of State repression and generalized violence have increased drastically since the June 2009 military coup.
Retired army general Otto Perez Molina, elected on an "iron fist" platform by Guatemalans weary of unrelenting violence, will take office on January 14. Despite his victory, questions remain unanswered both about his past and about the methods he will use to suppress the country's escalating disorder.
On January 5, 2012, just days before the January 14 inauguration of former general Otto Perez Molina as President of Guatemala, a Guatemalan court in a highly irregular procedure dismissed charges against Perez Molina for the 1992 forced disappearance, illegal detention, prolonged torture and presumed extrajudicial execution of Efrain Bamaca.
These articles (below) about U.S. syphilis "experiments" in Guatemala in the 1940s, are another indication and reminder of just what the political, economic and military elites of the United States have long thought about Guatemala and particularly the exploited and poor majority.
This past December 10th, the British magazine The Economist published an article that makes a reference to a memorandum of understanding between the government of Honduras and two United States firms regarding the construction of Model Cities (Charter Cities) in Honduran territory, without notifying the Honduran people up to now of the planned transactions.
Press release, from Mining Watch & CIEL - that the IACHR (Inter-American Commission of Human Rights) has rescinded its "suspension order" of Goldcorp's cyanide-leaching, open-pit / mountain-top removal mine in Guatemala.
The Rio Negro massacres were among hundreds committed during Guatemala's internal conflict, in which the majority of over 200,000 Guatemalans killed or disappeared by the military regimes were unarmed indigenous Mayan civilians.
Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to the United Nations, and its government has long been plagued by allegations of corruption and human rights abuses.
March 10-17, 2012.
DAMS, MINING & BIO-FUELS * versus * COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE & HUMAN RIGHTS
