“The Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria arrived once more to the Q’anjob’al and Chuj territories.” Thus read the headline of a public announcement made on May 6th 2014 by the multinational government (sociopolitical articulation) of the nations Q’anjob’al, Popti, Chuj, Akateco and Mestizo, in the Huehuetenango region, before the military presence of the Spanish company Project of Water Development (PWD, of Spain’s HIDRALIA ECOENER) in the municipality of Ixtatan.
In recent years, (...)
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Latin America and the Caribbean
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GUATEMALA - Water-Mining Invasion and the Dispossession and Expulsion of Native Peoples
Jubenal Quispe
22 May 2014, posted by Riley Pentico -
BOLIVIA - A Country that Stopped Being a Syndrome and Became a Phenomenon
Ollantay Itzamná
22 May 2014, posted by Riley PenticoA decade ago, Bolivia was the most impoverished and despised South American country in the region. Its neighbors from near and far looked at it with disdain and contempt. As if dealing with a “sick people”, they studied the measures necessary so that “the bolivian syndrome” didn’t spread like a pandemic across the continent.
This impoverished and pillaged country of around eight million inhabitants was considered one of “savage, restless Indians”, spread out over a territory of more than (...) -
GUATEMALA - Divide and rule in the land of gold
Frauke Decoodt
17 de octubre de 2012, puesto en línea por colaborador@s extern@s«In San Miguel Ixtahaucán, Guatemala, the Mina Marlin gold mine, operated by Goldcorp, has divided indigenous communities through gifts, benefits, and violence. The mine has caused a lot of damage. It has not only had a profound impact on the environment but also on the social cohesion of communities and families in the area, and on their cultural ties with the land.»
Doña Deodora has only one eye. She lost her other one night in 2010 when locals, employees from a mining company, came to (...) -
GUATEMALA - Living on the edge of the abyss
Frauke Decoodt
16 January 2012, posted by colaborador@s extern@sJanuary, 7th, 2012 - Independent from the Occupy Movement in North-America and Europe, a movement of slum dwellers in Guatemala is occupying the street in front of Congress. They are protesting against the living conditions in the slums and a disfunctional housing policy. To change their situation they not only occupied Congress but made a bill and eventually started a hunger strike .
As crisis and poverty escalate in the Western world, activists in Europe and North America are now (...) -
Nearly 5 Years of DR-CAFTA and Its Constitutional Challenge
EL SALVADOR - Free Trade’s Dubious BlessingsLeonard Morin
31 January 2011, posted by Leonard Morin“They close on one corner and open on another. The workers don’t have any protection at all,” says Marielos DeLeón of the National Coalition for a Safe Country without Hunger (Concentración Nacional por un País sin Hambre y Seguro, CONPHAS), a group comprising trade unionists and other social justice activists. “The maquilas come to the country and claim that they’re going to create more employment, but in the end they just undermine stability for workers,” she says. “CAFTA has generated (...)
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HAITI - Stealth Duvalierism: Haiti, Michel Martelly, and the Presidential Selection of 2010
Jeb Sprague, Znet
30 December 2010, posted by DialDecember 20, 2010 - Znet - In the media coverage of Haiti’s ongoing electoral crisis, presidential candidate Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, whom ruling Unity party candidate Jude Célestin edged out of Haiti’s Jan. 16 run-off by less than 1%, has been portrayed as the victim of voting fraud and the leader of a populist upsurge against Haiti’s crooked Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).
Some have questioned his presidential suitability by pointing to his vulgar antics as a konpa musician (...) -
HAITI-FRANCE - France Urged to Pay $40 Billion in Reparations for “Independence Debt”
Amy Goodman, Vox Sambou & Jean Saint-Vil, Democracy Now
18 August 2010, posted by DialAugust 17, 2010 - Democracy Now - According to the UN-sponsored Haiti Reconstruction Fund, only two countries—Brazil and Estonia—have fully paid the pledged amount. The United States, France, Canada and many others have failed to send their pledged aid. A recent review by CNN found that just two percent of total pledges have been delivered to Haiti. Calls are now growing for another form of payment to Haiti: reparations. This week, a group of prominent academics and activists published an (...)
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El Salvador’s Misfortune in Gold: Mining, Murder, and Corporate Malfeasance
Leonard Morin
21 April 2010, posted by Leonard MorinOn the wall of the office of San Isidro’s mayor, José Bautista, hung a picture of Roberto d’Aubuisson, founder of the ARENA party and the death squads of the 1980s, bankrolled and trained by the US government. Under the picture was the caption: “Leader of yesterday, today, and forever. There for the fatherland.” The recent turmoil over the efforts of Pacific Rim, a Canadian corporation, to carry out a gold-mining project in El Salvador is a catalyst for reviving the deep-seated divisions (...)
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CHILE - A new workers’ movement is born
Permanent Revolution
14 August 2009, posted by Ariel ZúñigaTue 11, August 2009 - Permanent Revolution - As required by the law, in the run up to May Day, a delegation from the Movimiento de los Pueblos y los Trabajadores (People and Workers’ Movement – MPT) went to the police station to ask permission for a march and a rally to launch the new left movement.
The police officer in charge said that permission could not be granted as Arturo Martinez, the president of the Chilean trade union movement (TUC) would not be pleased to find a another (...) -
LATIN AMERICA - The right strikes back
Immanuel Wallerstein
15 de julio de 2009, puesto en línea por Claudia CasalJuly 15, 2009 - The presidency of George W. Bush was the moment of the greatest electoral sweep of left-of-center political parties in Latin America in the last two centuries. The presidency of Barack Obama risks being the moment of the revenge of the right in Latin America.
The reason may well be the same - the combination of the decline of American power with the continuing centrality of the United States in world politics. At one and the same time, the United States is unable to (...)