MARCH 2013 ZAPATISTA NEWS SUMMARY http://compamanuel.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/zapatista-news-summary-march-2013/
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Tag Archives: “drug war”
US aids Honduran police despite death squad fears
US aids Honduran police despite death squad fears
ALBERTO ARCE and KATHERINE CORCORAN. AP. March 25, 2013
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The U.S. State Department, which spends millions of taxpayer dollars a year on the Honduran National Police, has assured Congress that money only goes to specially vetted and trained units that don’t operate under the direct supervision of a police chief once accused of extrajudicial killings and “social cleansing.”
But The Associated Press has found that all police units are under the control of Director General Juan Carlos Bonilla, nicknamed the “Tiger,” who in 2002 was accused of three extrajudicial killings and links to 11 more deaths and disappearances. He was tried on one killing and acquitted. The rest of the cases were never fully investigated. Continue reading
Country Updates: Chile; Chaipas, Bolivia; Honduras; Guatemala; Colombia; El Salvador
Four Chilean SOA Graduates Charged with 1973 Murder of Victor Jara http://www.soaw.org/news/organizing-updates/4016-four-chilean-soa-graduates-charged-with-1973-murder-of-folk-singer-victor-jara#video
The EZLN Prepares Communiqué; Las Abejas Will Recall 15 Years from the Massacre in Acteal
Bolivia: Evo Morales’ “Manifesto of the Island of the Sun” http://truth-out.org/news/item/13643-bolivia-evo-morales-manifesto-of-the-island-of-the-sun
Bolivia slams US over ‘irrefutable evidence’ of meddling
Honduras on CBSNews: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57561301/inside-the-worlds-deadliest-country-honduras/
Guatemala News from NISGUA
Justice & Accountability – Oxlajuj B’ak’tun: A New Era Begins
Trade & Globalization
Across Guatemala Communities Defend their Right to Life
The Resistance at La Puya Threatened with Eviction
Guatemala Rejects Inter-American Court Jurisdiction Over Pre-1987 Abuses GUATEMALAN PRESIDENTIAL DECREE – IMPUNITY FOR GENOCIDE AND OTHER WAR CRIMES
Chile Invokes Pinochet-Era Anti-Terrorism Law in Wake of Arson Attacks
Colombia: Congress approved the constitutional reform to the military justice system despite international condemnation
| U.S. Intervention in El Salvador, by Privatization This Time |
Fueled by War on Drugs, Mexican Death Toll Could Exceed 120,000 as Calderon Ends Six-Year Reign
Mark Karlin, Truthout: In the first part of this year, Truthout posted a series of ten articles that dispelled the myths surrounding the failed US/Mexico war on drugs. As a follow-up, this article details newly-released statistics that indicate the predicted death toll from the alleged war-turned-bloodbath will likely far exceed past estimates.
U.S. RETHINKS A DRUG WAR AFTER DEATHS IN HONDURAS
By DAMIEN CAVE and GINGER THOMPSON, New York Times, October 12, 2012
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — The Honduran Air Force pilot did not know what to do. It was the dead of night, and he was chasing a small, suspected drug plane at a dangerously low altitude, just a few hundred feet above the Caribbean. He fired warning shots, but instead of landing, the plane flew lower and closer to the sea.
“So the pilot made a decision, thinking it was the best thing to do,” said Arturo Corrales, Honduras’s foreign minister, one of several officials to give the first detailed account of the episode. “He shot down the plane.”
Four days later, on July 31, it happened again. Another flight departed from a small town on the Venezuelan coast, and using American radar intelligence, a Honduran fighter pilot shot it down over the water.
How many people were killed? Were drugs aboard, or innocent civilians? Officials here and in Washington say they do not know. The planes were never found. But the two episodes — clear violations of international law and established protocols — have ignited outrage in the United States, bringing one of its most ambitious international offensives against drug traffickers to a sudden halt just months after it started.
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HONDURAS: OUR NEXT WAR?
hondurasreporteventflyer-color
for more information call 314-721-2977 or email ifcla@ifcla.net
Fault Line: The US and Honduras https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWU1d_tTMEs&feature=player_embedded
The Real News: Broken Anvil: Victims Fight for Justice After DEA Operation Leaves Four Dead in Honduras
Villagers say there was no warning before shots were fired on May 11 from a U.S. government helicopter on their canoe, leaving four dead.
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8724
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Guatemala: “War on Drugs” and the Return of the Military
For those who missed the screening of Granito, the online streaming at POV has been extended until Aug 20 http://www.pbs.org/pov/granito/full.php http://documentaries.about.com/b/2012/07/28/granitos-successful-streaming.htm
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THE SPOILS OF AN UNDECLARED WAR : How Guatemala’s ‘War on Drugs’ is being used as a front to clear land for oil companies
By Dawn Paley, July 1, 2012, dawnpaley@gmail.com
http://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/the-spoils-of-an-undeclared-war
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Some articles from Truthout of interest to IFCLA readers
*How the Militarized War on Drugs in Latin America Benefits Transnational Corporations and Undermines Democracy
*Private Prisons Spend $45 Million on Lobbying, Rake in $5.1 Billion for Immigrant Detention Alone
*Monsanto’s Quiet Coup: Will Congress Limit Scope and Time for GMO Reviews?
*Emails From ALEC Member Russell Pearce Show Anti-Immigrant Law May Have Been Racially Motivated
*Immigrant Rights Freedom Riders Head to Democratic National Convention *”Voluntary” Work Program Run in Private Detention Centers Pays Detained Immigrants $1 a Day
**US-born kids of migrants lose rights in Mexico – Yahoo! News
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Pan-American Post July 26-Aug 3 – Lead Stories and News Briefs
Country Update: Honduras
Honduras counts the human rights cost of America’s war on drugs http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/15/honduras-human-rights-war-drugs
In this May 6, 2012 photo, accompanied by son Juan Carlos, 13, Jose Maria, 60, strips the bark from a tree trunk that will be used in the construction of a home in La Confianza, Honduras, a city developed from land seized by small-scale farmers from one of Honduras’ richest men. The collection of tin-and-wood shacks boasts a health center, a school, a meeting hall, and a store. The land seizure has spawned a violent land conflict between the farmers and owner, billionaire Miguel Facusse, that has killed at least 63 people, mostly peasants, in the last three years in the Bajo Aguan Valley. Rodrigo Abd / AP
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/07/15/v-fullstory/2896683/honduran-seizures-raise-fear-of.html#
Honduran seizures raise fear of wider conflicts
By ALBERTO ARCE Associated Press
LA CONFIANZA, Honduras — As La Confianza stirs to life at daybreak, farmers ride bicycles or buses to lush green fields of African palm trees, where they harvest high-hanging fruit using poles tipped with hooked knives.On the way, they cross paths with neighbors carrying automatic rifles to an entrance checkpoint set up under a red banner emblazoned with the face of communist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the words “Land Liberated by the Unified Farmworkers Movement.”
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