Current Issue

In the 1980s, Central America sank deep into political turmoil amid civil wars, brutal military dictatorships, and U.S. intervention. Three decades later, for the first issue of NACLA's 45th anniversary volume, we look to the legacies of war in Central America. Honduras is reliving its history of military coups, repression, and impunity. In Guatemala, a former dictator is charged with genocide. Across the region, former guerrillas and generals are in power, the military is again taking a disturbingly prominent role in policing, and communities are defending their land from powerful interests.

Full Issue (PDF)

Central America: Legacies of War

Intro

Between Past and Present

Michael Fox

Taking Note

Peru: Humala Takes Off His Gloves

Deborah Poole and Gerardo Rénique

Open Forum

Soldiers Without a Cause: Why Are Thousands of UN Troops Still in Haiti?

Dan Beeton

Updates

Neocolonial Policing in Puerto Rico

Marisol LeBrón

Environment

Dirty Business in Brazil: Rousseff Backslides on the Environment

Zachary Hurwitz

Border Wars

Follow the Money: The University of Arizona’s Border War

Todd Miller

Activism

21st-Century Solidarity: Video Messages and the Other Campaign

Andalusia Knoll

Report

Turning the Tide Revisited: An Interview With Noam Chomsky

Greg Grandin

Chomsky discusses emerging trends in Central America, including the rise in violent crimes and the legacy of U.S. intervention in Latin America.

Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence

Annie Bird

Communities that suffered through the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s are once again faced with violence as they defend their land against international interests.

Justice in Guatemala

Kate Doyle

There are two winds blowing in Guatemala today. One is for justice, and the other is the right-wing outrage that swept retired general Otto Pérez Molina to the presidency in November.

Guatemala’s President Under the Lens

Kate Doyle

Policing Crime in El Salvador

Sonja Wolf

FMLN president Mauricio Funes came to power in 2009 with a pledge to break the hard-line crime-fighting policy of his predecessors. But recent cabinet shake-ups may herald a return to the past.

FMLN Reflections, 20 Years Later: An Interview With Nidia Díaz

Esther Portillo-Gonzales

El Salvador’s 1992 Peace Accords turned the guerrilla group into a political party. In 2009, the FMLN won the presidency. FMLN International Relations Secretary Nidia Díaz speaks to the present and the past.

Honduras: A History That Repeats Itself

Leticia Salomón

The June 28, 2009, coup upset the consolidation of democracy and represents a strong return to the past, when the military repressed protest and the exercise of civic rights.

Central American Solidarity, Then and Now: An Interview With Jenny Atlee

Michael Fox

Atlee has been doing solidarity work in Central America for more than 30 years. Many actors are the same, only now it’s more complicated—but just as urgent.

Nicaragua’s Gangs: Historical Legacy or Contemporary Symptom?

Dennis Rodgers

Nicaragua’s gangs are less a legacy of war and more a consequence of there having been no resolution to the many social, political, and economic issues that led to war and revolution in the first place.

Legacies of the U.S. Invasion of Panama

Julio Yao

Twenty-two years later, the legacy of the U.S. invasion of Panama lives on in profound ways that continue to shape both domestic and foreign policy in Panama.

A Workshop Abandoned: WikiLeaks, U.S. Empire, and Central America

Kirsten Weld

WikiLeaks cables reveal U.S. diplomatic distraction, neglect, and half-heartedness in Central America, as the United States is poised to re-engage the region.

Reviews

Zapatismo in Chiapas and Beyond

Alicia Swords

Zapatista Spring: Anatomy of a Rebel Water Project and the Lessons of International Solidarity by Ramor Ryan, AK Press, 2011, 211 pp., $16 (paperback)

The Life of Félix Muruchi: Resistance and Indigenous Recuperation in Bolivia

Jason Tockman

From the Mines to the Streets: A Bolivian Activist’s Life by Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, with Félix Muruchi, University of Texas Press, 2011, 263 pp., $36.85 (hardcover), $22.95 (paperback)

Che: Behind the CIA’s Killing of a Revolutionary

Hobart Spalding

Who Killed Che? by Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith, OR Books, 2011, 200 pp., $16 (paperback)

Child Migrant Farmers in the United States: A Quest for a Better Life

Arturo Conde

The Harvest (La Cosecha), directed by U. Roberto Romano, 2011, 80 mins., Cinema Libre Studio, theharvestfilm.com

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