Thirty years ago, today, on March 23, 1982, Guatemalan general Efraín Ríos Montt overthrew President Romeo Lucas García. The new military junta suspended the Constitution, closed the legislature, and installed one of the bloodiest military regimes in Guatemalan history. Three decades later, for the first issue of our 45th anniversary volume, we look to the legacies of war in Central America.
On November 17, the two-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, occupiers and supporters took to the streets of New York City for a day of action. 30,000 marched from Foley Square over the Brooklyn Bridge. Among those in the crowd were unions, teachers, students, immigrants, youth, and older activists—united in support for Occupy Wall Street.
On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly again voted overwhelming to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba. As international relations scholar Arturo López-Levy points out in the latest NACLA Report, the embargo itself violates basic principles of the human rights model established by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
On July 20, a caravan of over 100 people crossed the U.S.-Mexican border, carrying 100 tons of humanitarian aid on its way to Cuba. This is the 22nd aid caravan to Cuba organized by the interreligious organization Pastors for Peace, which brings humanitarian aid to Cuba each year in defiance of the U.S. economic embargo and travel ban.
On Tuesday, July 28, the U. S. government announced that it had revoked the visas of four leading members of the government installed by the June 28 Honduran coup. More than a month after the Honduran military awoke President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and sent him packing to Costa Rica, it appears that Washington is finally beginning to put its foot down—lightly.
Commemorating International Women's Day, thousands of landless women engaged in protests across Brazil. Several of the protests targeted large eucalyptus plantations for pulp production, as part of a renewed effort by the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) and Vía Campesina to fight against multinational agribusiness corporations. As activists turn the screws on agribusiness, state repression against the landless movement has also increased.
Fireworks can still be heard in the distance where thousands of people are in the streets of downtown Asuncion sharing, embracing, reveling, hugging, smothering each other in kisses, and dancing until the early morning.