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In this commentary, Ben Beachy notes that ongoing U.S. intervention has reached a fever pitch now that Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega—Washington's Cold War nemesis—has pulled ahead in the polls for the upcoming elections. U.S. authorities have threatened Nicaraguan voters with what amount to economic sanctions in the event of an Ortega victory.

Of all the land disputes between indigenous communities and large landowners that have mushroomed in Argentina during the last decade, none acquired the public notoriety of the battle waged in the northern Patagonian province of Chubut in 2004. The David-and-Goliath elements of the confrontation ensured unprecedented media attention to an issue long neglected by mainstream Argentina.

On May 1st, the day the Bolivian government announced the “nationalization” of the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, I went out to witness the symbolic takeover of a former Bolivian refinery that was privatized in the late 1990s. A cheering crowd looked on as a young employee of Bolivia’s state oil and gas company, Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), strung a YPFB banner over the metal letters spelling out the name of the Brazilian company Petrobras. Another banner hung on the front gate proclaimed, “Nationalized: Property of Bolivia.”

In 2003, after several weeks of massive protests and violent state repression, Bolivian President Gonzalo “Goni” Sánchez de Lozada signed his resignation and fled to Miami. It was October 17. The day is etched in the collective memory of Bolivians as the victorious culmination of a hard-fought battle—a war, in fact, or the “Gas War” as most Bolivians still call it.