In the 1980s, the Reagan administration illegally funded counter-revolutionary warfare in Nicaragua. As scandal engulfed Washington, the solidarity movement pushed back against intervention.
The 1979 Sandinista victory over the Somoza dictatorship sparked hope across Central America and beyond. Nicaragua quickly became ground zero of a violent U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary war.
Augusto Sandino is celebrated as a Nicaraguan revolutionary and liberator. The U.S invasion he resisted set the stage for dictatorship and, later, revolution.
Although Juan Orlando Hernández was convicted of drug trafficking in a New York court, the United States has yet to own up to its role in fostering state-sponsored drug trafficking in Honduras.
In the 19th century, U.S. filibusters invaded and annexed Latin American territories in the name of Manifest Destiny. One man’s quest to conquer Nicaragua shows the deep roots of U.S. efforts to “spread democracy” abroad.
Kristina Shull’s book Detention Empire shines a light on the links between U.S. repressive counterinsurgency abroad and debilitating immigrant detention policies at home.
The 2009 U.S.-backed coup ruptured Honduras’s three-decade-old democracy. Despite a media blockade, militarization, and deadly repression, the people took to the streets—and refused to back down.
Broadcasting the Salvadoran government's atrocities throughout the armed conflict, the guerrilla radio station Venceremos had a clear goal: bringing down the U.S.-backed dictatorship.
