13 August 2009, Washington, D. C. — The Obama administration has an obligation to demand that the de facto regime in Honduras stop ongoing political killings and other human rights abuses, Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today. Weisbrot noted that human rights observers and international media have documented the killings […]
Geography Archives: Latin America
Demand Fair Reporting on Honduras
Thank you for all that you have done so far to increase U.S. pressure on the coup regime in Honduras. While the Obama administration’s previous round of targeted sanctions demonstrated great promise in helping to reverse the coup, the administration has since appeared to back down from its position of active support for the […]
Spinning the Honduras Coup
In the Summer of 1984, under the oversight of U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, I was deported from Honduras with five other Americans for meeting with union representatives who wanted to tell us about the murders and disappearances of their leaders. At the time, the poor nation was known as “the aircraft carrier USS Honduras” […]
The Coup in Honduras, ALBA, and the English-Speaking Caribbean
The military coup carried out by masked soldiers in the early hours of June 28against the democratically elected President of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was a bandit act with differing messages intended for different audiences. One such audience is the oligarchical groupings throughout the hemisphere, who will be emboldened by Washington’s tacit tolerance of […]
Obama Continues Bush Policies in Latin America
There were great hopes in Latin America when President Obama was elected. U.S. standing in the region had reached a low point under George W. Bush, and all of the hemisphere’s left-leaning governments expressed optimism that Obama would go in a different direction. These hopes have been dashed. President Obama has continued the Bush policies […]
Honduran Resistance Leaders Speak in Chicago
Labor Express interviews four Honduran civil society leaders, who visited Chicago on 7-8 August 2009 as part of the Honduras Coup Resistance Speaking Tour sponsored by the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC): Abencio Fernández Pineda, Gerardo Torres, Maria Luisa Jimenez, and Luther Castillo. Play now: “We are here, in the […]
Honduran Workers Fight for Return of Democracy
Honduras’s three principal labor centrals, the Unitary Confederation of Honduran Workers (CUTH), the General Workers Central (CGT), and the Confederation of Honduran Workers (CTH) began an open-ended national strike on 6 August 2009. * * * Communiqué The three workers confederations of Honduras, CUTH, CGT, and CTH address the critical political situation that prevails in […]
Honduras Coup: A Template for Hemispheric Assault on Democracy
The people of Honduras have now suffered more than 40 days of military rule. The generals’ June 28 coup, crudely re-packaged in constitutional guise, ousted the country’s elected government and unleashed severe, targeted, and relentless repression. The grassroots protests have matched the regime in endurance and outmatched it in political support within the country and […]
Petroleum and Energy Policy in Iran
Iran, a major oil producing and exporting country, also imports gasoline because of inadequate refining capacity and rising petrol consumption. This article examines the problems faced by an economy dependent on the export of crude oil and gas that are compounded by the dilemmas of rising domestic consumption, a significant decline in productive capacity, […]
We Say No to U.S. Military Bases in Colombia
Bogota, July 30, 2009 1. The government of Alvaro Uribe has announced a decision to grant the United States the use of military bases on national territory by way of an agreement that would place all of the Colombian land mass at U.S. disposal for all types of military operations inside and outside of […]
Interview with Honduran Indigenous Leader Salvador Zuniga: “If They Get Away with This Coup, We Are Heading Back to Very Bloody Times in Latin America”
On July 29th, Tortilla con Sal managed to talk to Salvador Zuniga, a veteran leader of the indigenous peoples’ movement in Honduras. Zuniga talked about what is currently happening in Honduras. At the time of the interview, Zuniga and other leaders like Bertha Caceres and the Garifuna Miriam Miranda were in temporary encampments in Nicaragua […]
Brazil Opposes Holding Elections in Honduras under De Facto Government
Brasilia, 4 August 2009, ABN — The government of Brazil rejected on Tuesday the idea of holding elections in Honduras under the de facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed into power after the coup d’état on the 28th of June. That is the message sent by the principal international adviser to the […]
Anti-Venezuela Spokespeople Misrepresent Reality of Press Freedom in Venezuela
Denis MacShane attacks the British left for defending Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez against an onslaught from the media, “New Cold Warriors,” and right-wing demagogues throughout the world. His rhetorical trick is to tar the left with a new media law currently being debated in the Venezuelan Congress, which he says “would impose prison sentences of […]
Honduran Resistance to the World: Organize a Boycott against the Military-Business Dictatorship of Roberto Micheletti
June 28th of the this year when the Honduran population was preparing to participate in a popular opinion poll about the installation of a fourth ballot box in which it would decide whether or not to convoke a Constitutional Assembly, thousands of military soldiers kidnapped the Constitutional President of the Republic, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, […]
“Come Over and Help Us”: A History of R2P
Address to the United Nations General Assembly Thematic Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, the United Nations, New York, 23 July 2009 The discussions about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), or its cousin “humanitarian intervention,” are regularly disturbed by the rattling of a skeleton in the closet: history, to the present moment. Throughout history, there have […]
The World Left and the Iranian Elections
The recent elections in Iran, and the subsequent challenges to their legitimacy, have been a matter of enormous internal conflict in Iran, and of seemingly endless debate in the rest of the world — a debate that threatens to linger for some time yet. One of its most fascinating consequences has been the deep divisions […]
U.S.-Brokered Mediation Has Failed — It’s Time for Latin America to Take Charge
The mediation effort that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged to try to resolve the Honduran crisis, which began when a military coup removed Honduran President Mel Zelaya more than four weeks ago, has failed. It is now time — some would say overdue — for the Latin American governments to play their proper […]
Education and Its Cold War Discontents
Andrew Hartman. Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. x + 251 pp. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-230-60010-2. Although world affairs are inherently distant from the local activity of running a school, international events can often heighten a sense of threat from abroad and a related […]
Dissecting Utopia: New Book Assesses Latin American Left
Patrick Barrett, Daniel Chavez, and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, eds., The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, Pluto Press (2008), 320 pages. The conflict in Honduras has been an ongoing challenge for governments across the political spectrum in Latin America. In the years leading up to this tense and decisive event a number of leaders and social […]
Honduras Solidarity Protest at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Florida
Take Action in Solidarity with the People of Honduras Gather on Saturday, July 25 at 10:30 am at NW 87th Ave & NW 36th St in Miami On June 28, SOA-trained Honduran generals overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Manuel Zelaya in a military coup. The Honduran social movements are resisting the coup regime and […]
