Corporal Pierre Jean responds to the call of a disturbance in Farmworker Village, gets out of his patrol car seemingly bent on imposing his will on a man who is clearly not well — though, equally clearly, not a real threat — and, within seconds of arriving, rushes him, boxes him in, and shoots him dead. A bad thing — a horrible, preventable, violent death at the hands of the police — has happened. That much doesn’t change.
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Anti-Militarism: News & Updates
News Article
February 21, 2021
News Article
February 19, 2021
It is with great sadness that we share this news. Sister Dianna Ortiz passed away this morning (Feb 19 2021). Sister Dianna was well-known in the Latin America solidarity movement for the past 30 years. "In 1989, while working as a missionary in Guatemala, Sister Dianna Ortiz, an American Ursuline, was abducted by security forces and brutally tortured. Her case attracted international attention-- not because it was so unusual, but because of the explosive charge that the man who intervened with her captors, a mysterious "Alejandro," may have had connections with the US Embassy." (From the book jacket of her autobiography, which she wrote with Patricia Davis, The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth)
RRN Letter
February 15, 2021
Twenty-six year-old nursing student Keyla Martínez died in police custody on February 7. Arrested the night before for an alleged violation of a COVID-restriction curfew, an autopsy found that she had died from “mechanical asphyxiation” in her jail cell. While police initially reported her death as a suicide, the former director of forensic medicine reports that she suffered torture, strangulation, and possible sexual abuse at the hands of police in jail. The Center for Women’s Rights in Honduras stated, “The femicide of Keyla Martínez is added to the history of abuse of power and disproportionate use of force, that with or without the curfew, are exercised by public functionaries, above all police and military, against the population.” Honduras consistently ranks among the top five nations in the world in femicide. Equally alarming is the high rate of impunity for those who commit these murders. We demand justice for Keyla Martínez. #JusticiaParaKeyla
RRN Letter
February 14, 2021
Death threats to María Eugenia Mosquera Riascos are part of a larger context of illegal armed groups intimidating members of the human rights community in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department. These armed groups, responsible for forced recruitment of youth, are trying to impose their control in the city through fear, various extortionist tactics, and advertising what they call a “social cleansing” in the city. Maria Eugenia Mosquera Riascos is the legal representative of CONPAZCOL (Association of Communities Building Peace in Colombia) and member of the Roundtable for Access to Justice, Victims, Protection and Memory), which participates in the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee. On January 7, again on January 29 and 30, she received a series of threatening messages on her mobile phone. One threat read: “you have three guys watching you,” and “we are the ones who kill informant toads of those other people.”
RRN Letter
February 13, 2021
Police used force to displace 44 campesino (peasant) families from two communities in Francisco Morazan. On the morning of February 5, police dressed in black came to their rural communities and—without presenting a legal eviction order—began a forced eviction that ended in the destruction of all the collective work the families had built for more than 12 years. Homes and community buildings were bulldozed. When Luvy Canales, the families’ legal representative, requested to see a legal eviction order, police detained her. The lands that these families inhabited have been designated as communal (ejido). They are used for subsistence purposes only (growing food, raising animals) by families who do not own their own land. The National Association of Rural Workers (CNTC) has initiated an investigation process into this forced eviction. We are urging that officials in Honduras: 1) instruct INA (Instituto Nacional Agrario) to investigate the legal titles of these disputed lands to establish true ownership/possession and make accommodations for the 44 families; 2) safeguard the life and security of all citizens of Honduras through the execution of a comprehensive and inclusive agrarian policy that protects the most vulnerable.
News Article
February 11, 2021
Social organizations based in the city of Buenaventura, Colombia’s largest Pacific port, have warned of a deteriorating humanitarian situation due to the presence of paramilitary groups and increased violence against residents.
News Article
February 7, 2021
Colombia’s largest port city, Buenaventura, saw a 200 percent increase in homicides in January, compared to the same time period last year. The killings are attributed to deep-rooted problems: state abandonment, systemic racism, and a lack of concerted investments in Afro-Colombian communities.
News Article
February 2, 2021
IRTF, Cleveland Jobs with Justice, and the Cleveland Catholic Worker are among 100+ signatories on a letter to President Biden calling on him to close the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention facility once and for all. “Guantánamo is the iconic example of the post-9/11 abandonment of the rule of law. Guantánamo embodies the fact that…the US government has viewed communities of color…through a security threat lens, to devastating consequences… Guantánamo continues to fuel and justify bigotry, stereotyping and stigma. Guantánamo entrenches racial divisions and racism more broadly…”
News Article
February 1, 2021
*Thanks to the Guardian for the article*
News Article
February 1, 2021
On the evening of January 31, gunmen opened fire on a group of supporters of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The group, traveling in a pickup truck covered with FMLN signs, was returning from a day of campaigning for the upcoming February 28 mayoral and legislative elections in San Salvador. Gloria Rogel del Cid and Juan de Dioz Tejada, veterans of the armed conflict [in the 1970s, 80s, 90s, that pitted the Salvador people against brutal US-backed military regimes], died, and at least two more were injured. This State-linked repression was carried out by yet another military-backed, autocratic regime with full economic, military and political relations with the US and Canada. Like the Honduran and Guatemalan regimes, the El Salvador government is considered a “democratic ally” in support of the United States’ anti-democratic efforts in the region, such as the desire to overthrow the government of Venezuela.