This past weekend was one of the most violent in El Salvador. At least 80 people were killed in different parts of the country, allegedly by gang members. We at WOLA condemn this situation, and stand in solidarity with the families of victims, local communities, and with the entire population that suffers because of these crimes. We reaffirm their right to live in peace and without violence.
In 2019, Francia Marquez survived an assassination attempt by men wielding firearms and grenades – an attack that came on the heels of a string of death threats against the award-winning Colombian environmentalist. Now, three years later, she could become the first Afro-Colombian vice president – a historic development in a country where politics has traditionally been the domain of wealthy white men. She was tapped for the position by leftist presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the upcoming May election. Marquez has focused her campaign on the need for economic investment in conflict zones, environmentalism, and ensuring implementation of Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. She has vocally opposed the drug wars in Colombia, known as the world’s most dangerous country for environmental defenders.
Central America’s Forgotten History explores how “struggles over historical memory” “can be very political” in the countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Chomsky begins with dispelling “the Black Legend” “that serves to cover up some more inconvenient similarities, contrasts, and connections between British and Spanish colonialism.” The author seeks “to find clues as to what some of the invisible, unheard voices hidden within them might have to say.” Central America’s Forgotten History is a thesis on what today’s America forgot or never knew about the history that drives emigration from Central America. As such, Chomsky omits some history in this concise book while more recent relevant events receive more attention.
Haitian Bridge Alliance v. Biden, a pending federal class action lawsuit, asserts that the U.S. government’s actions at Del Rio were part of a larger strategy that was intentionally designed to send a message of deterrence to other Black immigrants: the United States will not protect you and will deport you back to danger. To perpetrate these human rights abuses, the U.S. used the COVID-19 pandemic as a pretext. Invoking an obscure public health statute called Title 42, the Biden Administration fully embraced a Trump-era policy that claimed the unprecedented authority to prevent the entry into the country of people seeking humanitarian protection. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Haitian Bridge Alliance have released a new report unveiling the full scope of the abuses that occurred in Del Rio, Texas, and in some cases are ongoing.
Join the Alliance For Global Justice in the 2022 All the Walls Must Fall Conference, both virtually and in person. There will be panels, social gatherings and direct actions.
Attacks against former FARC combatants who are integrated into the peace process continue at an alarming rate. About 300 have been killed since the signing of the Peace Accords in November 2016. On January 28, the Constitutional Court, noting that former combants’ “fundamental rights to life, personal integrity and peace … were ignored” by the Colombian state, ordered the government to take measures to protect the lives of former FARC combatants. On February 12, Jhon Sebastián Rivas and Leonardo Agudelo Murillo were with other members of Memoria Viva (a union which represents security personnel for former FARC combatants) in San Vicente del Caguán, Meta Department, to provide security to another former combatant, Lucila Moreno. TV news footage showed the police violently assault one of the men from behind. When the two tried to run away, police opened fire, shooting and killing a 14-year-old bystander. Two days later, an armed group began distributing pamphlets, warning that Memoria Viva members should present their accredited weapons and vehicles or otherwise be “declared military objectives,” i.e. marked as targets of assassination.
Social movement leaders Jorge Tafur and Teofilo Acuña Ribón were outspoken against threats to land rights of campesinos and artisanal (traditional) miners in the Magdalena Medio region. The expansion of fossil fuel drilling (fracking) and palm tree plantations (for palm oil) pose threats not only to land rights but to the environment. In February they were staying in a rural area of San Martín, Cesar Department, denouncing that the police and the mayor of San Martín were colluding with a local landowner in making threats and harassing campesino victims of violence. On February 22, armed men dressed in military gear arrived at the house where they were staying, camouflaged by the darkness of the night, and shot them dead. Jorge Tafur and Teofilo Acuña Ribón were active in several social movement organizations that are accompanied by IRTF’s partner organization Community Peacemaker Teams-Colombia (CPT), including the Agro-mining Federation of the South of Bolívar (FEDEAGROMISBOL), the Inter-dialogue Commission of the South of Bolívar, Center and the South of Cesar (CISBCSC), the People’s Congress, the National Agrarian Coordinator (CNA), the Agrarian, Peasant, Ethnic and Popular Summit (CACEP), and others. We join with organizations across Colombia to express our sadness and outrage at the assassinations of Jorge Tafur and Teofilo Acuña Ribón.
Nicaragua recognized the “One-China Principle” and resumed diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for the first time since the beginning of the neoliberal period in 1990. Nicaragua’s withdrawal from the OAS and its reestablishment of relations with the PRC are bold decisions that flex Nicaraguan sovereignty and communicate to developing countries that a path of resistance against Western coercion leads to independence, inclusive development, and promising new opportunities. With support from the fastest growing economy in the world with a population of 1.4 billion, in addition to an array of other governments and solidarity movements, Nicaragua has earned the ability to lead a more aggressive charge against Washington’s proposed militarized security and neoliberal development model for Central America. Such a model which aims to enrich corporations through private investment and austerity to the detriment of the poor and working-class remains the antithesis to the Chinese and Sandinista revolutions.
The Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective (WFPSC) and the School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) recently received a delegation of members from the U.S. House of Representatives including Representatives Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Jesus “Chuy” García (IL-04), Cori Bush (MO-01), as well as representation from the office of Jan Schakowsky (IL-09) in Honduras.
The delegation met with President Xiomara Castro who is the first woman president of Honduras and was inaugurated in January following historic elections in which the Honduran people turned out in massive numbers to reject the corrupt U.S.-backed regimes that have devastated Honduras since the 2009 coup d’etat.
sing pandemic-related border restrictions, the Biden administration this month launched a deportation operation to Colombia amid a sharp increase in arrivals of migrants from that country to the U.S.-Mexico border. Since the start of the campaign, which had not been previously reported, the U.S. has expelled several hundred Colombians under a border rule known as Title 42, which blocks migrants from seeking asylum due to public health concerns, the DHS officials said. The rule was first implemented by the Trump administration. Fourteen months in, the Biden administration has continued the Title 42 expulsions, arguing they remain necessary to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 inside border processing facilities. To date, U.S. officials have carried out 1.7 million expulsions under Title 42, over 70% of them under President Biden. In February, 9,600 Colombian migrants entered U.S. custody along the southern border, an all-time high, according to government data. In fiscal year 2022, which started last October, U.S. border officials have already processed 23,985 Colombians — a 287% increase from the previous fiscal year.
