By James Phillips

June 25 marked the 50th anniversary of the Los Horcones massacre, a gruesome and desperate event that still haunts Honduran society and is emblematic of major forces that have shaped much of modern global history. The massacre occurred in the Lepaguare Valley, in the municipal district of Juticalpa, in the Department of Olancho, on the hacienda “Los Horcones,” There, a group of military officers and landowners (or their paid agents) tortured and murdered 15 people, including 11 peasant farmers, two young women, and two Catholic priests—Ivan Betancur (a Colombian citizen) and Casimir Cypher (a U.S. citizen from Wisconsin).

In 2013, Honduran Jesuit priest and human rights leader Ismael Moreno (Padre Melo) wrote that the Los Horcones massacre was probably the starkest example of government repression against the Catholic Church in recent Honduran history, and that it caused Church leaders and many others to move away from their support of popular demands for social justice. But its significance goes beyond even that.

On June 27, 1954, a coup d’état deposed the democratically elected Soldado del Pueblo (Soldier of the People): President Jacobo Árbenz Guzman. He was the face of Guatemala’s democratic revolution, which began in 1944. The agrarian reform of 1952, redistributing unused land to landless Indigenous peasants, impacted the United Fruit Company (UFCO), the largest land owner in Guatemala, and U.S. foreign policy, as Cold War tensions grew. Collaborating with Guatemalan fascists, they plunged Guatemala into decades of U.S. backed dictatorships. On its 70th anniversary, we invite you to reflect with us on this counter-revolutionary event and what it might mean for Guatemala and the world today.

Giovanni Batz’s carefully researched text examines how the Ixil and K’iche’ Mayas have resisted attacks on their land, state violence, and extraction since Spanish colonization.

From February 1-6, 2025, Marco Rubio traveled to Central America for his first official visits as U.S. Secretary of State. With the exception of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Belize, every country hosted Rubio. His stated aim was “to advance President Trump’s America First foreign policy.” The four axes of this policy for the region are: migration, organized crime, China, and U.S. economic investment. These are part of his administration’s broad strategy to re-assert exclusive U.S. political and economic dominance in the region it has long considered its “back yard.”

The people of Guatemala continue to face the systematic and manufactured dispossession brought by capitalism and U.S. imperialism.

As Rubio’s visit demonstrates, the life of the people of Guatemala and the people of the United States is tightly interconnected—economically, (geo)politically, socially, ecologically. What happens here impacts there, and what happens there impacts here. For better or for worse. 

It’s time for a renewed internationalist solidarity movement with the people of Guatemala

As Trump returns to power, our new analysis exposes how U.S.-Guatemala agreements threaten vulnerable communities through mass deportations and exploitation of resources. Through powerful testimonies from Indigenous leaders fighting for territorial rights and messages of solidarity with the Guatemalan diaspora, we illuminate the transnational resistance taking root. From ADH’s fight for community water rights to CODIDENA’s successful resistance against mining extraction, these stories reveal how communities are protecting vital resources despite increasing pressure. Join our movement for justice that transcends borders — dive deeper into Guatemala’s ongoing struggle for sovereignty and dignity.

ICE Set to Arrest a Record 35,000 Immigrants in June, Daily Quotas are Political - Not Practical (Part 2)

In Part 2 of my series on ICE arrest data made public by the Deportation Data Project, we examine daily and monthly arrest totals and project record arrests by the end of this month.

Austin Kocher