Despite improvements in the USMCA, outsourcing, low wages, and weak enforcement persist. Join us this month as AFL-CIO’s Riley Ohlson breaks down what must change for the trade deal to finally deliver for workers.
to register click here
Thank you to all who gathered with IRTF on November 9 for our annual commemoration event to mark the 45th anniversary of the sacrifice of four US women missioners in El Salvador. In response to that horrific tragedy, people of faith and conscience in Cleveland founded IRTF as a way to carry forward their legacy—taking action in solidarity with oppressed and marginalized communities as they struggle for peace, dignity, and justice.
IRTF board and staff wishes to thank all the volunteers who helped us set up, decorate, run the event and pack up at the end of the night, Pilgrim Church for hosting us, the kitchen staff at Guanaquitas pupsería for preparing our dinner, Megan Wilson-Reitz for coordinating our social hour (and the many kitchen volunteers!), Salim and Lucía for coordinating our raffle/auction, Pastor Jay for running the tech, and all who participated in the service and speaker program.
To our 46 co-sponsors: Thank you for your financial support that helps us continue calling people into solidarity with oppressed peoples in Central America and Colombia. We are deeply appreciative of your affirmation of our mission and ongoing commitment to this important work.
Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’ communities who live in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range in Izabal Department, Guatemala, have been battling harmful and violent mining operations for over 60 years. Recently, following peaceful occupations, protests, and complaints filed with the Public Ministry over illegal excavations carried out by mining companies, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN) announced on July 30 that ten environmental licenses granted for operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz had been cancelled. Despite this, Canada-based Central America Niquel (CAN) and its subsidiaries, Río Nickel S.A. and Nichromet Guatemala, have continued to illegally push ahead with mining operations in the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range.
Following his vital work covering local resistance to these mining operations, journalist and human rights defender Carlos Ernesto Choc is facing targeted attacks of intimidation and harassment. Since 2017, Carlos Choc has faced unfounded criminal charges related to his coverage of police brutality during protests against the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor (where 90% of the residents are Indigenous Maya Q’eqchi’), arbitrary house raids, and threatening attacks by unidentified assailants. Now, he is experiencing escalating acts of intimidation, including shots being fired near his house, an unidentified car hitting the fence surrounding his house, and defamatory messages being circulated online. We are writing to Guatemalan authorities to implement immediate measures to protect Choc.
After President Bukele’s government repealed El Salvador’s historic mining ban, environmentalists fear a quiet return of metal mining—starting with the long-contested El Dorado gold project. Despite official silence, new companies are being registered, land deals linked to mining firms are surfacing, and military presence in affected communities is increasing. Activists report being watched and harassed, even as they continue to fight criminal charges seen as politically motivated. With worsening water shortages and contamination risks, many Salvadorans warn that reopening the mines threatens not only the environment but also their communities’ survival and democratic freedoms.
Karen Spring of the Honduras Solidarity Network exposes how Canadian and U.S.-backed tourism expansion has dispossessed Indigenous Garifuna communities along Honduras’ north coast. During 13 years of U.S. and Canadian support for corrupt, militarized “Narco Regimes,” tourism investors — many Canadian and American — illegally acquired Garifuna lands in Trujillo Bay. Now, as Garifuna communities reclaim their ancestral territories, Canadian investors and companies like NJOI are leading racist defamation campaigns against Garifuna leaders and OFRANEH, falsely portraying themselves as victims. The conflict highlights the ongoing colonial exploitation of Indigenous lands under the guise of “development” and tourism.
For nearly two decades, Maya Q’eqchi’ communities have fought a groundbreaking legal battle in Canada against Hudbay Minerals for violence, land evictions, and killings linked to Guatemala’s Fenix nickel mine. From the 2007 mass rape of 11 women to the murder of community leader Adolfo Ich, the struggle set a historic precedent for corporate accountability abroad. Now, with the lawsuits finally settled, a new report reveals the full story—exposing decades of Canadian mining interests, corruption, and repression in Guatemala, and connecting past injustices to ongoing stru
For nearly two decades, Maya Q’eqchi’ communities have fought a groundbreaking legal battle in Canada against Hudbay Minerals for violence, land evictions, and killings linked to Guatemala’s Fenix nickel mine. From the 2007 mass rape of 11 women to the murder of community leader Adolfo Ich, the struggle set a historic precedent for corporate accountability abroad. Now, with the lawsuits finally settled, a new report reveals the full story—exposing decades of Canadian mining interests, corruption, and repression in Guatemala, and connecting past injustices to ongoing struggles today.
to read the full report click here
After the arrest of the five water defenders in January 2023 on politically-motivated charges, IRTF began engaging northeast Ohioans in an international solidarity campaign spanning 31 countries demanding that the bogus charges be dropped and denouncing the political motivations behind their detention given the lack of evidence presented by the Office of the Attorney General in El Salvador.
When the trial finally happened in October 2024, the water defenders were exonerated. Predictably, the attorney general appealed. The political motivation was clear. IRTF agreed with the assessment of the Salvadoran-based organization International Allies Against Metallic Mining that the criminalization of the Santa Marta 5 was part of President Bukele’s plan to roll back the hard-won national ban on metallic mining (which he did successfully in December 2024. See our RRN letter 16 SEP 2025).
The government prevailed when the acquittal was annulled by an appeals court in November 2024. A new trial was scheduled. After a few postponements, the verdict finally came down on September 24, 2025. The presiding tribunal in San Vicente found all five innocent of the charges of murder, kidnapping, and illicit association. Allies are urging the attorney general to not appeal and to stop wasting public time and money on this farce.
A vehicle blocked their car, and its passengers stepped out with their weapons, trying to attack the group. They managed to escape, but the incident was not the first – nor would it be the last time Bertha Zúñiga would face a violent threat.
That encounter came just over a year after Zúñiga’s mother, Berta Cáceres, a prominent Lenca Indigenous rights activist in Honduras, was killed in her home in March 2016, leading to Zúñiga taking the leadership of her group, the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH).
Zúñiga was a toddler when her mother started the group to defend indigenous Lenca land from commercial interests that local communities say harm and exploit it.
Bertha Zúñiga continues the fight that her mother began against powerful corporate and political interests. Facing death threats, smear campaigns, and even state security leaks, Zúñiga leads COPINH in defending Lenca land and water from destructive projects—undaunted by the risks that cost her mother’s life.
“Year after year, land and environmental defenders – those protecting our forests, rivers, and lands across the world – continue to be met with unspeakable violence. They are being hunted, harassed, and killed – not for breaking laws, but for defending life itself.
- Laura Furones (Global Witness lead author)
Global Witness documented 117 defender killings last year (82%) in Latin America, with 48 in Colombia, which had the most killings globally for the third year in a row. This is followed by Guatemala, where 20 defenders were killed in 2024 – up from four in 2023.
Hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans still lack access to potable water in their homes and many more go days without water due to existing scarcity and contamination of rivers, lakes, and streams—all of which would be exacerbated by renewed mining operations, now allowable due to the government’s repeal of its ban on large-scale metallic mining in December 2024. Since that time, the government has increased its use of the penal system to persecute those who peacefully exercise their right to organize for environmental protections of the nation’s drinking water.
Since December 2024, Catholic and Protestant churches and faith-based civic organizations have been mobilizing their opposition to the repeal. In March 2025, the archbishop of San Salvador presented petitions signed by 150,000 people urging repeal of the December 2024 law. In May, the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church in El Salvador reiterated its opposition to metallic mining in a pastoral letter, emphasizing that access to water is a fundamental human right and a shared inheritance entrusted to all people by God.
We echo the popular social movement in El Salvdaor—backed by church leaders—and urge that the government:
(1) reinstate the ban on metallic mining
(2) heed the call of church leaders and the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor to end the persecution and criminalization of those defending the right to clean water
(3) drop all criminal charges against water defenders and human rights lawyer
