Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

Prosecutors in El Salvador have charged the former president Alfredo Cristiani over the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests that sparked international outrage. Prosecutors also announced charges against a dozen other people, including former military officers, over the massacre. The list of charges will apparently include murder, terrorism and conspiracy. The attorney general, Rodolfo Delgado, wrote on his Twitter account that his office “is determined to go after those accused of ordering this regrettable and tragic event”.

Honduras has seen the increased presence of U.S. military assets over the decades following the Cold War, and it currently hosts the U.S. military due to the country’s geo-strategic position. The illicit actions of U.S. allies is not something that is unknown within intelligence circles. One problem that contributes to these issues being lost is that there is a breakdown between analysts and the leadership. U.S. support for these administrations and the militarization of the region corrupts the United States’ promotion of democracy in the region, as it justifies the human rights violations in the region while criticizing U.S. rivals for similar actions. The result of this failure is that millions face deteriorating situations due to the rise in influence of drug traffickers and gangs in the governments at every level.

Migrants from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, Cameroon, and other parts of Africa and Latin America are once again mobilizing in Tapachula to protest their treatment by Mexican immigration authorities. The latest demonstrations have been building for weeks, with the same grievances that have led to cycles of protests and multiple caravan attempts going back to 2020: The Mexican government refuses to let people leave Chiapas until their asylum claims have been processed by COMAR, and COMAR is backlogged with growing requests and thus months behind. “We are looking for a way to get out of Chiapas because in Chiapas there is no way to live because people are treating you like animals, your rights are being violated. So if we are refugees we are fighting so that we can get out and looking for a way to live so that we can eat.”

A bombardment carried out by Colombia's armed forces killed 23 FARC dissidents on Thursday as part of a military offensive to seize control of an area in the northeast of the country which sits on the border with Venezuela, the government said. Dissident members of the demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reject a 2016 peace deal with the government. The dissidents have become a security threat, according to the government, which accuses them of murdering community leaders and civilians.

The Six Guapinol water defenders have finally been freed!! 

 

A few hours ago, they walked out of the Olanchito prison where they have been held for over 900 days. Outside the prison, their families and community members gathered to greet them. Several Honduran media were there covering their release and all travelled in a large caravan to Guapinol where the six defenders were greeted by the community. 

Augusto Cesar Sandino was one of the most important and successful guerilla fighters of the 20th century, successfully driving the US Marines out of Nicaragua against nearly impossible odds. His image continues to be the most ubiquitous symbol in Nicaragua – a country led by the Sandinista Front, named in his honor. Sandino was not a revolutionary by training or study; he was drawn into the armed struggle in response to the US Marine invasion and occupation of his country which began in 1911 with the goal of ousting Liberal Party President Jose Zelaya. As the US State Department itself explains, American opposition to Zelaya stemmed from his intention to work with the Japanese government to develop a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua which would rival the US-controlled Panama Canal. This flew in the face of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which holds that the US has sole dominion over the Western Hemisphere and the right to intervene in any country therein to prevent the influence of other nations. Sandino and his forces, though not great in number and certainly not as well-armed as the United States Marine Corps, proved to be a formidable force which could neither be caught nor vanquished.

COFADEH documented the case of José Antonio Torres Meza, 40 years old, originally from Catacamas, Olancho. He lived 11 years in exile, until last February 11, when he entered through the customs of El Amatillo to attend his mother's funeral, but was captured. He was being prosecuted since August 2009, for the alleged crimes of terrorism and aggravated arson to the detriment of the State of Honduras, the group Industrias Turísticas (INTUR) and Ladislao Augusto Servellón Aguilar. The Public Prosecutor's Office, who accused Torres 12 years ago, had no choice but to follow COFADEH's demand for release and Judge 2 of the Criminal Court of Tegucigalpa ruled the immediate release of the victim, which will be effective tomorrow.

The January inauguration of Xiomara Castro Sarmiento Zelaya from the Liberty and Refoundation Party was a political landmark in Honduras. Castro became the Central American country’s first female president, winning 51.12 percent of the vote. She has promised to convene a National Constituent Assembly to rewrite the constitution. “For us to have the first female president in Honduras means 67 years of struggle (since it was in 1952) that us women fought for the right to be citizens — for the right to vote and the right to be voted for,” Wendy Cruz, member of the international peasant movement La Vía Campesina, told Truthout. Castro campaigned on an agenda that will strongly empower lower-income Honduran women, who have been one of the hardest-hit sectors in a country ruled through aggressive neoliberal policies for the last 12 years. Castro’s task of governing will be particularly hard given the high levels of corruption and ties to the drug trade that have been linked to Honduras’s former president, Juan Orlando Hernández.