IRTF News

Fifty suspected migrants were found dead and at least a dozen others were hospitalized after being found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer rig on Monday on a remote back road in south-west San Antonio, officials have said. The discovery in Texas may prove to be the deadliest tragedy among thousands of people who have died attempting to cross the US border from Mexico in recent decades. “This incident underscores the need to go after the multibillion-dollar criminal smuggling industry preying on migrants and leading to far too many innocent deaths,”

Feminists in Latin America have long understood their struggle for abortion rights to know no borders. So when the United States Supreme Court decision that stripped women of their right to an abortion in the country became official last week, the blow was personal across North and South America. Lira is among a contingent of activists across Latin America that have been organising and liaising with counterparts in the US to share knowledge and strategies for the post-Roe v Wade era. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn that landmark 1973 ruling that had protected a woman’s right to an abortion has sent shock waves around the world. But feminists like Lira are promising to keep the pressure on in their own regions, even as they fear that the political and religious forces working against abortion rights will be emboldened.

Since 1981, IRTF has been building bridges of solidarity with oppressed communities in Central America and Colombia. IRTF challenges and organizes for change in the policies and practices of US corporations, military, and government. We can take on this necessary work and are able to amplify the voices of grassroots communities thanks to independent funding from individual supporters, funding that is not tied to large foundations or government. Please consider supporting IRTF's human rights solidarity work. 

by Daniela Rea

This article was originally published in English and Spanish by Pie de Página. Translated to English by Dawn Paley.

A Guatemalan court has tossed out an agreement that made it easier to prosecute bribery involving the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht — a ruling that favors a former cabinet official accused of corruption. The appeals court annulled an agreement under which Odebrecht had promised to give Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutors information about bribes it had paid in Guatemala — one of many countries across the hemisphere where it systematically suborned public officials. Under pressure from prosecutors in the U.S., Brazil and elsewhere, the company has admitted paying bribes across Latin America to win government contracts. The company has cooperated with prosecutors in several countries to regain the right to do business. It allegedly paid $17.9 million in bribes to local officials, politicians and private citizens in Guatemala.

Human rights attorney Paula Avila-Guillen never thought she'd be fighting to decriminalize abortions in the U.S. until now, as nearly two dozen states move to ban the procedure following Roe v. Wade's official repeal Friday. A leader of Latin America's "green wave" movement for reproductive rights, earlier this year Avila-Guillen helped legalize abortions for women up to 24 weeks-pregnant in her native Colombia, which now joins Argentina and parts of Mexico in the short list of places in Latin America where terminating a pregnancy is no longer a crime. The Supreme Court removed the constitutional right to an abortion in a 5-4 vote — a move that essentially represents the culmination of a decadeslong push by conservatives, religious activists and advocates who oppose abortion.

This Week:

• Several data points across border sectors—including a shocking 10 drownings in El Paso’s irrigation canals since June 9—point to a historically high number of migrants dying in the Rio Grande and on U.S. soil this year, mainly of drownings, dehydration, and falls from tall segments of the border wall.
• The Supreme Court was expected to issue a ruling this week on the Biden administration’s effort to end the “Remain in Mexico” program, but no decision came. Media reports this week revealed that one woman assigned to Remain in Mexico attempted suicide in June, and three men were kidnapped in April.
• Migration levels remain very high in June across the border. A court filing showed that CBP is increasingly granting parole—which doesn’t include an assigned immigration court date—while releasing migrants with tracking devices. Remnants of an early June caravan are arriving near the U.S. border, though Mexican states have been preventing the mostly Venezuelan migrants  from boarding buses.
• Mexico sent hundreds more troops to the border cities of Tijuana and Matamoros in response to outbreaks of violence. A document from Mexico’s Defense Department shows the current extent of the military’s border-security and migrant-interdiction mission.

On June 20th, a Honduran court finally presented the written verdict in the case against U.S. trained former military intelligence officer Roberto David Castillo for the murder of Berta Cáceres, sentencing him to 22 years and 6 months in prison. Laura Zúniga Cáceres, Berta's youngest daughter explained, "This is an important advance but the masterminds of the crime are still enjoying impunity thanks to their political and economic power. As victims of this crime, we, her family, members of Copinh and the Lenca people will continue demanding justice from the Honduran state."

Now in its third month, El Salvador’s state of exception rolls on with no end in sight. The protracted emergency, which has thrown all constitutional guarantees aside, began after the gangs—MS-13 and Barrio 18—unleashed a homicide wave at the end of March that left 87 people dead in the quick span of 72 hours. The government responded with a forceful crackdown that has since detained more than 40,000 Salvadorans, the vast majority of whom have little to do with gang activity. According to the human rights group Cristosal, at least 18 people have been killed in custody.

A trove of Dutch and U.S. legal and financial documents shared with The Intercept reveal, for the first time, the flow of international funding in the days leading up to March 2, 2016, when a hit squad broke into Cáceres’s house and killed her. The bank provided the documents to two Dutch human rights lawyers, Wout Albers and Ron Rosenhart Rodriguez, who have spent the past two years representing Cáceres’s family and COPINH, the organization she co-founded, in a civil lawsuit that seeks to hold FMO accountable for its role in the Agua Zarca project.