Masked assailants gunned down Marco Tulio Ramirez Portela, a leader of the Izabal Banana Workers Union (SITRABI), on Sept. 23 as he leaving his home for work on a banana plantation in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Izabal. Human rights organizations are calling on the Guatemalan government to investigate the murder, bring those responsible to justice and work to prevent future attacks against union leaders; people can support this call through a website link. [Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA]

Hundreds of Nicaraguan women marched in Managua on Sept. 28 to demand that the government of President Daniel Ortega Saavedra veto a new law establishing a prison sentence of one to three years for anyone who performs any type of abortion, and one to two years for any woman who consents to the procedure. Calling for civil disobedience and chanting "They didn't respect our lives, we won't respect their laws," the protesters marched to the headquarters of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which Ortega leads. The marchers, who carried coffins and images of crucified women, also protested in front of the Supreme Court of Justice and the National Assembly. The march was organized by the Autonomous Women's Movement as part of the Day of the Decriminalization of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean.

More than 100,000 Costa Ricans marched against the pending Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in the capital, San José, Sept. 30, chanting "Costa Rica is not for sale!" Some were dressed as skeletons, or wore masks of President Bush and handed out fake dollar bills, lampooning US trade policies. It was the largest protest in the recent history of Costa Rica, a country of 4 million.

On Sept. 25 the Ways and Means Committee of the US House of Representatives voted to approve the US-Peru Free Trade Agreement (FTA, or TLC in Spanish), moving the agreement closer to approval by the full Congress. The bilateral trade accord was negotiated by the government of US president George W. Bush, a Republican; Congress is dominated by the opposition Democratic Party. The Peruvian Congress ratified the treaty in 2006 despite strong opposition from campesino, indigenous and labor groups.

Tens of thousands of people mobilized throughout Argentina on Sept. 20 to demand that human rights witness Jorge Julio Lopez, who disappeared on Sept. 18, 2006, be returned alive. More than 20,000 people marched in Buenos Aires from the Congress to the Plaza de Mayo; marches also took place in La Plata, Rosario and Cordoba. The Memory, Truth and Justice Encounter, which organized the Buenos Aires event, read a document at the Plaza de Mayo declaring: "With the struggle we have achieved the repeal of the impunity laws and the ongoing trials of more than 300 human rights violators; with the struggle we won the sentencing of Miguel Osvaldo Etchecolatz to a life sentence in a common prison until the end of his days, and that for the first time a court recognizes that there was a genocide in our country. The price the genocidal murderers want to make us pay for these victories is the kidnapping and disappearance of one of the witnesses of that trial, our comrade Jorge Julio Lopez." (Argentina Indymedia, Sept. 20)

Democratic Voice of Burma Oct. 2 reports claims from members of the Burmese junta's Swan Arr Shin militia that thousands of detained monks could be headed for labor camps:

Monks currently detained at the government technical college compound in Insein township may be sent to a hard labour prison camp, according to a source at the college compound.

While the Burmese regime still touts an official count of 10 dead in five days of repression, the UK's Daily Mail reports Oct. 2 claims of a "a former intelligence officer in Burma's ruling junta that thousands of protesters have been killed and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle." The official, whose rank or title are not given, is named as Hla Win, and is said to have defected when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He told the Daily Mail: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand." A more cautious report in The Scotsman cites the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) saying the death toll stands at a minimum of 138. DVB's Aye Chan Naing also said 6,000 people have been detained, including about 2,400 monks.

For all the opprobrium being directed at China over its support for the repressive Burma regime, the US corporate presence is going unexamined. As we recently noted, the new Burma sanctions announced by Bush mean no more than a visa ban on some members of the junta, and the freezing of assets of some figures linked to the regime. (DPA, Sept. 24) None of the US sanctions enacted since the bloody junta took power in 1988 have interfered with Unocal's operations in Burma—which continue to this day.