A US court in Washington DC Sept. 17 ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay a $25 million fine to settle charges that it underwrote a terrorist organization in Colombia. Chiquita had agreed to the fine when it pleaded guilty in March to paying protection money to Colombian paramilitaries from 2001 to 2004. US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth approved the agreement, which also places the company on probation for five years. The fine is the largest ever imposed under US counter-terrorism laws. The amount is slightly more than half the profits Chiquita earned from growing bananas in Colombia during that period. Company spokesman Michael Mitchell said Chiquita will pay the fine in five equal installments over five years.

After 16 months in hiding, three leaders of the People's Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), Martha Pérez Pineda, David Pájaro Huertas and Ulises del Valle Ramírez, returned to the central Mexican village of San Salvador Atenco to lead the Sept. 16 "Grito de Independencia" celebration. The three re-emerged from clandestinity after a judge issued an amparo, a special order suspending the arrest warrants against them. The father of Ulises del Valle is FPDT director Ignacio del Valle Medina, who remains imprisoned at the top-security Altiplano facility. Several more FPDT leaders remain in hiding, including América del Valle, Jesús Adán Espinoza Rojas, Bernardino Cruz Cardona and Jorge Flores. Twenty-eight FPDT adherents are in prison following the May 2006 violence at Atenco. Hundreds of Atenco residents attended the Grito ceremony, rattling their machetes in the air as a symbol of resistance. (La Jornada, Sept. 16)

A striking schoolteacher named Wilfredo Lara was killed Aug. 27 while participating in a road blockade at Macuelizo, in Santa Bárbara department of western Honduras. An angered motorist, who apparently opened fire on the blockade with a handgun and hit Lara in the throat, was arrested in the slaying. The blockade was one of ten held throughout the country by the National Coordinator of Popular Resistance (CNRP), made up of more than 30 unions, student groups, indigenous and campesino organizations, and community assemblies. They are demanding land redistribution, the repeal of neoliberal laws on forestry, mining and water, the suspension of planned hydro-electric dams, the punishment of corrupt officials, and controls on the prices of basic goods. (EFE, Aug. 27)

On Sept. 12, some 150 activists (according to the Chicago Tribune) marched through the House of Representatives' Rayburn Office Building, chanting for an end to deportation raids. The protesters had arrived in buses from Chicago, New York, Rhode Island and elsewhere. Capitol police arrested two Puerto Rican activists from Chicago following a tussle near the office door of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, where demonstrators taped up a letter demanding she take action for immigrant rights. The two were charged with disorderly conduct and released. Pelosi was out of town.

The Sept. 9 election to replace Guatemalan President Oscar Berger featured more body bags than tangible ideas to improve the country. Now facing a Nov. 4 runoff election, voters are left with the tired choice between a military strongman and an oligarch.

From the Guatemala Human Rights Commission-USA (GHRC-USA), Sept. 11:

José Emanuel "Pepe" Méndez Dardón, son of longtime human rights defender Amílcar Méndez, was shot to death in Guatemala City on the afternoon of August 17 by assailants with high caliber weapons. Pepe Méndez leaves behind a wife and seven year-old twins.

From CISPES via Upside Down World, Sept. 11:

Eight members of the Salvadoran General Hospitals Union (SIGEESAL) were illegally arrested on September 4 for participating in a demonstration against the privatization of the national health system back on July 6. The eight jailed union members are: Ana Luz Ordoñez Castro, Mirian Ruth Castro Lemus, Elsa Yanira Paniagua, Noemí Barrientos de Pérez, Ana Graciela de Carranza, Jorge Emilio Pérez, Manuel Trejo Artero and Anemias Armando Cantadeiro. All being charged with public disorder and damage to private property.

On Sept. 13 Costa Rican vice president and planning minister Kevin Casas took a leave of absence pending an investigation by the Supreme Elections Tribunal (TSE) into charges that he used public resources improperly to support a campaign in favor of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Costa Rica signed the accord—which reduces trade barriers between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US—in 2004, but it hasn't obtained the required approval from its legislature. CAFTA is already in effect in the other countries.