From ElSalvadorSolidarity.org via Upside Down World, May 8:

On Friday May 2, Hector Antonio Ventura was assassinated in the community of Valle Verde, Suchitoto. Ventura was the youngest of the 14 political prisoners captured in Suchitoto on July 2, 2007. According to preliminary reports, Ventura was stabbed to death. Another victim, who was with Ventura, was attacked but survived. Reports say that the assailants were at least two men, who entered the back room of the house where Ventura and his friend slept and attacked them.

At an emergency food-security summit held May 7 in Managua, 14 Latin American and Caribbean nations convened under the umbrella of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA). Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega called the food crisis an "epic problem" caused by the "tyranny of global capitalism." At the conclusion of the summit, all but two participating nations signed a joint resolution that incorporated specific language supporting ALBA. Costa Rica and El Salvador abstained from signing. (CSM, May 8)

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), April 30:

Attorney General's office announces capture of suspects in assassination of FMLN Mayor
In the early dawn hours of April 14, El Salvador’s National Civilian Police (PNC) arrested Isabel Cortés and Marvin Antonio Rodriguez and charged them with January's double murder of Wilber Funes, mayor of the town of Alegría, and municipal employee Zulma Rivera. Cortés is a member of the Alegría city council who was elected along with Funes on the FMLN party ticket in 2006.

According to union sources, some 40,000 Hondurans participated in May Day celebrations, which included marches in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. The three main labor federations marched together, along with a number of grassroots groups and coalitions, including the Popular Bloc (BP), the National Popular Resistance Coordinating Committee and the Coordinating Council of Campesino Organizations. The demands included a better agrarian reform, a general wage increase, a halt to privatizations, an end to corruption, and justice for three unionists murdered the night of April 23-24.

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), April 18:

US Ambassador Uses Anti-Gang Summit to Intervene in Salvadoran Domestic Security Issues
During an April 8 "Anti-Gang Summit" in San Salvador, United States Ambassador Charles Glazer urged Salvadoran authorities to quickly approve certain laws and reforms to the penal code, stating that, "it is necessary to make several critical reforms to get criminals off of the streets."

Nicaragua, an outspoken member of the new anti-imperialist bloc in the western hemisphere, last month won the backing of the 33-member Latin American and Caribbean group at the UN for presidency of the General Assembly—nearly assuring it of election to the one-year post in June. The man Nicaragua has put forward to be the new GA president this fall is Rev. Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a Catholic priest who was foreign minister of the Sandinista government from 1979 to 1990 and last year became a foreign affairs adviser to Daniel Ortega, the first Sandinista president, when he returned to office.

Guatemalan authorities announced April 15 they had captured Daniel Pérez, a senior member of Mexico's powerful Gulf Cartel, the latest sign that Mexican cartels are seeking control of Central American trafficking routes. Perez (alias Cachetes, or "Cheeks"), who is wanted in the US, is said to be second-in-command of the cartel's vicious armed wing, the Zetas. Guatemala's interior ministry said Pérez—a former elite Mexican soldier who helped found the Zetas in the late 1990s—was arrested last week in Guatemala City, accused of involvement in a shootout in March in southern Guatemala in which 11 people were killed. Both Mexico and the US have announced they will seek extradition. (El Universal, April 17; Reuters, April 15)

Rights workers in Guatemala are calling upon the government to protect a Roman Catholic bishop from assassination after a rash of threats. Mgr. Álvaro Ramazzini, Bishop of San Marcos, has been warned that he will be killed unless he withdraws his support for landless peasants who are protesting the issuance of mining permits to a Canadian multinational corporation (Goldcorp Inc.).