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.).

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), March 11:

Central American Solidarity Activists Dispute Department of Justice Order
Washington DC — The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), illegally targeted in the 1980's by the largest FBI Internal Security investigation of the Reagan era, has in recent months again received threatening communications from the US Department of Justice. Citing the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, a letter sent to CISPES in January questions the organization's relationship with the leftist Salvadoran political party known as the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation, or FMLN. CISPES received similar inquiries in the 1980s which eventually led to an illegal FBI investigation into its activities.

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), March 3:

On February 20 more than three thousand Salvadoran bakers participated in a march to protest the high cost of flour and other commodities used by their sector. The marchers demanded that the government step in to alleviate the crisis by means of a subsidy. Thousands of Salvadoran families remain unable to put bread on the table, in part due to the rising cost of flour, which bakers are then forced to pass along to their customers.

Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom has ordered the release of military archives from the country's brutal 1962-1996 civil war. "We are going to make public all military archives...so the truth can be known, and so that once and for all we can build on truth and justice," Colom said. The move was praised by victims' survivors, who had urged the move to help determine the whereabouts of killed or "disappeared" kin. The documents will be reviewed by a panel to decide which should be declassified under a constitutional requirement that state material be made public unless release would compromise national security.

Several hundred Guatemalan campesinos took 30 police officers hostage [Feb. 21] in response to the jailing of a local farm leader and to demand that land they had been occupying for the last 10 years be legalized by the Guatemalan government. According to Rolando Yoc, the human rights office's chief advocate, the local campesinos also believe that a powerful person is trying to displace them.

From the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Feb. 21:

On Tuesday, February 19, 13 political activists arrested last July in the town of Suchitoto were set free, and all charges against them were dismissed. This victory for the "Suchitoto 13" comes on the heels of the initial charges of "acts of terrorism" being dropped on February 8, following a drawn out, 7-month investigation. The terrorism charges, enabled by El Salvador's 2006 Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism, were universally denounced by human rights organizations in El Salvador and around the world, and carried a potential sentence of up to 60 years in prison.