Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega is under scrutiny for supposed links to Colombia's FARC guerillas. In one "partially decoded" February e-mail supposedly recovered from the computer of late FARC commander Raúl Reyes, fellow FARC director Iván Márquez wrote that Ortega could send via Venezuela's Hugo Chávez "some old caucheras they are keeping there [in Nicaragua], and he believes still function." Cauchera is said to be code for rifles.

May 5 marked the beginning of an intended thirty-day strike, with public transport workers and truckers in Nicaragua protesting rising fuel costs and the lack of government impetus to do anything about it. With road blockades in several places in Managua and almost no public intercity transport allowed whatsoever, Nicaragua is at an effective standstill. Containers full of goods sit stalled on the sides of highways, and even sports teams have canceled weekend matches. When baseball is put on hold in Nicaragua, you know it is serious.

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.