From CISPES, July 3:

On July 2, various organizations and communities in the municipality of Suchitoto gathered for a protest against the official announcement of the "National Policy of Water Decentralization" by President Antonio Saca. The peaceful protest was brutally repressed by the riot police (UMO) along with specialized forces of the National Civil Police (PNC). In the end, 13 people were arrested by the police and accused of "public disorder," including four leaders of the rural development organization CRIPDES. The riot police eventually opened fire on the protest with rubber bullets, tear gas, and pepper spray, injuring around 75 people. Throughout the day helicopters circled Suchitoto and San Salvador, and the riot police didn't withdraw from the scene until well into the afternoon.

On June 28, the US and Panamanian governments signed a free trade treaty (TLC) at the headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington. The treaty must still be ratified by the legislatures of the two countries. Panamanian grassroots organizations staged protests around the country on June 28 to protest the signing of the trade pact. The demonstrators are demanding that the complete text of the treaty be published, broadly debated and subjected to a popular referendum where the people can decide on it.

Management of an auto parts plant operated by New York-based Alcoa, Inc. in El Progreso, Honduras, fired more than 50 union leaders and activists from June 8 to June 15, according to the National Labor Committee (NLC), a US labor rights organization. The Alcoa factory—located in El Porvenir Free Trade Zone, an industrial park for the tax-exempt assembly plants known as maquiladoras—assembles electrical wiring harnesses exclusively for export to the US-based Ford Motor Company.

On June 12, Garifuna leader Felix Ordoñez Suazo was assassinated at the community of Punta Piedras, in Colón department on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Community residents identified the killers as members of a group of land invaders who have been encroaching on Punta Piedras' titled lands. The conflict began in 1992, when a group of campesino settlers financed by business interests linked to the military began colonizing the area. Despite the fact that Punta Piedras had title to the lands in question as an ejido since 1921, the National Agrarian Institute (INA) granted the invaders a title to overlapping territory in 1999. Punta Piedras is preparing to bring a complaint in the matter to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (CIDH). (Oil Watch Mesoamerica, June 13)

On May 28, some 200 Nicaraguan women marked International Day of Action for Women's Health with a protest in Managua to demand the decriminalization of therapeutic abortion. Dozens of vehicles formed a caravan that drove past the Supreme Court, the National Assembly, the offices of the main Nicaraguan media and the headquarters of the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), the party of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega Saavedra. The lead vehicle carried a poster of a pregnant woman being crucified, referring to the increase in the number of women dying during pregnancy or childbirth so far in 2007. The protest was organized by the Feminist Movement, the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) and the Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, among others.

From Reuters, June 10:

TEHRAN - Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who wants more aid from the United States, called on Sunday for a new world order to replace "capitalism and imperialism", at the start of a trip to arch U.S. foe Iran.

The Guatemalan Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by activists to block the candidacy of former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt in congressional elections this Sept. 9. However, Supreme Court Spokesman Guillermo Melgar said that that the ruling can be appealed for reconsideration. The legal status of "candidate," according to Guatemalan legislation, grants judicial immunity to Ríos Montt, which would make ineffective the charges initiated against him in Spain in 1999 for crimes of genocide, torture and state terrorism. During his rule, tens of thousands mostly indigenous Guatemalans were killed by government military actions.

Since his election as Nicaragua's president last November, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) has pledged to end his country's participation in the IMF, weighed in for Iran's right to nuclear power, and announced new drives for rural literacy and development. Our May issue featured the story "The Return of Plan Puebla-Panama: the New Struggle for the Isthmus" by WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg, noting how Nicaragua has become pivotal in a race between two regional development plans for Central America: the US-backed PPP, which aims at building the infrastructure to facilitate CAFTA; and the populist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), pushed by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. Tensions are rapidly escalating between Nicaragua and the US allies in the region—Honduras, Costa Rica and, most significantly, Colombia. We also featured the retrospective "Sandinista Redux: Nicaragua Sticks It to Tio Sam —Again!" by Michael I. Niman of Art Voice weekly in Buffalo, NY, which looked back at the US destabilization campaign against Nicaragua the last time Ortega was in power in the 1980s. Our May Exit Poll was: "Were you obsessed with Nicaragua in the '80s? Are you feeling nostalgic since Daniel Ortega's resumption of power? C'mon, tell the truth." We received the following responses: