Boy, does this ever give us deja vu. Back in the '80s, the State Department played an anti-Semitism card against Sandinista Nicaragua, just as as the right does today against Bolivarian Venezuela. Daniel Ortega hasn't even taken office yet, and already the propaganda vultures are circling in. From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Nov. 9 (our commentary to follow):

Central America's Last Stand Against CAFTA

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Oct. 23 and 24, an estimated 75,000 Costa Ricans from all sectors of society took part in a mobilization against the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), commonly referred to throughout the region as the Free Trade Treaty (TLC in Spanish). The two-day protest, called by the National Coordinating Committee of Struggle Against the TLC and numerous grassroots and labor organizations, included peaceful marches, road blockades, distribution of informational leaflets and other decentralized actions in all of the country's provinces. Some public services—including schools and some non-emergency medical appointments—were shut down with strikes as part of the mobilization.

Tens of thousands of indigenous people and their allies focused on neoliberal economic programs, US foreign policies and local issues in protests throughout the Americas on Oct. 12, the 514th anniversary of the arrival of European colonizer Christopher Columbus in the hemisphere.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HONDURAS: GARIFUNA WOMAN MURDERED

On the evening of Aug. 6, a group of masked men armed with AK-47 assault rifles forced 19-year-old Mirna Isabel Santos Thomas from her home in the Honduran Garifuna community of San Juan Tela, in the Caribbean coastal department of Atlantida. Santos' body was found the next morning along the road leading to Triunfo de la Cruz and La Ensenada, several kilometers away on the other side of the town of Tela. The latest killing comes amid a wave of repression directed against the Garifuna community of San Juan Tela, which is resisting plans to build tourism projects on Garifuna ancestral lands in the Tela Bay area.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

GUATEMALA: TRADE PROTESTERS SEIZE ESTATES

The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) went into effect in Guatemala on July 1 amid protests against the US-sponsored pact, which seeks to bring Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US together in a trade bloc. The agreement took effect in El Salvador on March 1, and in Honduras and Nicaragua on May 1. Costa Rica's legislature has not yet approved the pact. (Yahoo en Espanol, July 1 from AFP)

DR-CAFTA was scheduled to go into effect in the Dominican Republic on July 1, but the implementation was delayed by a disagreement over US demands for legislation protecting industrial secrets for pharmaceutical companies. "We're not giving in," Marcelo Puello, Dominican assistant secretary for foreign trade, said on June 30. "The negotiating team closed this chapter, and the people in charge of implementation agree that we won't give in on something that would be outside the text of the treaty." (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, July 1)

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 3:

Nicaraguan presidential candidate Herty Lewites died late Sunday of an apparent heart attack. The son of a Jewish migrant, Lewites, 66, was the country's best-known citizen of Jewish descent.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Thousands of workers from Costa Rica's Social Security Institute, Electricity Institute, National Insurance Institute and other companies marched in San Jose on June 7 to oppose the US-sponsored Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) and to protest a recent Constitutional Court decision annulling a series of benefits public workers had won through collective bargaining. According to the march organizers, 15,000 people participated.

The unionists said the court decision was intended to "smooth the way for CAFTA." "The first victims of this CAFTA are the labor rights we've won," National Association of Public and Private Employees (ANEP) general secretary Albino Vargas told the ACAN-EFE wire service. "With CAFTA, Costa Rica will have to agree to downgrade its labor legislation with the rest of the Central American countries, which means taking away rights from those who won them through struggle." Costa Rica signed on to DR-CAFTA, but it is the only signatory nation whose legislature hasn't ratified the agreement. President Oscar Arias, who was inaugurated on May 8, is a strong supporter of the accord. Arias was on a visit to Europe on June 7, and Vargas charged that the new president would be holding a "chat" with the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Europe while his country is "violating labor rights." (La Nacion, Costa Rica, June 7)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

MAYDAY ANTI-CAFTA MOBILIZATION

As they did last year, many Central American workers marked May 1 with demonstrations protesting the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), a US-sponsored trade bloc composed of Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the US. Many marchers also expressed solidarity with hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers demonstrating the same day in the US.

More than 20,000 workers, indigenous people, unionists, women and older people marched in Guatemala City, burning US flags and effigies of US president George W. Bush and Guatemalan president Oscar Berger. "The DR-CAFTA is a plague that will kill the people who live in extreme poverty," campesino leader Daniel Pascual told the ACAN-EFE wire service. "Today is a day of Latin America inside the US," said Jose Pinzon, a leader of the General Workers Central of Guatemala (CGTG), one of the country's largest labor federations. The more than 1.2 million Guatemalans living in the US sent $3 billion back to Guatemala in 2005; some 60% of them are reportedly undocumented. US restaurant chains in Guatemala City's historic center seemed empty as workers honored a boycott of US products in support of immigrants' demands. (La Nacion, Costa Rica, May 1)