1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, a defender of Guatemala's Maya people during the genocide of the late 1970s and '80s, will run in the nation's September presidential election with the Juntos por Guatemala (Together for Guatemala) party and Winaq, a new coalition of indigenous leaders. If elected, she will be Latin America's first indigenous woman head-of-state.

Security Forces Burn Peasant Settlements for Canadian Nickel Firm

by Bill Weinberg, Indian Country Today

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

HONDURAS: ENVIRONMENTALISTS MURDERED

This sad story is all the more telling given that the "Salvador option" reveals El Salvador as a test war for Iraq—with the sinister John Negroponte a key architect of both. The failure of the Times to even mention this obvious connection is more telling still. Marc Lacey writes for the New York Times, Jan. 26, emphasis added:

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

El Salvador: Water "Reform" Protested

About 50 Salvadoran union members, campesinos and environmental activists blocked the Juan Pablo II avenue near the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador for about two hours to protest a proposed new General Water Law that they say will in effect privatize the country's water supply. Protesters held large banners across six lanes and handed out fliers to passersby. Police agents eventually removed the protesters from the street with no serious incidents; the activists continued to hold banners on the sidewalk afterwards. Meanwhile, hundreds of protesters shut down bridges and highways in coordinated actions at seven points across the country, including Santa Ana, Ahuachapan, Chalatenango and the Puente de Oro.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas:

Nicaragua: Ortega wins

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.