http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/central+america/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Tue, 10 May 2005 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2096/chiquitas_children/ In the ’70s and ’80s, the banana companies Dole, Del Monte and Chiquita used a carcinogenic pesticide, Nemagon, to protect their crops in Nicaragua. Today, the men and women who worked on those plantations suffer from incurable illnesses. Their children are deformed. The companies feign innocence. CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua—Carlos Alberto Rodriguez sits prostrate in his rocking chair all day, from dawn to dusk. At first view it looks like this ex-plantation worker—young to be retired, at the age of 55—is giving his body a much-deserved rest after a lifetime of hard work, in which 14-hour days and six-day weeks were the norm. But when he took his retirement nine years ago, Rodriguez’s health quickly deteriorated. First he lost his memory, then… corporations medical and health central america David Sirota Thu, 12 May 2005 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2094/democracy_death/ In sync with its grandiose claims about building democracy in the Middle East, the Bush administration is promoting new elections in Haiti in October and November as the great hope for the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, while Washington provides diplomatic, political and military support for the Haitian government of Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, hooded police and death squads are systematically repressing political supporters of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide’s Lavalas Party is still the Haitian political organization with the most popular support by a large margin. Months after the February 29, 2004, coup that drove Aristide from office, Conrad Tribble of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince conceded, “If there were an election held today, Lavalas would… central america David Sirota Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:11:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2443/chez_opposition_opts_out/ On December 4, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called the opposition's eleventh-hour decision to withdraw from the country's congressional elections an attempted "coup" and pledged that his government would respond with a "counter-coup." He added that every time the opposition attempts to force him out of power, his government "deepens the process of transformation." Evidently, changes in store for 2006 will go beyond the radicalization that characterized 2005. With the three main parties of the opposition--Democratic Action (AD), Venezuelan Project and Justice First--on the sidelines, the ruling coalition took all 167 seats in congress. The voter abstention rate, however, reached 75 percent, in spite of Chávez's fervent pleas for people to vote. The opposition claims that the new congress lacks legitimacy,… politics central america David Sirota Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2518/globesity_en_espanol/ Like her friends from Mexico to Chile, the girl from Ipanema is getting too big for her britches. Latin America has fallen prey to the "globesity" trend, adding to the ranks of the one billion people the World Health Organization (WHO) says are overweight around the world. Globalization, with its accompanying sedentary lifestyles and proliferation of fast-food conglomerates, is a major culprit. As a 2001 study by Ricardo Uauy, a researcher at the University of Chile's Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, noted, "as income increases in transitional countries, so does the consumption of high fat foods, including industrially processed hydrogenated fats." Globesity's spread is bad news for struggling countries with stressed health systems that will have to tend to… medical and health central america David Sirota Fri, 14 Jul 2006 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2699/writer_without_borders/ Eduardo Galeano disdains borders, both in life and in literature. Exiled from his native Uruguay after the 1973 military coup, he returned to Montevideo in 1985, where he continues to live and write. Galeano's books subvert the distinctions between history, poetry, memoir, political analysis and cultural anthropology. With a graceful sense of craft, he uses "only words that really deserve to be there" to convey a humanely moral perspective on matters both personal and political. His writing honors the experiences of everyday life as a contrast to the mass media that "manipulates consciousness, conceals reality and stifles the creative imagination ... in order to impose ways of life and patterns of consumption." By multiplying seldom heard voices, Galeano refutes the… Central America South America Books Politics Civil Liberties David Sirota Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3015/families_behind_bars/ Named after the co-founder of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the T. Don Hutto Correctional Center in Taylor, Texas, opened as a medium-security prison in 1997. Today, the federal government pays CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, $95 per person per day to house the detainees, who wear jail-type uniforms and live in cells. But they have not been charged with any crimes. In fact, nearly half of its 400 or so residents are children, including infants and toddlers. The inmates are immigrants or children of immigrants who are in deportation proceedings. Many of them are in the process of applying for political asylum, refugees from violence-plagued and impoverished countries like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia and Palestine.… immigration central america prison David Sirota Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3264/civil_war_by_other_means/ Guatemalans will go to the voting booths on Sept. 9 for their third national election since the country's bloody civil war ended in 1996. But 11 years later, the miseries of the 36-year conflicto armado, and its most notorious characters, are still visible across the landscape. On one side is the Mayan indigenous-rights activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum, who etched her name in Guatemalan history after winning the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize for her work exposing the atrocities of the civil war. She is known internationally for her memoir, I, Rigoberta Menchú, which brought to light the murder of her family, and the suffering of her people, at the hands of the U.S.-trained and -funded military counterinsurgency. Menchú is running for… central america elections David Sirota Mon, 05 Nov 2007 06:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3380/banana_republic_to_baby_republic/ On any given day in Antigua, a touristy colonial town in Guatemala, as many as a dozen American couples can be seen lounging with their soon-to-be-adopted Mayan children in the Parque Central or dining nearby in posh restaurants. The couples enjoy the leisurely Latin American lifestyle--constant spring-like temperatures, drooping bougainvillea plumage and stunning views of Volcán de Agua to the south. But lately, fear has set in among the Guatemalan adoption industry. The Guatemalan government is threatening to wrestle control of adoption away from the private sector and either slow it to a crawl or shut it down completely. Last year, at fancy Antigua hotels or in the lobby of the Marriott in Guatemala City's upscale Zona 9, Guatemalan foster… central america immigration David Sirota Tue, 13 Nov 2007 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3411/el_salvadors_patriot_act/ On July 2, Salvadoran police arrested 14 rural activists who were protesting water privatization in Suchitoto, a colonial town in the middle of the country. The government plans to try them on Feb. 8 under the country's new anti-terrorism laws, which could make them the first political prisoners in the nation's post-war era. In recent years, the Salvadoran government has faced increasing community resistance to the privatization of healthcare and water. Citizens have also protested against Pacific Rim, a multinational corporation that plans to develop the El Dorado mine in Cabañas province and pollute the local water supply. In response, in October 2006 the government adopted a "Special Law Against Acts of Terrorism," which gives police and judges leeway to… central america civil liberties civil rights David Sirota Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3926/more_us_meddling_in_el_salvador/ As El Salvador prepares to hold its presidential and parliamentary elections early next year, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) worries the Bush administration might be drumming up fear to sway results. During a June visit to El Salvador, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte expressed concern over alleged links between the populist opposition FMLN party -- Farabundo Mart' National Liberation Front -- and rebels in Colombia's FARC -- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. After Colombian troops raided a FARC camp on March 1, the Colombian government alleged it had seized a laptop computer that tied FARC and FMLN. (The FMLN has denied the allegations.) "Any group that collaborates or expresses friendship with the… El Salvador elections David Sirota Mon, 06 Oct 2008 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3960/engineering_students_talk_trash/ Student members of Engineers Without Borders (EWB) at the University of Minnesota can be forgiven for talking trash these days: Their effort to turn garbage into economic opportunity for Haitians just earned them a $25,000 advocacy award from Keen Footwear. The student engineers are exploring a way to recycle thousands of used plastic water sachets littering the streets and beaches of Haiti, a culturally rich but materially destitute island country in the Caribbean. (Seventy-six percent of Haitians live on less than $2 per day, and half of all Haitians suffer from malnutrition, according to the U.N. World Food Program.) The students say they hope to use that plastic, in turn, to make composting toilets for urban families. If successful, the… Engineers Without Borders Haiti economic opportunity David Sirota Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4067/el_salvadors_new_left/ SAN SALVADOR--Red banners, olive fatigues and Soviet-style marching music filled Parque Cuscatlán on Oct. 12, as hundreds of loyal members of El Salvador's Faribundo Marti National Liberation (FMLN) party celebrated in the nation's capital. They were there on what would have been the 78th birthday of Jorge Schafik Handal, one of their movement's founding fathers and the 2004 FMLN presidential candidate, who died two years ago. Speakers drew applause upon mentioning the names of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Bolivian President Evo Morales and late Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. Teenage children of former rebels performed a play about the dangers of forgetting the massacres that the Salvadoran military perpetrated during the country's bloody, 12-year civil war, which ended in 1992. A… El Salvador neoliberalism David Sirota Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4144/lines_drawn_in_the_sandinistas/ On a downtown street corner in Leon, Nicaragua, a young man in black carries a large wooden cross in the mid-day heat. Across his chest, a sash reads "Dictator." The cross is marked with swastikas, alongside the acronym FSLN, for Nicaragua's ruling party, the Sandinista National Liberation Front. He is protesting against Daniel Ortega, the former guerrilla leader and current Nicaraguan president. Since his 2006 election, Ortega--always a controversial figure -- has faced increased popular opposition. Today, Ortega's critics hail not only from the political right, but also from the FSLN within the ranks of his own party on the left. Until last summer, in Leon--a longtime Sandinista stronghold and the country's second largest city--it seemed possible, if not probable,… Nicaragua politics Sandinistas David Sirota Sat, 07 Mar 2009 12:00:23 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4277/el_salvadors_left_turn/ The day after the U.S. presidential election, Salvadoran presidential candidate Mauricio Funes congratulated President Obama. "These winds of change have begun to blow from the United States to refresh the global atmosphere, in need of more democracy and greater social justice," Funes said in a statement. "The Americans have not been afraid to choose change, as they have staked out the future and not the immobility of the past." Funes, who himself is on a nationwide "Caravan of Hope" tour, is the new face of the Faribundo Marti National Liberation front (FMLN). The party--born from five bands of leftist guerrillas during El Salvador's civil war from 1980 to 1992--is on the verge of winning its first presidential election on March… central america international politics David Sirota