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Constitutionalist heroine is down but not defeated

[Translation of an article from Listín Diario of Santo Domingo for April 25. See original here and related article here.]

By Ramón Pérez Reyes

You would see her during the fighting in April, 1965, a rifle in her hands, making her way through the Constitutionalist commandos doing battle around the Duarte Bridge against the troops coming from San Isidro. At that time she was a 20-year-old who had joined the war like the thousands of other Dominicans who made up the “Army of the Humble” that the poet Federico Bermúdez wrote about. Before her husband taught her to use a Mauser 98K rifle, she would slip through the combat zones to supply the soldiers with grenades or to help soldiers cross the Ozama River after the war had taken them by surprise in the eastern part of the city. (more…)

[Translations of two articles from El Nuevo Diario of Santo Domingo for April 23. See originals here and here and related article here.

April 24 is the anniversary of the 1965 military and popular uprising against the “Triumvirate,” the junta that ruled the country after the coup d’état against center-left President Juan Bosch.  Bosch was the first democratically elected president after the 31-year bloody dictatorial regime of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, who had been assassinated in 1961. Bosch was in office for seven months. Led by Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó, the April 24 rebels, known as Constitutionalists, sought a return to constitutional rule and the reinstatement of Bosch to the presidency.  Soon after the uprising began, US ambassador William Tapley Bennett reported to President Lyndon Johnson, falsely, that the embassy was under fire and that US citizens in the country were in danger and by April 28 some 400 US marines landed on the island, followed within a few days by several thousand members of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for April 13. See original here.]

by Pedro Carrano

As though in a passage from Greek mythology, Chilean activists are in a labyrinth, trying to find their way by following the scattered threads of the popular and workers’ movement, almost forty years after the coup d’état and the coming to power of General Augusto Pinochet in 1973, an event that shattered President Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity and debilitated popular organizing in the areas around Santiago de Chile. It destroyed the sense of belonging to a class. With full force, it brought in neoliberalism.

Even when the dictatorship gave way to elections and the Pinochet era came to a close in 1988, the 23 years of government by the Concertación that followed did not lead the country out of the neoliberal labyrinth. The resources and the raw materials of the earth were handed over to transnational enterprises. (more…)

[Translations of two articles, both from April 16, the first from the web site of the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, based on a news conference carried by Venezolana de Televisión, the second from Diario Tiempo of San Pedro Sula, based on an Agence France Press dispatch. See first article here and second here, a related article from Honduras Weekly here and go here for link to video news conference.]

Frente de Resistencia has confidence in President Chávez as mediator in Honduran crisis

“We are very happy to be able to contribute to the reestablishment of peace and democracy in Honduras. We are here struggling to consolidate, not only in Venezuela, but throughout this land, Latin America, in Central America, in South America, a grand area of peace,” the head of state declared on Saturday. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 12. See original here and "First Part" here.]

by Tomás Andino Mancía

Second part

As for President Hugo Chávez, we can reject the hypothesis that he was taken by surprise, like a naïve dove, by the cold and calculating Colombian president, since Chávez has confirmed in his statements that he has been making efforts for some time, and that he will continue making them, to advocate Honduras’ return to the OAS. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Revistazo of Tegucigalpa for April 11. See original here,  "Second Part" here and related article here.]

by Tomás Andino Mencía

First Part

The Honduran population in resistance has still not gotten over its surprise at the unexpected turn in international politics concerning the coup d’état in our country, not so much because of the well known cynicism of the Honduran oligarchy in blessing today whom it demonized yesterday as the worst monster in the world, but because of the political recognition and support the regime of President Hugo Chávez offered to the coup’s successor regime, as much for the sake of its return to the OAS as to enable it to receive the benefits of PetroCaribe. (more…)

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of El Salvador for April 8. See original here.]

This Sunday Peruvians will vote for their new president in a first round marked by an atmosphere of indecision and fragmentation. Of the ten candidates in the race for president, five hold most of the intended vote, but with all of them far from 50 percent, it is taken for granted there will be a runoff next June 5.

Peru has seen notable economic growth in the past few years. Nevertheless, although the figures on poverty have improved, neoliberal policies have generated good figures in the macroeconomy but not in the distribution of wealth.

So the platforms of all the candidates include social policies favoring the poor, who are still the majority in the Andean country.

Social conflicts, on the other hand, have not disappeared with the economic boom. Sectors like mining are still witnessing discord between businesses, most of which are foreign owned, and residents of areas of natural and ethnic wealth. (more…)

[Translation of an article from Haïti-Progrès for April 8. See original here.]

Late in the afternoon of Monday, April 4, a spokesman for the Conseil Électoral Provisoire (CEP – Provisional Electoral Council) finally announced the results of the legislative and presidential elections. Informed people were not surprised, particularly concerning the presidency. On Sunday, April 3, international press agencies had already announced the winner of the presidency. These preliminary results seem to be the definitive results foreseen for April 16. Remember that these controversial elections were organized mainly by the “international community,” the CEP having been discredited even before the results of the first round on December 7, which had thrown fuel on the flames. (more…)

Study shows the country has world’s highest rate of homophobic murders

[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato for April 6. See original here.]

By Daniella Jinkings

In 2010, 260 gay men, transvestites and lesbians were murdered in Brazil. According to a report by the Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB) released on Monday, every day and a half a Brazilian homosexual is killed. In the past five years, there has been an increase of 113 percent in the number of murders of homosexuals. In the first three months of 2011 alone, there were 65 murders.

Among the victims, 54 percent were gay men, 42 percent were transvestites and four percent were lesbians. Luiz Mott, the anthropologist responsible for the survey, believes the statistics are smaller than the reality. “Those 260 documented murders are an underreported number, because there are no official hate crime statistics in Brazil. The situation for homosexuals is extremely troubling.” (more…)

[Translation of an article from El Expreso of Guayaquil, based on a dispatch by the Spanish news agency Efe, from April 5. See original article here and diplomatic cable in question here.]

Ecuador has declared the US ambassador in Quito, Heather Hodges, persona non grata and has asked her to leave the country in response to a cable signed by her and released by Wikileaks concerning corruption in the Ecuadorian police force.

“We have asked her to leave the country as soon as possible,” Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said today in a press conference. (more…)

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto for March 30. See original here. The author, Juan José Dalton, editor-in-chief of ContraPunto, is the son of Roque Dalton, Salvadoran poet and revolutionary killed in 1975. See more on Roque Dalton and his sons here.]

By Juan José Dalton

San Salvador – Sometimes one is mistaken, or wants to be mistaken, and believes in the good faith of the powerful. But the powerful have no good faith.

We have recently had a visit to El Salvador from Barack Obama. In contrast with other places and times, Obama was welcomed in my country with joy and enthusiasm, but above all with hopes that at last we Salvadorans would be seen as partners and as friends of the gringos and not as puppets or as their enemies. (more…)

[Translation of an article from ContraPunto of El Salvador for March 27. See original here.]

By Gloria Morán

San Salvador – Years ago fishing became the livelihood for the family of Don Maximiliano Figueroa, now past his 70th birthday. His means of support could now be threatened by mining. He lives in the hamlet of Las Cuevitas, in Metapán, Santa Ana.

The hope of catching something that might help feed him and his family knows no time of day. In the morning or in the afternoon, boats come and go on Güija Lake. (more…)