From Socialist Voice, January 2010

International

Attacks on anti-mining activists continue in El Salvador

The week before Christmas was a particularly bloody and violent time for the Salvadoran people’s struggle against mining companies in the Cabanas region. On 20 December a leading anti-mining activist, Ramiro Rivera, was murdered. He had miraculously survived a previous assassination attempt in August, when he was shot eight times.
     Rivera was a leader of the Salvadoran people’s resistance to the Pacific Rim Mining Company, a Canadian company. Disturbingly, two policemen who had been assigned to protect him were “unable” to protect him, and of course neither were injured.
     Six days later, on 26 December, a prominent community leader and anti-mining activist, Dora “Alicia” Sorto Rodriguez, was murdered as she returned home from doing laundry. She was thirty-two years old and was eight months pregnant. She was carrying her three-year-old son when she was murdered. Her son was also shot in the foot and is now in hospital receiving treatment. This murder shows the lengths that these parasitic mining companies will go to wipe out opposition to their operations.
     The Pacific Rim Mining Company is stepping up its campaign of murder and intimidation against local people who oppose its plans for the El Dorado gold mine. It is no surprise that Pacific Rim is backed by the region’s various ARENA mayors and as a result can act with impunity. Despite these murders, resistance continues.

Violence continues in Honduras

While the coup in Honduras has long left the news headlines around most of the world, and while the United States moves to recognise the junta in power, violence against those who oppose the coup grows.
     On 7 December a group of six anti-coup activists was attacked by gunmen in the Villanueva district of the capital city, Tegucigalpa. Five of them died. A van with no number plates pulled up, and four masked men jumped out and attacked the group. All six victims were heavily involved in organising communities in opposing the coup and in the Resistance Front. There is little doubt that these were state-sponsored murders.
     On 3 December another anti-coup activist, Walter Trochez, was kidnapped and tortured in Tegucigalpa. He was questioned about members of the Resistance Front and about other activists against the coup. Facing certain murder, he managed to escape. Ten days later he was not so lucky. He was shot in the chest and died from his injuries. On 5 December, Santos García Corrales was detained by Honduran security forces. He was tortured for information about specific opposition activists. His decapitated body turned up five days later.
     These are just a few of the countless murders that have been carried out by the state in an attempt to wipe out opposition to its coup. The National Resistance Front to the Coup is regrouping for a campaign against the junta in the new year.

Against the odds: Guatemala’s workers’ fight goes on

In 2008 employees of Agua Salvavida were fired for forming a trade union, the Petén Distributors Workers’ Union (SITRAPETEN), in May of that year. Since September 2008 members of SITRAPETEN have been occupying the Central Plaza in Guatemala City as part of a peaceful protest to demand that their labour rights are respected.
     A court order in February 2009 ordering the workers to be reinstated has thus far been ignored. Attempts have been made at bribing the workers to leave the union. These have been unsuccessful, despite the fact that these workers have not received any wages in a year and a half.
     The protest came to a head when TV Azteca of Mexico announced that it was bringing “La Academia” (the Mexican version of American Idol) to Guatemala City and that it wanted to use the Central Plaza. The local government decided to clean up the streets and remove the protesters, despite their having legal permission and a constitutional right to be there. Interventions from the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office and the Presidential Commission for Human Rights were also ignored.
     On 9 December the anti-riot squad circled the park and proceeded to fire tear gas and other toxins at the fifteen workers. Heavily armed police used extreme violence to remove the protesters, resulting in most of them needing hospital treatment.
     Despite the protesting workers being removed from the Plaza, the struggle has not ended. SITRAPETEN’s battle is against the Castillo family, one of Guatemala’s richest families. This has led to a media blackout on what is happening. Despite these odds, the workers are fighting on.
[JM]

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