From Guardian Weekly letters, 22 March Your editorial and Tariq Ali’s piece on Hugo Chávez (15 March) had a fairness and balance. To understand Chávez’s significance, it is vital to be aware of the role the US has played in Latin America for well over a century, deposing or assassinating elected leaders and carrying out…
You would expect the New York Post to say Glad to see Hugo (get it?). Or Britain’s Daily Mail to label him a brutal despot (ignoring the fact that he won four elections). Toby Young in the Daily Telegraph, looking for the most obnoxious comparison possible, said he was the Latin American Kim Jong-il. More…
On Friday, thousands of protesters will converge on Fort Benning, Georgia, home to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (WHINSEC). It’s had this title since 2001, but when it was set up in Panama in 1946 it was the School of the Americas. In 66 years it has trained 64,000 soldiers from Latin America in…
Beyond the Frame, an exhibition of Cuban paintings and photographs in aid of the campaign to release the Miami Five, is at the Lighthouse in Glasgow until Sunday (it was at Gallery 27 in London last month). Many of the works are apolitical but some are inspired by the various attempts by US governments to destabilise…
The fire at Comayagua on 14 February brings the number of prisoners who have been killed in prison fires in Honduras in the last decade to more than 530. The government’s inaction in the face of repeated prison massacres may well mean that it is found guilty at a hearing of the Inter-American Court of…
Alan Gross, a 62-year-old US citizen, has been imprisoned in Cuba since December 2009. He fell foul of the authorities while working for USAID, liaising with Cuba’s small Jewish community. The Washington Post earlier this month demanded his release, saying that ‘Cuba’s accusations stem from Mr Gross’s humanitarian work’. When he was convicted for ‘acts…
Right-wing cynics were trying their best in the run up to Sunday’s election in Nicaragua. Foreseeing victory for the incumbent, President Daniel Ortega (he won with 62 per cent of the vote), they argued that at the least sign of electoral manipulation the United States should put its foot down. Robert Callahan, the US ambassador…
In the early hours of Sunday, 28 June the residence of Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras, was surrounded by tanks. His supporters, anticipating a coup, formed a human shield but were quickly dispersed with tear gas. In no time at all soldiers had entered the building and disarmed the security guard. Zelaya rang the…