Honduras passed a constitutional amendment drawn up by the administration of President Porfirio Lobo that allows the creation of “Special Development Regions” within the country—where the national state would have limited, if any, authority.
With anger still growing in Honduras over the Miskito Coast drug raid that left four dead and villagers terrorized, the White House shows no sign of reconsidering the Central American Regional Security Initiative.
Having dismissed a case brought under CAFTA, a World Bank tribunal granted Pacific Rim Mining jurisdiction under El Salvador’s own investment law to sue the Central American republic for failure to approve a mine opposed by local campesinos.
Guatemala’s President Otto Perez Molina imposed a state of siege on the remote Maya village of Santa Cruz Barillas after residents overran an army outpost following the assassination of a community leader in the struggle against a hydro-electric project.
Indigenous Miskito residents of Ahuas village on the remote Caribbean coast of Honduras are demanding justice in the wake of a deadly helicopter raid by Honduran National Police and DEA agents—with details still emerging on the scope of the violence.
Campesinos from Honduras’ sprawling and rugged department of Olancho protested outside the national electric company in Tegucigalpa to demand cancellation of the Patuca III hydro-electic project until land rights in the area have been clarified.
Miskito Indians in Honduras burned down government offices in angry protests over a DEA helicopter raid they say killed innocent villagers in a fishing boat. The fracas comes as the Pentagon has established three new bases in Honduras.
China's Camc Engineering won the contract to build a major oil facility on Nicaragua's Pacific coast under the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA)—as Canadian mining companies rush into the country's remote interior.
US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the US-backed war on the drug cartels, despite growing violence in Mexico and Central America—while Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla called for a regional debate on legalization.
Hundreds of relatives of inmates who burned or suffocated to death at the Comayagua prison fire in Honduras pushed past security guards to force their way into a morgue to demand the remains of loved ones. Police cleared the morgue with tear gas.
Honduras is in shock after a fire at a triple-capacity Comayagua prison left at least 360 dead, many burned or suffocated to death in their cells. Reports said guards hurled keys away before fleeing, abandoning the prisoners.
President Mauricio Funes named retired general Francisco Ramón Salinas as director of El Salvador’s National Civil Police, replacing former director Carlos Ascencio—removing the last high-ranking FMLN member of the public security cabinet.
