Central America

Honduras: lawyer killed after reporting police abuses

Three unidentified men gunned down attorney José Ricardo Rosales in the coastal city of Tela just four days after a newspaper reported on Rosales’ claim that local police agents had abused detainees.

Central America

Honduras: family killed in latest Aguán massacre

Eight people, including four children, were murdered in the village of Regaderos, in the Lower Aguán Valley, the site of several violent land disputes between campesinos and large landowners.

Central America

Honduras: police torture priest and his brothers

Marco Aurelio Lorenzo, an activist Catholic priest based in western Honduras, has filed a criminal complaint charging that he and his two brothers were tortured by eight police agents the day after Christmas.

Central America

Honduras: government looks to Venezuela for aid

Center-right Honduran president Pepe Lobo intends to have the country return to Petrocaribe, a program through which Venezuela provides oil to other Caribbean countries at favorable terms.

Central America

Still no justice in 1981 Salvador massacre

Rights groups in El Salvador noted the anniversary of the massacre of 966 villagers at El Mozote by a US-trained battalion, decrying continued impunity after 30 years. The authors of the massacre are known, but protected by an amnesty law.

Central America

Honduras: another journalist assassinated

Honduran radio journalist Luz Marina Paz Villalobos and her driver were killed in a hail of bullets fired by men on two motorbikes in Tegucigalpa. Her morning news program had frequently taken on drug trafficking and corruption.

Central America

Costa Rica: Supreme Court rules against gold mine

In a major victory for Costa Rica’s environmental movement, the country’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision canceling a concession for an open-pit gold mine in Crucitas de San Carlos.

Central America

Belize: government grants oil company permit to Maya lands

The government of Belize quietly granted US Capital Energy drilling rights to protected Maya lands in Sarstoon Temash National Park. The move comes in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling that recognized indigenous territorial rights.