Guatemala’s President Otto Pérez Molina inaugurated a new paramilitary force after an armed attack on a National Police post left eight officers dead and a commander abducted.
More than 160 civil society organizations sent an open letter to the OAS summit, calling for alternatives to the “war on drugs” that guarantee respect for human rights.
The OAS summit in Guatemala opens in the wake of a ground-breaking report dissenting from the US-led “drug war” and broaching decrim and legalization strategies.
Protesters and legal experts raise questions about a court’s decision on the Ríos Montt conviction; meanwhile, Guatemala suddenly extradites another ex-president to the US.
Five former South American dictators are in prison for crimes committed under their regimes; Peru's Morales Bermúdez and Haiti's Jean-Claude Duvalier also face charges.
Survivors and rights advocates hugged each other when the ex-dictator was convicted of genocide, but the current president must be thinking about his own role in the civil war.
President Pérez Molina was forced to give up his effort to contain indigenous protests against a Canadian-owned silver mine by suspending constitutional rights.
Confusing court decisions and legal maneuvers seem designed to delay a verdict in the trial of a former military dictator accused in the deaths of indigenous civilians.
Guatemala’s government declared a state of emergency in four municipalities in the eastern highlands following clashes between police and anti-mining protesters.
US labor groups say Sae-A managers arranged an attack on unionists, while mainstream Nicaraguan unions say it’s a US conspiracy. Next stop for Sae-A is Haiti.
Indigenous survivors of the Guatemalan army’s “scorched earth” strategy in the 1980s say they will push to lift the suspension of a former dictator’s genocide trial.
A legal tool US advocates have used against human rights abusers for three decades is now "close to a dead letter" thanks to a Supreme Court decision.
