Connexions Resource Centre
Focus on Central America and the Caribbean

Recent & Selected Articles

1. This is a small sampling of articles related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as Caribbean, Central America, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.

1. Expansion of monocultures expels peasants from their lands (September 18, 2018)
   In Guatemala a wave of violence at the hands of large agriculture corporations has been driving Indigenous people and peasants off their land.
2. Honduras: U.S. Support for Repression & Fraud (March 1, 2018)
   The US has supported the illegitimate election in Honduras. The people continue to resist despite deaths, disappearances and incarcerations by the military.
3. Canada's Deadly Diplomacy and the Plight of Political Prisoners in Honduras (February 13, 2018)
   A look at the political crisis in Honduras since the Nov. 26 election, which has led to brutal and deadly government crack-downs by military police and other state forces of Honduras. Described as state-led terrorism, it is being tacitly supported by funding from Canadian taxpayers.
4. The Wheel Has Come Full Circle (September 1, 2017)
   Book review of Dan La Botz's What Went Wrong: The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis.
5. The Case for Haitian Reparations (January 14, 2017)
   A history of France's exploitation of colonial Haiti, the aftermath of Haiti's independence, and the lasting social and environmental impacts, arguing for Haiti's recent demands of reparations from the French government.
6. Letter From Mexico (January 8, 2017)
   The editors of Insurgent Notes sent a couple of articles on Mexico from the Financial Times to our Mexico correspondent to check their accuracy. The following is his reply.
7. FSNL, 1979 and today: Nicaragua's compromised revolution (July 25, 2016)
   The Sandinista revolution happened over 30 years ago, but FSLN has completely altered within the past few years to a neoliberal organization.
8. Salvadoran Women Respond to Violence with Community Service, Music, and Individual Efforts (February 13, 2016)
   Outside of the peace negotiations that resound in the media and governmental organizations, one of the strongest solutions to the scourge of gang violence in El Salvador has come from individual initiatives and groups dedicated to women. This work with female youth and ex-gang members, both in and outside of prison, is part of a movement that seeks to collaborate with peace processes in which women have rarely been taken into account. At the same time, it addresses the social structure that intensifies violence against women.
9. Mexico's Deepening Crises (September 1, 2015)
   The "democratic transition" has brought little democracy and great disappointment. And the "war on drugs" has not diminished the production and export of drugs but increased violence and provided political cover for the government's escalation of repression.
10. Agroecology as a Tool for Liberation: Transforming Industrial Agribusiness in El Salvador (August 18, 2015)
    "We say that every square meter of land that is worked with agro-ecology is a liberated square meter. We see it as a tool to transform farmers''social and economic conditions. We see it as a tool of liberation from the unsustainable capitalist agricultural model that oppresses farmers."
11. Nicaraguans Fight to Save Land and Sovereignty from Canal Development (August 15, 2015)
    There has been a popular storm gathering to protest the proposed cross-Nicaragua canal.
12. Honduras: Garifuna communities resist eviction and theft of land (August 12, 2015)
    Pristine beaches, clear Caribbean waters, coral reefs, fertile land ... such is the homeland of the Garifuna people, writes Jeff Abbott. It's so lovely that outsiders are desperate to seize ever more of their territory to develop for mass tourism, oil palm plantations, illicit drug production ... and the land grabs have the full support of Honduras military government, backed to the hilt by Uncle Sam.
13. Indigenous Community Wins Land Rights Victory in Guatemala After 200 Years of Struggle (August 5, 2015)
    Success is rare among indigenous peoples' struggles for land rights in Guatemala. But the nearly 300 Poqomchi' Maya families that make up the Primavera communities in the department of Alta Verapaz have just won a significant victory.
14. How many more (April 20, 2015)
    New report shows killings of environmental activists are increasing, with indigenous communities hardest hit. Global Witness shines a spotlight on Honduras - the most dangerous country to be an environmental defender.
15. Will El Salvador be forced to pay $301 million for valuing clean water over gold? (April 9, 2015)
    The Central American state of El Salvador could be forced to pay US$301 million in damages to an Australian-Canadian mining company, OceanaGold, after the company's application for a mining license was rejected on the basis of the projected environmental damage it would cause.
16. Farmer Cooperatives, Not Monsanto, Supply El Salvador With Seeds (March 3, 2015)
    In the face of overwhelming competition skewed by the rules of free trade, farmers in El Salvador have managed to beat the agricultural giants like Monsanto and Dupont to supply local corn seed to thousands of family farmers. Local seed has consistently outperformed the transnational product, and farmers helped develop El Salvador’s own domestic seed supply–all while outsmarting the heavy hand of free trade.
17. Taking Back What's Ours (May 22, 2014)
    The morning sun was just above the horizon when San Cristóbal’s cobblestone streets and colonial houses gave way to crumbling pavement and deep green cornfields. Our combi, a small minibus bursting with passengers, wound its way downwards out of the highlands of Chiapas, down into the warmer climate of the lowland valleys.
18. Central American Women Put their Lives on the Line for Human Rights (February 25, 2014)
    Solidarity is at the heart of an initiative that seeks to protect women activists facing harassment, death threats and violence.
19. 20 Years Since the Chiapas Rebellion (January 14, 2014)
    The Chiapas rebellion led by the Zapatistas took place 20 years ago this month. What was the importance of the rebellion and of the Zapatistas? What was the impact at the time? And what has been its political legacy? What is the role of the Zapatistas in Mexico today?
20. Honduras and the dirty war fuelled by the west's drive for clean energy (January 7, 2014)
    The palm oil magnates are growing ever more trees for use in biofuels and carbon trading. But what happens to the subsistence farmers who live on the lucrative land?
21. Memory and Repression in El Salvador (November 29, 2013)
    The raid on Pro-Busqueda happened three days after the Salvadorean Supreme Court heard testimony from survivors of a 1982 raid carried out by government forces.
22. #131+1: Voices in Movement An Oral History of the Mexican Youth Movement of 2012 (September 9, 2013)
    On May 11, 2012, in the heat of the presidential campaign, history took an unexpected turn: a video, the social networks, and marches and mass actions managed to bring a new moment of hope into the history of Mexico, and the Mexican youth surprised the whole world.
23. Guatemala: Peaceful Resistance in the Face of Violence (October 24, 2012)
    Anti-mining activist speaks out for first time since being shot.
24. Letter From Mexico City (October 15, 2012)
    A letter from a Mexican comrade about the specifics of the “neo-liberal” phase of capitalism in Mexico since the 1970s, and the role in it of Carlos Salinas, as Mexican president from 1988 to 1994, and subsequently.
25. In Mexico, Finally, a Revolt Against the Media (June 1, 2012)
    The summer will determine if the “I Am 132” moment becomes a movement and that’s why “Mexican Spring” is a poor choice of words for it.
26. Out of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington (December 7, 2011)
    The CELAC meeting comes a time when Washington’s presence in the region is waning. Following the nightmarish decades of the Cold War, in which Washington propped up dictators and waged wars on Latin American nations, a new era has opened up; in the past decade a wave of leftist presidents have taken office on socialist and anti-imperialist platforms.
27. Pentagon Fingered as a Source of Narco-Firepower in Mexico (February 13, 2011)
    The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars.
28. Central America Raises Its Voice in Defence of Its Migrants (February 2, 2011)
    Spiralling violence against Central American migrants in Mexico has prompted legal reforms, diplomatic actions, and the creation of new mechanisms to protect citizens in this region.
29. Tailoring to Needs: Garment Worker Struggles in Bangladesh (October 28, 2010)
    The class struggle in Bangladesh is fought at a consistently high level and concentrated in the ready made garment (RMG) sector, the country’s dominant industry. Mainly unmediated by trade unions, struggles frequently assume an explosive character.
30. The Next Mexican Revolution (September 21, 2010)
    If this is to be the year of the next Mexican revolution, the time to move is now.
31. How to Write about Haiti (July 23, 2010)
    How to make sure that you stick to the tried and proven cliches.
32. Mitziton: A community in Chiapas resisting the government road (March 5, 2010)
    
33. Haiti - The Broken Wing (February 3, 2010)
    The courage and compassion of thousands of people willing to enter a chaotic disaster zone threatened with aftershocks are very real. Compassion arises out of a recognition that 'their' suffering is no different to 'my' suffering. Joining compassion with reason means asking why over 80 per cent of Haiti's population of 10 million people live in abject poverty. Why less than 45 per cent of all Haitians have access to potable water. Why the life expectancy rate in Haiti is only 53 years. Why seventy-six per cent of Haiti's children under the age of five are underweight, or suffer from stunted growth, with 63 per cent of Haitians undernourished.
34. The Kidnapping Of Haiti (January 28, 2010)
    Not for tourists is the US building its fifth-biggest embassy. Oil was found in Haiti's waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington's "rollback" plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela's abundant petroleum reserves, and sabotage of the growing regional co-operation.
35. Temping Down Labor Rights: The Manpowerization of Mexico (January 6, 2010)
    The continuing erosion of labour rights and labour standards in Mexico.
36. Chiapas Murder Draws Criticism of Canadian Mining in Mexico (December 14, 2009)
    The recent murder of Chiapan anti-mining organizer Mariano Abarca Roblero has drawn sharp criticism of Canadian mining in Mexico.
37. Chiapas Anti-Mining Organizer Murdered (December 1, 2009)
    Mariano Abarca Roblero, one of Mexico's most prominent anti-mining organizers, was shot to death on the evening of November 27, 2009, in front of his house in Chicomuselo, Chiapas. The incident comes just days after Abarca filed charges against two Blackfire employees, Ciro Roblero Perez and Luis Antonio Flores Villatoro, for threatening to shoot him if he didn't stop organizing against Canadian mining company Blackfire's barium mine in Chicomuselo.
38. Citizens Protest Lack of Consultation about Canadian Mine in San Jose del Progresso (November 21, 2009)
    Inhabitants of San José del Progresso, in the district of Ocotlán, affiliated with the Assembly of People United for the Valley of Ocotlán in Defense of Nature and Popular Autonomy, and opposed to the operation of the Canadian owned mine La Trinidad, escalated their battle with the assistance of the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca, the APPO.
39. The Property Waiver Regime: Nicaragua's Continued Punishment (October 7, 2009)
    
40. Chomsky in Mexico (October 2, 2009)
    September has been a big month for La Jornada. To celebrate its 25th birthday, the National Lottery offered a commemorative ticket as did the Mexico City Metro subway system, rare mainstream honors for a lefty rag, and notorious U.S. rabble rouser Noam Chomsky came to town to help cut the cake - along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez (a founding investor) and the much-lauded Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. The Jornada was founded in 1984 by itinerant journalists who had bounced from one short-lived left periodical to the next.
41. What Some US Reporters Don't Get About Brazil and the Honduras Crisis (September 23, 2009)
    Clueless desk editors like those at the New York Times titled these conflicts "Riots in Honduras." But you don't need to be able to understand Spanish to see and hear that, distinct from rioters, the young people of the neighborhood that came out and violated the military curfew to defend their neighborhood from this police invasion know and have memorized complicated political slogans and rhymes which they chanted in unison. "Riots" are disorganized explosions. This neighborhood, and others like it, however, have been forced by the realities of the coup to organize themselves to a greater extent than ever before.
42. Latin America: Women in History - More than Just Heroines (September 8, 2009)
    Women in Latin American struggles.
43. Volunteer Translators Wanted English to Spanish (September 4, 2009)
    Connexions, an independent non-profit research organization and information clearinghouse based in Toronto, Canada, seeks volunteer translators to translate articles, and terms in our subject index, from English to Spanish, and from English to other languages.
44. Militarizing Latin America (August 30, 2009)
    Establishing US military bases in Colombia is only one part of a much broader effort to restore Washington's capacity for military intervention. There has been a sharp increase in US military aid and training of Latin American officers, focusing on light infantry tactics to combat "radical populism" -- a concept that sends shivers up the spine in the Latin American context.
45. Guatemala: Murders of Women Recall Counterinsurgency Techniques (June 22, 2009)
    The worst waves of brutal, unsolved murders of women in Latin America have been seen in Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's northern border, where close to 400 killings have been reported since 1993, and Guatemala, where 527 women were killed last year alone.
46. Movement Pachamama: Indigenous Movements in Latin America (June 1, 2009)
    It is no accident that most of the remaining natural resources are on indigenous land. First the white world destroys their own environment, then they come asking for the last pieces of land they have put us on, the earth we have protected.
47. Of Sowing and Harvests (January 4, 2009)
    Perhaps our word can manage to join forces with others in Mexico and the world and perhaps first it's heard as a murmur, then out loud, and then a scream that they hear in Gaza. We don't know about you, but we Zapatistas from the EZLN, we know how important it is, in the middle of destruction and death, to hear some words of encouragement.
48. Legalize It! (2009)
    Decriminalization is turning into a bonanza for Mexico City cops who have taken to carrying scales to weigh confiscated drugs and shaking down those "criminals" who exceed the decreed limits. Shaking down small-time users and dealers is nothing new in this the most corrupt, crime-ridden, and conflictive city in the western hemisphere. Indeed, crooked cops have been planting drugs on unwary citizens as long as cops have patrolled these mean streets.
49. Revolution of the Snails (January 15, 2008)
    Give the Zapatistas time -- the slow, unfolding time of the spiral and the journey of the snail -- to keep making their world, the one that illuminates what else our lives and societies could be. Our revolution must be as different as our temperate-zone, post-industrial society is to their subtropical agrarianism, but also guided by the slow forces of dignity, imagination, and hope, as well as the playfulness they display in their imagery and language.
50. Tide Turning in Latin America? (November 1, 2007)
    NACLA’s first volume in its new series, Dispatches from Latin America: On the Frontlines Against Neoliberalism, reported on an array of popular initiatives and left-leaning regimes across the continent. The second volume, Latin America After Neoliberalism, is also a collection of essays; but this one is organized by themes and more academic, though still accessible. The book is a useful guide for activists wanting a better understanding of the profound transformations underway in the region.
51. Resistance on the Mexican 'Riviera': The Zapatistas Visit Manzanillo, Colima (2006)
    
52. Growing Poverty Is Shrinking Mexico's Rain Forest (December 8, 2002)
    The struggle for land has started to pit the Zapatista rebel movement against ecologists who want to save the remains of the forest. The Zapatistas declared war on Mexico's government nearly nine years ago over the poverty of peasants in Chiapas. Today the movement criticizes efforts to conserve the bioreserve as a "war of extermination against our indigenous communities."
53. Autonomy vs. the Mexican Party-State (1998)
    The development of autonomous local governments in Mexico.
54. Remembering Michael Manley (September 1, 1997)
    Manley, who had entered the decade of the Seventies with so much hope for changing Jamaica, departed bitterly at the end of it.
55. Reporting the Realities of Poverty (July 1, 1997)
    Review of Everybody Loves a Good Drought: Stories from India's Poorest Districts, by P. Sainath.
56. Defying Washington's Embargo (1997)
    In the face of strong government opposition and little U.S. media attention, a grassroots effort scored a victory on September 13, 1996. On that day U.S. and Canadian members of Pastors for Peace delivered 400 medical computers to Cuba, without applying for the license required by the U.S. trade embargo.
57. Recovering the Sandinista Murals (1997)
    Obliterating the artifacts of the revolution is an important task for those who want to rewrite history. David Kunzle's book, The Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua 1979-1992, is thus more than a catalog -- it's a weapon in the struggle to keep the promise of revolution alive.
58. Marxism and Anti-Imperialism in Latin America
    Selected documents.

Selected Websites and Organizations

1. This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with education and children in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as Caribbean, Central America, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.

Other Links & Resources

• Sources Calendar Simple HTML version
  Event calendar in non-java-script format.

Books, Films and Periodicals

1. This is a small sampling of books related to education and children in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as Caribbean, Central America, youth, post-secondary education, film, and schools.

1. Beyond a Boundary
   Author: James, C.L.R.
   Part memoir of a boyhood in a black colony (by one of the founders of African nationalism), part passionate celebration of the game of cricket, this book raises serious questions about race, class, politics, and the realities of colonial oppression.
2. The Black Jacobins
   Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution
   Author: James, C.L.R.
   An account of the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1803.
3. Latin America The Liberation of Latin America
   New Internationalist May 2003
   A look at the issues which have surrounded Latin America and what is changing.
4. Memory of Fire: Genesis
   Part One of a Triology
   Author: Galeano, Eduardo
   A meditation on the clashes between the Old World and the New, and an an attempt "to rescue the kidnapped memory of all America." A fierce, impassioned, and kaleidoscopic historical experience that takes us from the creation myths of the Makiritare Indians of the Yukatan to Columbus's first joyous moments in the New World to the English capture of New York.
5. Memory of Fire: Faces & Masks
   Part Two of a Trilogy
   Author: Galeano, Eduardo
   A view of the 'New World' in the making, from the 1700s to the end of the nineteenth century.
6. Memory of Fire: Century of the Wind
   Part Three of a Trilogy
   Author: Galeano, Eduardo
   
7. Open Veins of Latin America
   Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
   Author: Galeano, Eduardo
   A political economy, a social and cultural narrative, and a powerful description of primitive capital accumulation.
8. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - May 7, 2016
   Destabilization and Regime Change
   Author: Diemer, Ulli (ed.)
   When governments get too far out of line -- the most outrageous offence, from the point of view of imperial power, is pursuing policies that help ordinary people at the expense of transnational corporations and local elites -- then they have to be overthrown. The preferred method is a destabilization campaign followed by a coup. This issue of Other Voices focuses destabilization and regime change.
9. A Poetics of Resistance
   The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Movement
   Author: Conant, Jeff
   Combining narrative history, literary criticism, ethnography, and media analysis, A Poetics of Resistance provides a refreshing take on Mexico's Zapatista movement by examining the means, meanings, and mythos behind the Zapatista image.
10. Relentless Persistence
    Nonviolent Action in Latin America
    Author: McManus, Philip and Schlabach, Gerald (ed.)
    There is in Latin America a tradition of "firmeza permanente," relentless persistence, which has enabled the people to preserve parts of their culture during five centuries of conquest and oppression.
11. Sandino's Daughters Revisited
    Feminism in Nicarauga
    Author: Randall, Margaret
    Randall's conversations with Nicaraguan women in their struggle against the dictator Somoza in 1979, brought the lives of a group of extraordinary female revolutionaries to the American and world public.Here Randall returns to interview many of the same women and others.
12. Sandino's Daughters
    Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle
    Author: Randall, Margaret; Yanz, Lynda (ed.)
    Interviews with women who fought in the Nicaraguan revolution.

Learning from our History

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Resources for Activists

The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists. Submit your events for free here.

Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada’s print and broadcast media. .

Sources - A membership-based service that enables journalists to find spokespersons and story ideas, and which simultaneously enables organizations to raise their profile by reaching the media and the public with their message.

Organizing Resources Page - Change requires organizing. Power gives way only when it is challenged by a movement for change, and movements grow out of organizing. Organizing is qualitatively different from simple “activism”. Organizing means sustained long-term conscious effort to bring people together to work for common goals. This page features a selection of articles, books, and other resources related to organizing.

Publicity and Media Relations - A short introduction to media relations strategies.

Grassroots Media Relations - A media relations guide for activist groups.

Socialism gateway - A gateway to resources about socialism, socialist history, and socialist ideas.

Marxism gateway - A gateway to resources about Marxism.

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