On the heels of a US-inspired breakdown at the  Summit of the Americas in April, the US claimed its seat as an observer at this weekend's summit of Central American leaders. Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Roberta Jacobson attended the 39th meeting of summit of the Central American ...

by Allen Hines Gunfire erupted from helicopters provided by the US State Department and carrying Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) trainers and Honduran police on May 11. The shots killed four Hondurans described by locals as fisherpeople. Two of them were pregnant. Who did the shooting is unclear. US officials said the fisherpeople ...

Civil society’s opposition to the rapid changes in El Salvador’s Public Security Ministry continues to gain ground. On March 26, the Supreme Court to accepted a lawsuit seeking to annul the appointment of two former general David Munguía Payés as Minister of Public Security and former general Francisco Salinas as ...

A 40% drop in murder rates in El Salvador in mid-March prompted the media and the public to take a closer look at the security tactics being employed by the country´s Ministry of Justice and Public Security, now under the leadership of retired military officers. In an investigative report by ...

Published in NACLA North America Congress on Latin America By Allen Hines Despite growing calls for alternative strategies to combat the flow of drugs through Central America, William Brownfield, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), toured the region last week to promote more ...

Central American leaders continued dialogue around alternatives to the drug war on March 23 at a summit in Antigua, Guatemala. Though the summit failed to produce a joint statement, President Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala, the strongest voice in favor of a revised approach to the drug war, said the ...

PRESS RELEASE US citizens present petition signatures to US Embassy in San Salvador, demand an end to US promotion of militarization in Central America Contact:  Alexis Stoumbelis in Washington, DC (202) 521-2510 ext. 205 March 15, 2012 San Salvador, El Salvador A group of US citizens visiting El Salvador presented the following statement to the ...

President Mauricio Funes announced that the country will begin a second stage of projects financed by the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in November 2012. The MCC, a public-private development agency, was created by the US Congress in 2004 to provide grants to poor countries as incentives for political change. It ...

In a major cabinet shakeup, El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes has effectively removed all high-ranking members of his public security cabinet who are linked to the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Their replacements, including several high-ranking military officers, indicate a disturbing trend toward the militarization of El Salvador’s public ...

Click here to take action against the re-militarization of El Salvador! On Monday January 23, the Funes administration named retired general Francisco Ramón Salinas as the new director of El Salvador's National Civil Police (PNC), replacing former Director Carlos Ascencio and thus removing the last high-ranking member of the public security ...