friendsoflatinamerica

POSADA: A NIGHT TO CROSS ALL BORDERS

October 21, 2009 7:00 – 9:00 PM
St. John the Evangelist
Interfaith Center
Wilde Lake
10431 Twin Rivers Rd.
Columbia , MD 21044

Come to a presentation and discussion of this film, with Director and Producer Fr. Mark McGregor, S.J. of Gonzaga University in Spokane , WA . and Dr. Arturo Chavez, President of the Mexican American Catholic College, and appointed member of the White House Commission on Faith Based and Community Partnerships. 

POSADA will give us an insight of why there is need for IMMIGRATION REFORM.

For more information visit http://www.archbalt.org/ministries-offices/hispanic-ministry/
Or call 410-547-5423

To download a printable flyer click here: Download POSADA-Presentation

U.S. blasts ousted Honduran for "foolish" return

Mon Sep 28, 2009

 http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE58R4FN20090928 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States blasted ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya for his "irresponsible and foolish" return from exile before a settlement was reached in the Central American country's political crisis.

At an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States to discuss the Honduran face-off, Lewis Anselem,the U.S. ambassador to the OAS, also criticized Honduras' de facto government for its "deplorable" action in barring entry of an OAS mission and declaring a state of siege on Sunday.

,p>Anselem also criticized Zelaya for fueling violence by slipping back into Honduras last week and holing up in the Brazilian Embassy, from where he has called on his supporters to take to the streets.

"The return of Zelaya absent an agreement is irresponsible and foolish ... He should cease and desist from making wild allegations and from acting as though he were starring in an old movie," Anselm said.

Anselem urged the de facto government to handle security with "restraint and caution" and called on Zelaya to "exercise leadership" and urge his supporters to express their views peacefully.

He said the United States had urged Zelaya on several occasions not to return to Honduras before a political settlement was achieved because of the potential for unrest.

"Having chosen, with outside help, to return on his own terms, President Zelaya and those who have facilitated his return, bear particular responsibility for the actions of his supporters," the U.S. official said.

Anselem said the U.S. government will continue to urge both sides to quickly reach agreement under the San Jose accord proposed by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, which calls for Zelaya to return to office to finish his term ending in January.

While President Barack Obama has condemned the coup that toppled Zelaya and has cut off some aid to Honduras, conservatives criticize him for helping an ally of Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.

Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup on June 28. The de facto civilian government has resisted international pressure to allow the leftist president's reinstatement and on Sunday gave Brazil a 10-day ultimatum to decided what too with Zelaya, threatening to close the embassy.

(Reporting by Deborah Charles; Writing by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Bill Trott)

End the travel ban to Cuba.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 25, 2009
***Media Advisory***

ADVOCATES FROM MARYLAND WILL TRAVEL TO U.S. CAPITOL FOR “CubaGO!”

SEPTEMBER 30 IS A NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR THE CAMPAIGN TO END THE BAN ON TRAVEL TO CUBA FOR ALL AMERICANS

U.S. DELEGATIONS TO EDUCATE CONGRESS ON CUBA;
 OTHERS WILL CALL CONGRESS
TO SUPPORT THE FREEDOM TO TRAVEL TO CUBA

Baltimore, Maryland – Activist Leslie Salgado will lead a distinguished delegation of  Maryland policy experts and advocates to the U.S. Capitol on September 30, 2009 as other activists engage in a “Call the Congress” effort – all as part of a coordinated, national day of action for the campaign to end the Cuba travel ban.

Three Washington-based non-governmental organizations, the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and the Center for Democracy in the Americas (CDA), are organizing this grassroots effort so Americans can persuade Congress to End the Travel Ban on Cuba for all Americans.  

As citizen activists organize and join events in their local communities to call on Congress to end the travel ban, eleven delegations of 50 community leaders will speak with legislators in Washington, DC.  Comprised of academics, Cuban Americans, business people, and religious leaders, the delegations will meet with House and Senate Members to voice their support for ending the ban on legal travel to Cuba for all Americans.

The delegation will also include:

o    Rabbi David Schneyer, Am Kolel
o    Wayne Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy
o    Ray Donaldson, Howard County Friends of Latin America

For more information about Cuba Go! Activities, visit our website: www.cubago.info

CONTACTS: 

For Information about the Maryland delegation’s plans to educate Congress about the Freedom to Travel to Cuba, please call (NAME) at: (area)-code-number.

For information about other delegations, state-based call the Congress campaigns, and legislation to end the travel ban to Cuba, please contact the following organizations:

LAWG - Mavis Anderson, manderson@lawg.org, 202-546-7010
WOLA - Geoff Thale, gthale@wola.org, 202-797-2171
CDA - Sarah Stephens, sstephens@democracyinamericas.org, 202-234-5506 

Dear friends,

 I wanted to thank you for your work and support to make the 20th Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba a success. 

We had about 60 folks attend our delicious rice and beans dinner prepared by our own members! We raised close to $1,000 (including the $200 pledged from our Treasury). Nancy, thanks for the rice; Marina for the salad, Michael for the drinks, Francine for the desserts, Ray for getting the utensils and for agreeing to MC the program, Millie for the CD's of Cuban music. Thanks also to Bette Hoover for opening her home for a bunch of the Caravanistas. We sent them off late this morning, after feeding them some healthy and not so healthy food. It was great to be a part of this travel challenge.

 Let Cuba Live!!

 Leslie

Thanks for joining us to welcome the “caravanistas” on their way to Cuba.They will challenge the U.S. blockade by bringing humanitarian aid, solidarity, and friendship to our friends in Cuba .

The event was Co-sponsored by:Howard County Friends of Latin America (HoCoFoLA), the Baltimore-Matanzas Sister City Association and the Maryland-Cuba Sister City and The Maryland-Cuba Friendship Coalition.

It's Not about Zelaya

David L. Wilson
MRzine 7/4/2009
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wilson040709.html

Manuel "Mel" Zelaya is a rancher and business owner who wears large cowboy hats and, in November 2005, was elected president of Honduras, an impoverished Central American country with a population of 7.5 million.  On June 28 of this year the Honduran military, backed by the country's elite, removed Zelaya from power.  He instantly became a focus of attention for the U.S. media -- his statements were examined, and his appearances at the United Nations and regional meetings were dutifully covered.  Most media depicted him as a major "leftist strongman" seeking to extend his term of
office in the style of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.

U.S. journalists generally present world events as the actions of a few important individuals, a sort of Greek drama without the chorus.  Latin American politics especially are viewed as a parade of good guys and bad guys -- Fidel Castro, August Pinochet, Hugo Chavez, Alvaro Uribe.  Which is good and which is bad depends on your perspective.

The current Honduras coverage is no exception.  Most working people in this country, pressed by the worst economic crisis of their lifetime, understandably change the channel or click on another website.  If you want celebrity news, the death of Michael Jackson is far more gripping than the overthrow of Mel Zelaya.

"No Revolutionary"

But was this coup really about a leftist strongman?

"What Zelaya has done has just been little reforms," Rafael Alegria, the leader of the local branch of the international group Via Campesina ("Campesino Way"), explained to the Mexican daily La Jornada on June 29. "He isn't a socialist or a revolutionary, but these reforms, which didn't harm the oligarchy at all, have been enough for them to attack him furiously."

The local elite and the U.S. media insist that the nonbinding referendum Zelaya wanted to hold on June 28 was a power grab.  In reality Hondurans would simply have been asked whether they wanted to vote in the November general elections on a constituent assembly to rewrite the 1982 Constitution.  If this actually came about, the new Constitution might well allow presidential reelection, but it's not easy to see how any constituent assembly could finish its work in time to keep Zelaya in office after his term expires on January 27, 2010.

A more likely motive for the coup lies in the Honduran oligarchy's fear of what would happen if the people got a chance to write their own Constitution.

Not many people in the United States are aware that over the past few decades Hondurans have created, under very adverse circumstances, a vibrant grassroots movement: campesino organizations like Via Campesina; three labor confederations, often competing, sometimes cooperating; a strong indigenous movement; Afro-Honduran groups like the Honduran Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH);human rights monitoring groups like the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared
Detainees in Honduras (COFADEH); environmental groups; community radio stations; an anti-militarization movement; women's groups; student groups; and a nascent LGBT movement.

Early this year, Honduran teachers went on strike for back pay and held a sit-in at the education ministry. In February the Civic Council of Grassroots and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) organized a 12-day mobilization to protest the destruction of forests.  In April hundreds of indigenous Chorti blocked access to the Copan archeological park, probably Honduras' most important ancient Mayan site, to press demands for land.

None of these were one-time protests -- they continued long-term struggles, some going back for years.  And these same groups, which frequently support each other and coordinate their actions, are the ones that have confronted the coup and the subsequent repression with massive and spirited protests throughout the country.

The Chorus Takes the Stage

The growth of social movements in Honduras reflects a pattern.  Everywhere you look in the hemisphere, the protagonists of the drama are increasingly "the people from below" -- los de abajo, as Mariano Azuela called the subjects of his novel of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

In the first months of 2009, general strikes by virtually the whole population of the "French overseas
departments" of Guadeloupe and Martinique forced President Nicolas Sarkozy to agree to an increase in the minimum wage -- and inspired workers' struggles in European France.  Starting in April, militant protests by indigenous Peruvians in the Amazon region, backed by urban unionists, shook the pro-U.S. government of President Alan Garcia.  In June students battled United Nations troops in Haiti, the only country in the Americas more impoverished than Honduras, in support of workers' demands for a higher minimum wage.

These struggles get little media attention here, but they have a direct bearing on los de abajo of our own country.  Working people in the United States understand the effects of outsourcing industrial work to other countries, and they know about the pressure undocumented workers put on the wages of the native born.  What they don't know is how these phenomena are linked to U.S. foreign policy.

Some 100,000 Hondurans now work in their country's maquiladora sector, which assembles apparel and
automotive parts largely for the U.S. market.  About 300,000 Hondurans live and work in the United States itself, according to the 2000 census.  Hondurans don't actually want to do backbreaking labor for minuscule pay in maquilas in San Pedro Sula, much less risk their lives crossing the border to work in the sweatshops of Los Angeles and New York.  It is repression by the U.S.-backed military and oligarchy and the hardships resulting from US-promoted economic policies and U.S.-dominated trade deals like the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)  that have forced Hondurans into these jobs.

It doesn't do U.S. workers any good to rail against foreign countries and "illegal" immigrants.  If people
here are serious about defending their standard of living, they have no choice but to oppose their
government's foreign policies and to support their counterparts in countries like Honduras.  Unions like
United Electrical Workers (UE) and organizations like the National Labor Committee, US LEAP, Students Against Sweatshops, and the Maquila Solidarity Network are already active in this work.  We need to back them -- and maybe learn some lessons from Latin America about how to fight for our rights. David L. Wilson is co-editor of Weekly News Update on the Americas and co-author, with Jane Guskin, of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers (Monthly Review, 2007).