Being Better Neighbors towards Latin America

"With the Clinton Administration, Cuban artists were more able to come to the US.... There was a wonderful event in Cuba in the 1999 when a large number of musical artists from the US came to Cuba and met with Cuban artists. It produced songs, new working relationships, wonderful paths and bridges—projects that were all terminated with the Bush Administration. It was very telling that when I was denied a visa in 2004 to do a tour in United States, and many Cuban youth protested in Miami. How could it have been that they left Cuba looking for the land of the free and they weren’t even allowed to listen to their own musicians?”

As National Party leader Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo is inaugurated president of Honduras, we can’t just pretend the June 28th coup and its bitter aftermath never occurred.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights just released a devastating 147-page catalogue of the violations of human rights and civil liberties that have occurred since the coup in Honduras.

When the crisis in Haiti began, we were glad to know we could count on you to join in raising the resources to help those in immediate need. Going forward, we're going to need your voice to make sure that our government and the international community take the necessary steps to support Haiti as it begins the long road to recovery. Please start with this urgent action from our friend Hayley Hathaway at the Jubilee USA Network:

In the wake of Haiti's unimaginable tragedy, one obvious and simple step toward a just recovery is for the international community to cancel Haiti's $1 billion debt.

Please take an extra moment to click here and sign Jubilee USA's petition "Drop Haiti's Debt Now and No More Debt for Disaster."

Amanda Martin of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission/USA provides this important update on the arduous search for justice in the cases of disappeared Guatemalans.

On December 3, 2009, a former military official and three former commissioners were sentenced to 53 years in prison for the forced disappearance and illegal detention of six people in El Jute, Guatemala in 1981. This marks the first time in Guatemalan history that a high-ranking military official has been sentenced for forced disappearance. In the sentence, the tribunal also ordered an investigation of former defense minister Angel Anibal Guevara, former head of Defense Security (EMD) Benedicto Lucas Garcia, and other officials and soldiers assigned to the same military base as the guilty parties in 1981.