Before and during the pandemic in Central America:... and after?
2020 Noviembre Centroamérica
Throughout the world, the implications of and responses to the coronavirus pandemic have been shaped by the conditions that previously existed in each...

Central American-US migration in times of COVID-19
2020 Septiembre Centroamérica
The coronavirus pandemic has turned the planet up-side down and disrupted all our lives. The globalizing of social and economic dynamics screeched to...

Utopias in Central America (part 3): From disillusion to April in Nicaragua
2019 Noviembre Centroamérica
Throughout his life and work German philosopher Immanuel Kant attempted to answer three major questions: What can I learn? What must I do? And what...

A global recession + Trump’s anti- immigrant policies = an explosive combo in the region
2019 Octubre Centroamérica
In a recent study by the Inter-American Development Bank( IDB) and the INCAE Business school’s Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable...

How the “Dreamers” turned into a movement with power
2017 Diciembre Centroamérica
On September 5, Donald Trump canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In the blink of an eye, the word DACA, until then used...

The American Dream’s anteroom is Mexico’s nightmare, Solid and liquid border vigilance, part 1
2015 Abril Centroamérica
The surveillance operations of the policies designed to repel immigrants have both “solid” and “liquid” expressions, often more theatrical than effective,...

Mining is one of savage capitalism’s prime features
2013 Noviembre Centroamérica
We learned from our seminar on mining, held on September 17-19 in San Salvador, that the fight between populations willing to resist to keep our region...

The third horseman of neoliberalism: The Neo-Pentecostals (part 2)
2012 Junio Centroamérica
The Neo-Pentecostals, the most inexperienced of the four neoliberal horsemen galloping over Central America, have the greatest worldly success, contrary...

The second horseman of neoliberalism: Nongovernmental organizations
2011 Octubre Centroamérica
Two decades ago Argentine journalist Gino Lofredo wrote an explosive article titled “How to get rich in the 90s.” Its opening volley was: “You still...

The first horseman of neoliberalism: Drug traffickers
2011 Agosto Centroamérica
Political scientists identify three major political programs in Latin America: authoritarian, neoliberal and participatory. Authoritarian is the standard...

So Far the AA Is of No Use to Us
2009 Junio Nicaragua
The European Union (EU) started negotiations for an association agreement (AA) with the region’s countries in October 2007. To understand what has happened...

The Economic Power Groups’ Influence and Control Today
2007 Abril Centroamérica
It’s no secret that the Central American power groups have historically exercised significant influence on our societies and economies. What is new...

A Portrait of the Region’s Large Economic Groups
2007 Marzo Centroamérica
Central America’s economic groups are increasingly operating on a regional and international scale and the transnational corporations with activities...

The Concentration of Power: More Integration and Inequality
2007 Febrero Centroamérica
Over the last 30 years the Central American region’s economies and societies have experienced a dramatic change influenced by four factors: armed conflicts...

Inequality, Environmental Neglect And Apathetic Democracy
2006 Septiembre Centroamérica
One of the main objectives of Central America’s political systems is to consolidate the democratic processes begun in the late 1980s and early 1990s....

Why Do So Many Civilians Have Firearms?
2005 Diciembre Centroamérica
An argument over custody of their children may have driven a man so crazy that he shot his wife to death in Ciudad Delgado. H.E., a 26-year-old woman,...

R=T x V and R=T / C Formulas for Sisyphus
2005 Noviembre Centroamérica
...

Central America Cries
2005 Octubre Centroamérica
The rain didn’t stop for days. And even now we haven’t stopped crying. Just as we were closing this issue of envío, October brought us days of interminable...

“CAFTA Will Be Like a Brand-Name Hurricane Mitch”
2005 Septiembre Nicaragua
The Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States (now known as DR-CAFTA following the inclusion of the Dominican Republic) contained...

CAFTA: A Disempowering Fetish
2005 Abril Centroamérica
Both supporters and opponents of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the United States describe it as a watershed, a line that will...

“We’ve Handed CAFTA Our Greatest Advantages on a Silver Platter”
2004 Septiembre Centroamérica
Negotiating means first having a project, then making it as viable as possible through negotiation. In the Central American experience of negotiating...

What Was Signed Away in CAFTA Threatens Millions of Lives
2004 Agosto Centroamérica
When it comes to public health, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is effectively backtracking on previous advances. This can be illustrated...

New Grassroots Movements Starting to Emerge
2004 Agosto Centroamérica
Twenty-five years ago, Central America was a political hotbed, and not just because of the budding Sandinista revolution—the result of a long guerrilla...

What’s in Store for Us Following the Signing of CAFTA?
2004 Enero Centroamérica
Only four countries signed the free trade agreement (FTA) between Central America and the United States on December 17, 2003: Guatemala, El Salvador,...

ARENA’s 15-Year Legacy in the Transition
2003 Noviembre El Salvador
Contrary to the repeated official discourse that El Salvador is in wonderful shape, the conditions inherited by the successor to the third ARENA government...

What Lies Ahead for the Xicaques, Kunas, Garífunas and Mayas?
2002 Noviembre Centroamérica
Where are Central America’s indigenous movements heading? What future do they have and what is their capacity to influence their respective civil society...

The Puebla Panama Plan In a Nutshell
2002 Noviembre Centroamérica
The Puebla Panama Plan (PPP) is easy to explain. It is an enormous infrastructure project designed to favor big business in an area consisting of the...

Central America: The FTAA Guinea Pig?
2002 Junio Centroamérica
The United States did not choose El Salvador to host President Bush’s March 24 visit to Central America because it was a model of democracy or an economic...

Crime Is on the Rise in our Lands
2002 Mayo América Latina
The crime rates in Central and South America have skyrocketed in the last two decades. According to The Economist, all of the region’s cities...

The World Coffee Crisis: Is Vietnam to Blame?
2002 Mayo Centroamérica
On May 24, 2001, 14 young Mexican immigrants died in the Arizona desert while attempting to enter the United States to find work. Of those, 6 were bankrupted...

New Ideas on Revolution and Socialism for Central America
2001 Noviembre Centroamérica
Well before the enthusiasm that the Sandinista Revolution sparked among the world’s Left had waned, Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez Mercado wrote an...

Dual Societies: A Ticking Bomb
2001 Octubre Centroamérica
In recent visits to Nicaragua and El Salvador, I have come to understand more keenly than ever that the problem of many Latin American countries is that...

Democracy in the Region? A Decade of Paradoxes
2000 Julio Centroamérica
With the eyes of the world still focused on the region, the nineties kicked off with good news in Central America: the peace process seemed to be on...

How Dollar Remittances Are Changing a Village
2000 Mayo Centroamérica
US Embassy Uses Carrot On Corruption…After very specific criticisms of the government’s laxity in dealing with corruption, US Ambassador Oliver...

On the Anniversary of Mitch: The Region’s Revealing Disaster
1999 Noviembre Centroamérica
During this October and November, I traveled through several of the regions of Central America that had been battered last year by Hurricane Mitch. A...

Waiting for Luis
1999 Noviembre Centroamérica
LookingThursday, 19 November 1998. We are sitting along the northern bank of the swollen Río Coco with fifty other people, watching for the...

Mitch, Foreign Debt, Disasters, Emigrants And Remittances in Central America
1999 Marzo Centroamérica
The design of Central America's reconstruction is almost a foregone conclusion. So what kind of reconstruction is being proposed? “The Strategy for the...

What Should Change in Central America?
1999 Enero Centroamérica
Honorable Presidents: Hurricane Mitch has battered your countries, leaving in its wake a scene of desolation and misery. We have seen the spirit of collaboration...

The Central American Integration: Open Agenda and Pending Dilemma
1998 Abril Centroamérica
The 1990s resemble the 1950s in terms of the profusion of trade and integration accords worldwide. The delays and difficulties faced by the Uruguay...

Contadora and Esquipulas Ten Years later
1997 Noviembre Centroamérica
When Central America's former Presidents who had signed the August 7, 1987, Esquipulas II peace accord met in August of this year to commemorate the...

We Are Trying to Listen
1997 Septiembre Centroamérica
The inter-organizational memorandum published under the title "Desarrollo: La Gran Mentira" in your Spanish publication and "NGOs - Who's Making the...

Armed Forces As Peacemaker?
1996 Septiembre Centroamérica
Some years ago, Central America's armed forces, located at the epicenter of unquestionable power, were major protagonists of wars triggered by arrogance,...

The New Society We Yearn For
1996 Agosto Centroamérica
The Berlin wall has fallen, the soviet union has split and we are witnessing the defeat of socialist based utopias that had begun to be built in 1917....

Authoritarian Roots and Democratic Shoots
1996 Junio Centroamérica
In 1929, after his first visit to Costa Rica, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre tried to describe and explain what he termed "an acute and restless curiosity"...

Central America in 20 Years: A Somalia-Taiwan Duality?
1996 Febrero Centroamérica
Central America has been wrenched by tremendous change in the last two decades. By holding out the hope for social change, the region was more than...

Families: Violence and Survival
1995 Septiembre Centroamérica
Families make up "economic units": when they form, have children and work to support themselves, family members enter into a relation of reproduction,...

New, Wider Households in Women's Hands
1995 Agosto Centroamérica
Despite all the changes Central American families have lived through in recent years, the region is slow to change the fertility patterns among the poorest...

Central America's Family and Women: What Does Reality Say?
1995 Julio Centroamérica
Increases in poverty, along with both social and political instability, define the current Central America scene. Seventy five percent of Nicaraguan,...

Central America's Challenge: Produce And Participate
1995 Febrero Centroamérica
Asymmetric globalization, the new world economic system that is capping the long exploitation of the South, imprinted itself on many facets of Central...

Central America's Alternative: Integration from Below
1994 Febrero Centroamérica
The whole world speaks of "globalization" to characterize the process that has been underway in this final decade of the 20th century and in the wake...

The Hour of Civil Society
1993 Agosto Centroamérica
The 12 days between former President Serrano's self directed coup and the election of President Ramiro de León Carpio will go down in Guatemalan history...

Neoliberalism in Central America: More Than an Economic Plan
1992 Abril Centroamérica
World Bank-imposed structural adjustment programs have now become so prevalent in Latin America that the Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA)...

Central America’s Left, Right and “Center”
1992 Marzo Centroamérica
The dizzying changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union have politically ushered in the 21st century a decade early. Some...

Solidarismo: Anti-Unionism in Sheep's Clothing
1991 Junio Centroamérica
"Solidarismo seeks to co-opt, neutralize and dominate the working class, but in a persuasive and consensual manner, not through open coercion. And...

Demilitarization: The Other Face of Democratization
1991 Abril Centroamérica
Perhaps the most hopeful and promising long-term factor in Central America is the rapid development of the regional aspiration to democracy, in the concrete...

Guatemala: The Civilian Facade Collapses
1991 Abril Centroamérica
Guatemala witnessed three dynamic processes and one non-starter during 1990. The first dynamic process was the fight between the government and the...

The Nation-State Crisis: Ungovernability
1991 Abril Centroamérica
The neoliberal model's main weakness in this region is that it is only a patch sewn over the causes of the crisis. Our central thesis in this analysis...

Central America’s Grassroots Movement: A Partial Alternative
1991 Abril Centroamérica
While there have been encouraging advances in demilitarization and political negotiations between the new governments and revolutionary vanguards in...

Introduction and Dedication
1991 Abril Centroamérica
As in past years, this special issue of envío is a collective product of the Jesuit Center for Research and Social Action in Central America and...

The United States: Redefining Central America and the World
1991 Abril Centroamérica
The United States in 1991 is facing what Secretary of State James Baker has called the "defining moment." What is up for definition is whether the Bush...

Panama: Eternally Condemned
1991 Abril Centroamérica
"Condemned to live under the Pentagon's umbrella," was General Omar Torrijos' comment as he signed the Canal Treaties at the OAS in Washington in 1977....

Nicaragua: Political Maturity and Economic Immaturity
1991 Abril Centroamérica
Nicaragua is the only Central American country in which demilitarization and the democratization of society have advanced very far. In 1990, both grassroots...

El Salvador: UN Mediation and Civil Negotiations
1991 Abril Centroamérica
Though El Salvador in 1990 offered an example of realistic and reasonable negotiation of an armed conflict, not everything in the negotiating process...

The Neoliberal Model in Central America: Gospel of the New Right
1991 Abril Centroamérica
The word "development" has disappeared from Latin America's economic vocabulary, replaced with terms like "structural adjustment," economic "reactivation"...

The Popular Alternative: The Agenda and Challenge for the 90s
1991 Abril Centroamérica
In our countries, the fundamental economic subject for a popular alternative is an organized combination of peasants, artisans and small service sectors...

Honduras: A Grassroots Party Emerging from Grassroots Organization
1991 Abril Centroamérica
Honduras always stands out as the most backward country of Central America, perhaps with the exception of Panama. The new neoliberal economic plan has...

Forcing Negotiation
1990 Mayo El Salvador
Only a year ago the Duarte government, the army and the United States refused an FMLN proposal to postpone elections for six months to create more democratic...

The Monroe Doctrine and the End of Torrijismo
1990 Mayo Panamá
Your majesty, in your vision you saw standing before you a giant statue, bright and shining, and terrifying to look at. Its head was made of the...

Neoliberalism Unopposed
1990 Mayo Honduras
After a year laced with costly and festive electoral campaigning, Hondurans elected Rafael Leonardo Callejas as their new President in November. Callejas,...

Whither Central America? Coopted Negotiation or Participatory Democracy?
1990 Mayo Centroamérica
Central America is in suspended animation after the avalanche of events in recent months. They rolled down on us one after the other: in El Salvador,...

Final Reflections
1990 Mayo Centroamérica
Within the next few months the direction El Salvador and Nicaragua take out of their current crossroads will be known; it will define their dynamic for...

Challenges to the Military Model
1990 Mayo Guatemala
Three visions of the development of society are competing in Guatemala, as we examined in envío’s 1989 Central America issue: the “state stability”...

Low Intensity War and Revolutionary Maneuvering
1990 Mayo Nicaragua
The US “low-intensity war” and its disastrous economic results dominate as the root cause in interpretations of the Sandinista's electoral defeat in...

Showcase for Democracy and Economic Reformism?
1990 Mayo Costa Rica
Despite other, more earth-shaking events in the world in 1989, Costa Ricans' attention was on the country's election campaign during most of the year....

Tela Agreement (Unofficial Translation)
1989 Septiembre Nicaragua
The Central American Presidents, meeting in the port city of Tela in the Republic of Honduras on August 5, 6 and 7, 1989, Taking into consideration...

Agreements and Accords: Nicaragua and Honduras
1989 Septiembre Nicaragua
Bilateral Accord Between Nicaragua and Honduras Unofficial Translation The President of the Republic of Honduras, José Azcona Hoyo and the...

Political Agreement (Unofficial Translation)
1989 Septiembre Nicaragua
On August 3 and 4, 1989, the President of the Republic of Nicaragua, Commander of the Revolution Daniel Ortega Saavedra, and representatives of legally...

An End to the Cold War?
1989 Mayo Estados Unidos
The Reagan Administration's attempt to depict the Soviet Union and its allies as "the evil empire" lost credibility as Mikhail Gorbachev pursued new...

Time to Negotiate
1989 Mayo El Salvador
Although the civil war continued to be the single most determining factor of life in El Salvador, the electoral process (only indirectly related to the...

Negotiations Held Hostage
1989 Mayo Guatemala
Three models in vontentionThree development models are contending for leadership of Guatemala's sociopolitical and economic process. 1....

Conclusion Negotiations: A Revolutionary Tool
1989 Mayo Centroamérica
Why was 1988 a year of movement towards a negotiated end to the Central American conflicts? There are five key factors: 1) The growing Central American...

In the Negotiating Mode
1989 Mayo Centroamérica
As Soviet peace initiatives lead the way out of the cold war era, a series of regional conflicts are coming to a negotiated end. It is difficult to...

From a Mixed-up Economy Toward a Socialist Mixed Economy
1989 Mayo Nicaragua
Where is Nicaragua headed? The government's call early this year for concertation—forging a working national unity—in the economic arena has sparked...

Just the Facts – on Central America
1989 Mayo Centroamérica
##1989-8-94-05-03-1-en## ##1989-8-94-05-03-2-en##...

Joint Declaration of the Central American Presidents
1989 Marzo Centroamérica
The Presidents of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, meeting in the province of La Paz in the Republic of El Salvador on February...

Between Dignity and Submission
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
Three factors shaped Costa Rica's year in 1987: the Esquipulas peace process and the related awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Oscar Arias;...

Dependence and the Military
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
To no one's surprise, the focal point of Honduras in 1987 again had a more geopolitical than national character; the position of the Honduran government...

Steps on the Road to Peace
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
The unequal confrontation between the Sandinista revolution and the Reagan Administration has had two distinct periods. From 1981 to 1984, the US government...

Military Solution in Crisis
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
Events in El Salvador in 1987 are divided into two phases by the Central American peace accords of Esquipulas II. The first was marked by the continued...

Conclusions: Whither Central America
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
Based on the previous country analyses, it is clear that Esquipulas II, while exerting an influence on all the Central American countries, has done so...

Modernization and Militarism
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
The centerpiece of the Guatemalan situation two years ago was the new civilian government's attempt to rebuild the state, in which the social forces...

Introduction
1988 Marzo Centroamérica
In 1987, an event of such importance took place in Central America that, for the first time since 1979, we can speak of a fundamental change in the regional...

Conclusions of the CIVS Report on Compliance
1988 Febrero Centroamérica
Documents (unofficial translations) (Conclusions) 1. The International Commission on Verification and Follow-up of the Guatemala Procedure has noted...

Joint Declaration By The Presidents Of Central America
1988 Febrero Centroamérica
The Presidents have received the conclusions of the report by the International Verification and Follow-up Commission, prepared according to Number 11...

Central American Peace Accord
1987 Agosto Centroamérica
As read by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Costa Rica, Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez. The Presidents of the Republics of Guatemala, El Salvador,...

The Military Factor
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
The military conflict has shown itself more and more to be a direct clash between the new historic subject and the United States. The push from armed...

Conclusion
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
Tendencies: 1) US intransigence will increase and the war will be prolonged. The defeats dealt to the contras by the Sandinista Popular...

The Economic Factor
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
Central America is going through an economic crisis of unprecedented dimensions. The real per-capita income has fallen to 1972 levels for Guatemala...

The Cultural-Ideological Factor
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
The Central American crisis comes at a moment in which there’s an effort to redefine the world from the perspective of US domination. The New Right...

The Political Factor
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
Central America today is characterized by the tension between the social forces that are willing to subordinate themselves to US policy, which defines...

SPECIAL ISSUE ON CENTRAL AMERICA – Preface
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
In terms of social theory, we have called the crucial concept used in this work the “new Central American historic subject.” We interpret this new collective...

The International Factor: Coexistence or prolonged conflict?
1986 Febrero Centroamérica
The Sandinistas’ “Patria Libre o Morir” is none other than the famous cry, “Give me liberty or give me death,” from Patrick Henry’s March 23, 1775, speech...

Another Facet of the War: Refugees and Displaced Persons in Central America
1984 Marzo Centroamérica
Where have they gone? How do they live? What is the significance of these waves of human beings surging across the borders of Central America that...

U.S. Military Exercises Threaten Central American Peace
1983 Agosto Nicaragua
The fourth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution was celebrated amid great joy and extreme tenseness. While the slogan for the day was “To the people…...

Continuing Tensions Between Nicaragua And The United States
1981 Diciembre Nicaragua
INTRODUCTIONDuring November, 1981, the threats by the government of the United States toward Nicaragua and Cuba were stepped up dramatically....

Letter to the Pope for Peace in Central America
1981 Diciembre Centroamérica
Dear Holy Father, We, the clergy and religious men and women of the Nicaraguan Church, encouraged by your universal petition for peace, wish to express...

National State of Emergency
1981 Octubre Centroamérica
Causes of the Action (taken from the official communiqué of 9/9/81) 1)Crisis in the Third World “The countries of the Third World...