NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs articles from June 2004

NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs archives from June 2004

CHANGING MISSIONS IN HAITI.
June 3, 2004... With the memory of the failed UN peacekeeping mission of the 1990s looming like the black clouds that have dumped flood and death on Haiti in past days, the UN flag was hoisted up a parade-ground flagpole and a new mission began with the...

CONGRESS, KERRY, COULD KILL CAFTA.
June 3, 2004... Five Central American countries signed the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with the US on May 28 in Washington, DC. As a practical matter, the event was without functional significance; the signatures will not put the provisions...

NICARAGUA'S PRESIDENT ENRIQUE BOLANOS SUPPORTS NEW PARTY AS ANTIDOTE TO HIS OWN.
June 10, 2004... The de facto two-party system that has kept Nicaragua stalemated for years is now under some threat from an emerging new party. True enough, parties have come and gone through the years, each with its promises, its high-profile players, and...

OAS SALUTES SALVADORAN ELECTIONS, ELECTS A COSTA RICAN.
June 10, 2004... Tony Saca of the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) assumed the presidency of El Salvador June 1, even as his adversary, Shafik Handel of the Faribundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN), boycotted the ceremony, refused to...

PANAMA WANTS FREE TRADE, BUT NOT CAFTA.
June 17, 2004... Students at the Universidad de Panama marked the second round of US-Panama free-trade talks by hurling Molotov cocktails at police. Student members of two campus groups, the Bloque Popular Universitario (BPU) and Pensamiento de Accion...

COSTA RICA AND NICARAGUA REMEMBER LA PENCA AND RONALD REAGAN.
June 17, 2004... Former US President Ronald Reagan died just days after the 20th anniversary of the bombing at La Penca, a place inside Nicaragua on the Costa Rica border. The bombing, an act of terrorism almost entirely forgotten in the US, is well-remembered...

REGIONAL RELUCTANCE IN IRAQ: LEGACY OF ARBENZ COUP?
June 24, 2004... The US may be paying today in Iraq for the government it overthrew a half-century ago in Guatemala. June 17 marked the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of the Jacobo Arbenz government, the first truly democratically elected government...

EL SALVADOR GOVERNMENT RECOGNIZES ANTI-GANG LAW AS A BAD MISTAKE, PLANS ALTERNATIVE.
June 24, 2004... El Salvador's anti-gang law is set to expire July 2, leaving authorities pondering what to do with a measure that got President Antonio Saca lots of votes in the March 21 elections, but which turned out to be a disaster as an approach to crime...